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

Pre-1939: Radziwiłłów, town, województwo wołyńskie, Poland; 1939–1941: Chervonoarmeisk, raion center, Rovno oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Radziwilow, Gebiet Dubno, Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien; post-1991: Radiviliv, Rivne oblast’, Ukraine

Radziwiłłów is located 88 kilometers (55 miles) southwest of Równe. At the end of 1937, there were 3,120 Jews living in the town. The town came under Soviet occupation in mid-September 1939. The Soviet authorities deported many Jewish refugees from western and central Poland to the Soviet interior when these people opted not to take Soviet citizenship.

Forces of the German 6th Army occupied Radziwiłłów at the end of June 1941. In July and August, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) ran the settlement. A man named Matejko was appointed as mayor, and initially Misza Zalewski was head of the local Ukrainian police. In September 1941, authority passed to a German civil administration. Radziwiłłów became a Rayon center in Gebiet Dubno. Nachwuchsführer Brocks was the Gebietskommissar. In the fall of 1941, a German Gendarmerie post consisting of six to eight Gendarmes under the command of a man named Krause was established in Radziwiłłów in the house of a Jew named Fidel. The Gendarmerie assumed control of the Ukrainian police, now renamed the Schutzmannschaft. In the spring of 1942, Polizeileutnant Eberhardt became the SS- und Polizei-Gebietsführer.¹

In the first days of the occupation, local Ukrainians and Germans robbed the Jews. On July 15, 1941, a German SS unit arrived in Radziwiłłów and organized the first Aktion, in which 27 Jews were murdered allegedly as Communist activists. Among those killed were also some wealthy Jews who had given property to local Ukrainians for safekeeping but were denounced to the Germans. On July 16, 1941, Ukrainian [End Page 1452] thugs organized the public burning of prayer books and Torah scrolls from the synagogue and forced the rabbi to dance a jig around the bonfire. Then on August 15, all the Jews were ordered to wait in the market square for two to three hours, during which time their houses were ransacked and looted of all valuable possessions.²

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A blue and white child’s dress worn by Sabina Heller (née Kagan), while in hiding with the Roztropowicz family in Radziwiłłów, during the Holocaust. Sabina and her parents escaped from the Radziwiłłów ghetto. Sabina’s rescuers made the dress from doll clothing.

USHMM WS #N09622, COURTESY OF SABINA HELLER

In the summer and fall of 1941, the Germans implemented a series of anti-Jewish measures in Radziwiłłów. The Jews were ordered to wear distinctive markings (initially white armbands with a blue Star of David; later, yellow circles on their chest and backs); they were prohibited from leaving the town without permission, from using the sidewalks, or from trading with the local non-Jews; and most items of Jewish property were confiscated or used to pay a succession of onerous “contributions” imposed on the community.³

Soon after their arrival, the German authorities established a Jewish Council (Judenrat). Jakob Furman took over as chairman of the Judenrat in the summer of 1941 after its first head, Viderhorn, an assimilated Jew from Hungary who spoke German, resigned his post once he realized the Judenrat was only a tool for the Germans to extort money from the Jews. In February 1942, a number of Jewish workers were rounded up and sent to a labor camp near Vinnitsa. In March 1942, the Germans, assisted by mayor Matejko, conducted a “robbery Aktion” against the Jews, seizing any remaining valuables from Jewish houses.⁴

On April 9, 1942, the Gebietskommissar ordered the establishment of a ghetto in the town, and Jews from the surrounding villages also had to move into it. In total, 2,600 Jews were registered in the ghetto.⁵ The ghetto was located in the poorest Jewish houses close to the market square. It was split into two sections divided by Poczajowska Street. About 400 Jews with certificates designating them “productive” Jews lived in the “Karee,” and the remaining 2,200 “unproductive” Jews lived in the “Teich.” Both ghetto sections were surrounded with barbed wire and were guarded internally by the Jewish Police and externally by the Ukrainian police. Due to the extreme overcrowding, with people sleeping on bunk beds and living in attics and cellars, disease and hunger were rife in the ghetto. Some Jews performed forced labor every day outside the ghetto and were escorted to their work sites by the Jewish Police. Forced labor tasks included work for the Organisation Todt (OT) on construction projects such as at the airfield, while others worked at the railroad station or for various German offices.⁶

On May 29, 1942, the Germans and their collaborators conducted an Aktion against the “unproductive” section of the ghetto (those Jews not issued with work cards by the Judenrat). A detachment of the Security Police and SD, assisted by men of the 1st Company of Reserve Police Battalion 33, local Gendarmes, and Ukrainian police, surrounded this section of the ghetto early in the morning.⁷ Those unable to walk or who attempted to escape were murdered inside the ghetto. First the Jewish men who had been rounded up were escorted out of town past the railroad station to a sandy place known as Suchodolie. Here the Germans forced them to undress and shot them with machine guns into large ditches prepared in advance by Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). Then they did the same with the women and children. Altogether, the German-led forces shot about 1,350 people. A number of Jews managed to escape and hide on the eve of the Aktion.⁸

In the summer of 1942, Jews faced the death penalty if caught outside the ghetto without permission. Those working outside continued to smuggle food in, and some local peasants threw food over the ghetto fence. However, the Ukrainian guards now began to punish non-Jews who came too close to the fence.⁹ In August 1942, two Jewish girls who were caught traveling from Dubno on “Aryan papers” were handed over to the Gendarmerie in Radziwiłłów and shot on orders from the German police.¹⁰

By late September 1942, news of the complete liquidation of other nearby ghettos convinced the Jews that their days were numbered. As there was little chance to hide in the forests, since most non-Jews were either hostile or too scared to protect Jews, people built hiding places or sought “Aryan papers.” Some hid their children during the day, fearing an Aktion while they were out at work. Then news came that Soviet POWs were again preparing ditches nearby. To preserve some record of the community, the Radziwiłłów Jews prepared lists of those who had died and those who were still alive and buried them near the Great Synagogue. When the Germans and their collaborators surrounded the ghetto, a number of Jews committed suicide, and others went to their hiding places or tried to escape.¹¹

On October 6, 1942, German Security Police subordinated to the outpost in Równe organized the liquidation of the Radziwiłłów ghetto, shooting about 950 Jews at Suchodolie with the assistance of the Ukrainian police and German Gendarmerie. About 500 Jews managed to escape on the night before the Aktion.¹² Many of these runaway Jews were subsequently caught and shot by the German Gendarmerie and Ukrainian police at the Jewish cemetery. A few managed to escape to the town of Brody in Distrikt Galizien, where a formal ghetto was only established in early December 1942. Only 51 Jews from Radziwiłłów managed to survive until the Red Army drove out the Germans after fierce fighting around Brody in the summer of 1944.¹³