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

Pre-1939: Ostrożec, village, województwo wołyńskie, Poland; 1939–1941: Ostrozhets, raion center, Rovno oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Ostroshez, Rayon center, Gebiet Dubno, Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien; post-1991: Ostrozhets, Mlyniv raion, Rivne oblast’, Ukraine

Ostrożec is located about 16 kilometers (10 miles) from Łuck. According to the 1921 population census, 632 Jews were living in the village.¹ By mid-1941, assuming an annual growth rate of 0.9 to 1 percent, there probably were about 750 Jews in Ostrożec. In the area around Ostrożec, many Jews also lived in the village of Targowica (located about 16 kilometers [10 miles] to the southwest). According to the 1921 population census, 660 Jews were living in this village. By mid-1941, assuming an average rate of population increase, there probably were slightly more than 750 Jews in Targowica. A few more Jews lived in other nearby villages, including the village of Peremiłowka to the southeast of Ostrożec (which in 1921 had a Jewish population of 16). Witnesses confirm that Ostrożec was an entirely Jewish shtetl on the eve of the German occupation; the non-Jews lived in a more or less separate village nearby, also called Ostrożec.²

Units of the German 6th Army occupied Ostrożec at the end of June 1941. At first, in July and August 1941, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) ran the affairs of the village. Then authority was transferred to a German civil administration in September 1941. Ostrożec became the center of Rayon Ostroshez in Gebiet Dubno. Nachwuchsführer Brocks became the Gebietskommissar. Leutnant der Gendarmerie Eberhardt was appointed the Gendarmerie-Gebietsführer in Dubno in the spring of 1942.³ A village elder (starosta) was appointed for Ostrożec by the German military administration. A local Ukrainian police unit was also recruited.

In the summer and fall of 1941, German forces implemented a series of anti-Jewish measures in Ostrożec. Jews were ordered to wear distinctive markings: according to one witness, the Star of David was later exchanged for yellow patches to be worn on the front and backs of their clothes.⁴ They were required to perform forced labor, prohibited from leaving the limits of the village, and subjected to systematic beatings and robberies by the Ukrainian police. [End Page 1440]

In August 1941, German security forces carried out a first Aktion in Ostrożec in which 40 Jews were shot.⁵ On August 1, 1941, 130 Jews were also shot in the village of Targowica.⁶

A Jewish Council (Judenrat) was established on German orders, which had to collect “contributions” in the form of money and goods for the German authorities and supply Jews for forced labor. During the winter of 1941–1942, Jews sneaked out of the village to collect firewood, but if caught, the Ukrainian police shot them. Only a few Germans were based in the village, including an officer named Vogel. Witnesses state that Vogel had sexual relations with one or more Jewish women; as a result, allegedly he tipped off the Judenrat in advance of German roundups.⁷

In the spring of 1942, probably in April, the German authorities ordered the establishment of a ghetto in Ostrożec. According to Jewish survivor Anatoly Burstein, his family was transferred to the Ostrożec ghetto from Peremiłowka in March or April 1942.⁸ At around this time, the Jews of Targowica were also transferred on foot to the Ostrożec ghetto, carrying what they could in their arms.⁹ Local witnesses from Ostrożec disagree about when the ghetto was established, with dates ranging from late 1941 to the summer of 1942; this was perhaps because Ostrożec was a completely Jewish shtetl before the war, and the ghetto was set up incrementally, first confining Jews to the village and later bringing in Jews from outside and erecting a fence.¹⁰

The ghetto consisted of about half of the shtetl surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by the Ukrainian police. Living conditions were very overcrowded, with about four or five people sharing a room. The Judenrat assigned the newcomers to private homes, trying to distribute them evenly among the local Jews. There was no medical assistance available in the ghetto, but some women gave birth successfully despite this. According to one witness, Jewish girls were raped by drunken members of the Ukrainian police. Jews were starving but were able to exchange possessions with local inhabitants for food.¹¹

After the ghetto was set up, forced labor tasks included sorting potatoes, moving stones, and road construction. Some Jews continued to work for farmers in the surrounding area—a circumstance that proved fortunate for those who were still outside the ghetto when the final roundup took place. The Jews quickly received news about local farmers digging huge graves at the Jewish cemetery, and at least 200 Jews managed to flee from the ghetto in the hours before the final roundup.¹²

On October 9, 1942,¹³ German police assisted by the local Ukrainian police began the liquidation of the ghetto. Detailed accounts of the ghetto liquidation have been provided by local witnesses interviewed by Father Patrick Desbois in 2007. First Ukrainian police surrounded the ghetto, and then the Jews were rounded up and put onto black trucks. The trucks were then driven to the prepared pits, where the Jews were forced to disembark in a column with the rabbi at its head. Then the Jews were made to undress. They placed their clothes and valuables into a cart, on which these items were subsequently transported back to the ghetto. The Jews were then shot in groups of five people in the main pit. Small children were simply thrown into the pit, and some Jews were only wounded, so many of the victims were probably buried alive. One or two individuals attempted to flee, but the guards shot them and their bodies were brought back and buried with the others.¹⁴

According to witnesses, many of the Jews who escaped initially were found hiding in the ghetto, were denounced, or returned of their own free will over the following days and weeks. Shooting Aktions against smaller groups of Jews carried on for at least two more weeks. Once the main mass grave had been filled in, the earth continued to move eerily for several days. In total, at least 700 Jews were shot. The Aktion was carried out by a detachment of the Sipo and SD from Równe, with the assistance of local Ukrainian police and the German Gendarmerie.

Local witnesses state that a few Jewish girls were kept alive after the massacre and cooked for the German officer Vogel, who had intimate relations with them but more or less kept them as his prisoners. These last Jews, as well as other Jews found in hiding, were shot in the smaller pit at the Jewish cemetery at some time in the fall of 1942.¹⁵ A few Jewish escapees managed to survive with the help of local farmers, including some from the Czech minority that lived in the area.