Rising tensions between the native Ukrainian peasantry and Mennonite landowners had culminated with attacks on the latter, as insurgents took control of southern Ukraine and began carrying out reprisals against those that had collaborated with the Central Powers and the White movement.
In October 1919, Eichenfeld, a village of the Jasykowo sub-colony that had previously played host to a notable Selbstschutz detachment, was targeted for reprisals by the insurgents and local collaborators.
[4] Anti-German sentiment also grew following the outbreak of World War I and continued after the establishment of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution.
[5] Following the invasion of Ukraine by the Central Powers, many Mennonite colonists expressed support for the occupation forces, as it put an end to the expropriations by the revolutionary socialists.
[14] By December 1918, anti-Mennonite raids hit Jasykowo, where the local Selbstschutz resisted attacks by units of the Ukrainian People's Army under Trifon Gladchenko [uk] and the subsequent Soviet invasion of Ukraine.
[18] Before leaving Oleksandrivsk for the insurgent headquarters at Katerynoslav, on 5 November, Makhno issued a citizens' address in The Road to Freedom which called for the death of the "bourgeoisie".
On the same day as the address was published, one Mennonite called Dietrich Neufeld wrote in his diary of the increasingly dangerous environment in the colonies:[20] We feel as if we have been condemned to death and are now simply waiting for the executioner to come.
[28] The exact number of rapes that occurred during the massacre are not known, in part due to the stigma associated with sexual assault and the trauma involved in recounting the experience.
[31] Some survivors indicated a belief that the prior actions of the Eichenfeld Selbstschutz had motivated the perpetrators of the massacre, who desired to carry out retribution for attacks against one of their bands.
[33] Further massacres were documented at Blumenort,[34] in Sagradowka, where insurgents indiscriminately killed over 200 Mennonite men, women and children,[35] and Borosenko, where no Selbstschutz unit had ever been present.
[36] The massacres were finally brought to an end in 1920, after the defeat of the insurgents and subsequent conquest of Ukraine by the Red Army,[37] but hundreds more Mennonites would starve to death during the famine of 1921–1922 that followed.