OSTROWIEC
Pre-1939: Ostrowiec, village, Wilno województwo, Poland; 1939–1941: Ostrovets, raion center, Vileika oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Ostrowiec, initially Rayon center, Gebiet Wilejka, Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien, then from April 1, 1942, Kreis Swir, Gebiet Wilna-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Astravets, raen center, Hrodna voblasts’, Republic of Belarus
Ostrowiec is located about 48 kilometers (30 miles) east of Wilno. In 1921, there were 30 Jewish families living there.
German forces captured the town in late June 1941. Immediately afterwards various anti-Jewish measures were promulgated, including the confiscation of property, the requirement to wear the Star of David on their clothing, and the introduction of forced labor. The Germans maintained Ostrowiec as a Rayon center, as it was located close to the railway line. Jews from neighboring villages were brought to the village by rail and murdered in the nearby forest.
In the fall of 1941, the German authorities ordered the establishment of a ghetto in Ostrowiec. Both local Jews and refugees were forced to move into the designated ghetto area, [End Page 1097] where they lived under extremely crowded conditions. At the end of 1941, the Germans murdered most of the Jews in the ghetto. Only a few needed workers and their families were left in a remnant ghetto.
The ghetto area was then reduced in size, surrounded by barbed wire, and turned into a labor camp. Jews removed from other nearby ghettos were also brought to Ostrowiec—from Worniany, Kiemieliszki, and other places. The prisoners in the camp were put to hard labor, such as removing heavy tree stumps or repairing railroad tracks. They were seriously undernourished and frequently beaten by the Germans and local overseers.
On April 1, 1942, the region including Ostrowiec was transferred from Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien to Generalkommissariat Litauen and became part of Gebiet Wilna-Land. At this time, Lithuanians came in and took over the local administration and police. Among the restrictions enforced against the Jews living in the ghettos of this region was a prohibition on any personal or economic contacts with non-Jews.1 At the end of May 1942, there were 102 Jews in the Ostrowiec ghetto.2
According to Pinkas ha-kehilot, in 1943, the surviving Jews learned that the Nazis intended to liquidate the camp. A sympathetic German officer secretly confirmed the report and advised them to hide with local farmers. Some Jews escaped into the forest, and a few of them survived until the Red Army drove the Germans from the region. On April 7, 1943, the remaining prisoners were taken to Szumsk, a neighboring village, where they were shot.
According to Herman Kruk, however, some Jews from Ostrowiec may have been taken to Wilno at the end of March, together with the Jews from other ghettos, including Michaliszki (it is likely some Jews were transferred to Michaliszki in the fall of 1942). Then in early April, many of these Jews were put on a train to Ponary, where they were shot. The train reportedly contained Jews from the ghettos of Gudogaj, Michaliszki, and other places as well as Ostrowiec.3
SOURCES
Information on the ghetto in Ostrowiec can be found in these publications: Shmuel Spector and Bracha Freundlich, eds., Pinkas ha-kehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Poland, vol. 8, Vilna, Bialystok, Nowogrodek (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2005), pp. 99–100; Arūnas Bubnys, “The Fate of the Jews in the Švenšionys, Oshmyany and Svir Regions (1941–1943),” in Irena Guzenberg et al., eds., The Ghettos of Oshmyany, Svir, Švenčionys Regions: Lists of Prisoners, 1942 (Vilnius: Valstybinis Vilniaus Gaono žydu muziejus, 2009), pp. 83–118, here p. 115; Guy Miron, ed., The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010), p. 559.
Relevant documentation can be found in these archives: LCVA; NARB; USHMM; and YVA.
NOTES
1. 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.
2. Bubnys, “The Fate of the Jews,” p. 115.
3. Herman Kruk, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939–1944 (New Haven, CT: YIVO, 2002), p. 534.
