The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

Pre-1941: Murovannye Kurilovtsy, town (PGT) and raion center, Vinnitsa oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Murowanny Kurilowzy, Rayon center, Gebiet Bar, Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien; post-1991: Murovani Kurylivtsi, raion center, Vinnytsia oblast’, Ukraine

Murovannye Kurilovtsy is located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Vinnitsa. According to the census of 1939, there were 1,014 Jews living in Murovannye Kurilovtsy (25 percent of the total population). In the villages of Murovannye Kurilovtsy raion there lived an additional 1,065 Jews.

Following the German occupation of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, several hundred of the local Jews managed to evacuate. Men were drafted into the Red Army or enlisted voluntarily. Only about 60 percent of the pre-war Jewish [End Page 1431] population remained in Murovannye Kurilovtsy at the start of the occupation.

Axis forces occupied Murovannye Kurilovtsy on July 19, 1941. In July and early August 1941, the settlement was initially administered by seven Hungarian soldiers, and a local Ukrainian militia had not yet been organized. At this time, Feldkommandantur 675 in Vinnitsa was responsible for the military administration of the region and had appointed Anton Kornitzki as the Rayonchef in charge of the local Ukrainian administration.¹

In September 1941, authority was transferred to a German civil administration. Murovannye Kurilovtsy became a Rayon center in Gebiet Bar, which in turn was part of Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien. A German civil servant, Regierungsassessor Steffen, served as the Gebietskommissar in Bar.² Leutnant der Gendarmerie Petrich served as the head of the German Gendarmerie in Gebiet Bar. Subordinated to him were several Gendarmerie posts, including the post in Murovannye Kurilovtsy. Subordinated to this post in turn was a detachment of Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (Schutzmannschaft).

At the end of July 1941, the German military administration registered 4,800 inhabitants in Murovannye Kurilovitsy, including 600 Jews.³ During the summer and fall of 1941, the German authorities introduced a number of anti-Jewish measures. Initially the German military authorities ordered that the Jews were to wear white armbands bearing a blue Star of David. Those caught disobeying this order were severely beaten.⁴ Under the German civil administration, these armbands were later replaced by a yellow circle to be worn on the chest and back of outer clothing. A Jewish Council (Judenrat) was established under the leadership of Iosik Gas. The Judenrat had to enforce German orders, especially the collection of money, valuables, and clothing to be given to the Gendarmerie. It was assisted in this task by an unarmed Jewish police force.⁵

At some time between October 1941 and January 1942, a ghetto was established for the Jews in Murovannye Kurilovtsy.⁶ Most of the Jews were confined in a small area near the market square, which was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by the Ukrainian police. The ghetto was overcrowded, with three or four families sharing each small house with only about one room per family. One survivor mentioned that due to lack of space some additional barracks were built for the Jews, and another stated that there were two ghettos separated by a road.⁷

Jews from the ghetto were required to perform forced labor. The tasks included work at a local quarry, in warehouses, at a grain silo, digging military fortifications, and agricultural work at a kolkhoz. Only those who worked in the offices of the “Kommandantur” (headquarters) received anything to eat. Food was scarce, and people had to eat rotten potatoes and other scraps. Once a week Jews were permitted to leave the ghetto for one hour to barter remaining possessions for food at the market. Some Jews working outside the ghetto were also brought food and clothing by Ukrainian acquaintances while at work. In the winter of 1941–1942, some Jews from Bukovina and Bessarabia arrived in the ghetto.⁸

On August 20, 1942, the Jews of the Snitkov ghetto were rounded up and transferred to the ghetto in Murovannye Kurilovtsy. Children and the elderly were transported by horse and cart, and people were instructed to take enough food for two days. On arrival they were assigned to a few buildings, each holding 50 or 60 people.⁹

On Friday, August 21, 1942, the German police organized a large-scale Aktion against the Murovannye Kurilovtsy ghetto.¹⁰ Men of the Gendarmerie and local police surrounded the ghetto. Then all the Jews were ordered to assemble at a central square with food for three days and all their valuables, as they were told they would be relocated. Once they had assembled, the Jews were first required to surrender their valuables to the local police. Then a number of Jews were selected out as capable of work and were allowed to return to the Murovannye Kurilovtsy ghetto. The remaining 1,170 Jews were escorted about 3 or 4 kilometers (2 or 2.5 miles) outside the settlement to the Iankovo Forest, where they were all shot in three large pits that had been prepared a few days in advance. The men, women, and children were each shot in separate pits.¹¹ The Aktion was orgnized by an SD detachment from the office (Aussendienststelle) of the Security Police in Kamenets-Podolskii, headed by SS-Hauptscharführer Andreas Fermer. The German Gendarmerie and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police assisted in rounding up the Jews, escorting them to the place of mass killing, and searching for those who had gone into hiding or escaped.

Of those selected out, about 80 young Jews were sent to the Bar ghetto in early September, where they were used to unload coal at the railroad station until the liquidation of that ghetto on October 15, 1942. On Friday, October 16, 1942, the ghetto in Murovannye Kurilovtsy was liquidated, and all the remaining 120 Jews were shot.¹² After the liquidation Aktion, Ukrainians came into Murovannye Kurilovtsy from the surrounding villages to loot any remaining Jewish property. Only a few Jews managed to escape the roundups and find refuge in the countryside or by escaping into the Romanian-occupied zone, where by the end of 1942 the chances of survival for Jews were considerably better.

Among those tried by the Soviet authorities for collaboration with the German occupants was Valentina Iosifovna Mohyla-Sternat, who was accused of serving as a translator for the German Gendarmerie in Murovannye Kurilovtsy and benefiting from Jewish property. In February 1948, she was sentenced to 25 years in prison and the loss of her citizen’s rights.¹³