KIEMIELISZKI
Pre-1939: Kiemieliszki (Yiddish: Kimelishok), village, Wilno województwo, Poland; 1939–1941: Kemelishki, Ostrovets raion, Vileika oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Kiemieliszki, initially Rayon Swir, Gebiet Wilejka, Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien, then from April 1, 1942, Kreis Swir, Gebiet Wilna-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Kamelishki, Astravets raen, Hrodna voblasts’, Republic of Belarus [End Page 1072]
Kiemieliszki is located about 48 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Wilno. On the eve of World War II, there were 27 Jewish families residing in the village.
German forces occupied the village at the end of June 1941. In the summer of 1941, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) administered Kiemieliszki. In September 1941, authority was transferred to a German civil administration. Kiemieliszki was initially incorporated into Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien.
In the summer and fall of 1941, a series of anti-Jewish measures were introduced in Kiemieliszki. Jews marked their clothing with the Star of David, were forced into heavy labor, and were prohibited from leaving the village. The Jewish population was also subjected to systematic robbery and assault by the local auxiliary police, which initially consisted mainly of local inhabitants of Belorussian and Polish ethnicity.
In October 1941, a ghetto was established in Kiemieliszki. It was organized by the head of the local police, Ivan Lazugo, and the head of the local administration, Boleslav Legovec. It consisted of several houses, which were enclosed by a fence and guarded by the local police. Jews left the ghetto daily to perform forced labor.1
The number of Jews in the ghetto increased steadily in the fall and winter of 1941–1942, as survivors of the massacres in nearby places, including Niemenczyn and Podbrodzie, made their way there, as it was one of the few ghettos remaining in the area. Despite the strict rules against accepting newcomers, the Jewish Council (Judenrat), headed by Brumberg, did its best to accommodate the arrivals and provide them with shelter and work.2 In early 1942, a number of Jewish youths were rounded up and taken away for forced labor.
On April 1, 1942, the region including Kiemieliszki was transferred from Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien to Generalkommissariat Litauen and now became part of Gebiet Wilna-Land. At this time, Lithuanians came in and took over the local administration and police.3 Among the restrictions imposed officially on the Jews living in the ghettos in this region were a curfew from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. and a prohibition on any personal or economic contacts with non-Jews.4
The Germans liquidated the ghetto on October 24, 1942, when a Security Police detachment from Wilno, with the assistance of local police, shot more than 350 Jews in the forest about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) outside the village, including a number of Jews brought in from other places at this time.5 On October 27, 1942, the head of the Judenrat in Wilno, Jacob Gens, reported that the Germans had liquidated the ghettos in Bystrzyca and Kiemieliszki during the previous week. He regretted that no Jewish Police from the Wilno ghetto had been present, as “all the Jews were shot there without any distinction.”6 According to one report, however, some of the Jews may have been transferred to the ghetto in Michaliszki.7 After the ghetto’s liquidation, former Jewish houses were sold to local inhabitants for building material.
A few Jews from Kiemieliszki managed to flee the ghetto and survived in hiding with non-Jews in the region. Among them were Bronia Wluka, who escaped from the ghetto and lived on the Aryan side, and Hadassah Rozen, who narrowly escaped being shot when a non-J ew, who knew her from the Kiemieliszki ghetto, denounced her.8
SOURCES
Information about the persecution and destruction of the Jews in Kiemieliszki can be found in these publications: Szmerke Kaczerginski, Hurbn Vilne: Umkum fun di Yidn in Vilne un Vilner gegnt … : Zamlung fun eydus: Bavayzn oder dokumentn (New York: Aroysgegebn fun dem fareyniktn Vilner hilfs-komitet in Nyu-York durkh Tsiko bikher-farlag, 1947), pp. 164–166; Irena Guzenberg et al., eds., The Ghettos of Oshmyany, Svir, Švenčionys Regions: Lists of Prisoners, 1942 (Vilnius: Valstybinis Vilniaus Gaono žydu muziejus, 2009), pp. 115–116; Guy Miron, ed., The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010), pp. 312–313; “Kiemieliszki,” in Shmuel Spector and Bracha Freundlich, eds., Pinkas hakehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Poland, vol. 8, Vilna, Bialystok, Nowogrodek (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2005), pp. 552–554; Shimon Kanc, ed., Sefer zikaron le-esrim veshalosh kehilot she-nehrevu be-ezor Svintsian (Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Svintzian in Israel and the U.S., 1965), pp. 1389–1390; and Vladimir Adamushko et al., eds., Handbuch der Haftstätten für die Zivilbevölkerung auf dem besetzten Territorium von Belarus 1941–1944 (Minsk: Gosudarstvennyi komitet po arkhivam i deloproizdvodstvu Respubliki Belarus’, 2001), p. 119.
Relevant documentation can be found in the following archives: MA (D.1357); NARB (845-1-63, pp. 39, 44); USHMM (RG-50.473*0082); VHF (# 8796); YIVO (RG-104 I, no. 611); and YVA.
NOTES
1. Guzenberg et al., The Ghettos of Oshmyany, Svir, pp. 115–116.
2. Kanc, Sefer zikaron … Svintsian, pp. 1389–1390.
3. USHMM, RG-50.473*0082, testimony of Antoni Witold Rakowski.
4. Anordnung Betr.: Ghettoisierung der Juden, issued by Gebietskommissar Wilna-Land, May 13, 1942, reproduced in Guzenberg et al., The Ghettos of Oshmyany, Svir, p. 130.
5. NARB, 845-1-63, pp. 39, 44.
6. See Jacob Gens’s words at the meeting of the Judenrat in Vilnius on October 27, 1942, MA, D.1357, published in I. Arad, ed., Unichtozhenie evreev SSSR v gody nemetskoi okkupatsii (1941–1944): Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1991), p. 254.
7. YIVO, RG-104 I, no. 611, report of Shmuel Kalmanovich, as cited by Christoph Dieckmann, “Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen 1941–1944” (Ph.D. diss., Universität Freiburg, 2002), section F.1.8.1.
8. VHF, # 8796, testimony of Bronia Wluka; Kaczerginski, Hurbn Vilne, pp. 164–166.
