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

Pre-1939: Rożyszcze, town, województwo wołyńskie, Poland; 1939–1941: Rozhishche, raion center, Volyn’ oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Roshischtsche, Rayon center, Gebiet Luzk, Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien; post-1991: Rozhyshche, raion center, Volyn’ oblast’, Ukraine

Rożyszcze is located 19 kilometers (12 miles) north-northwest of Łuck and 51 kilometers (32 miles) southeast of Kowel. [End Page 1461] According to the 1921 census, 2,686 Jews were residing in Rożyszcze.

Following the German invasion of Poland in mid-September 1939, a few local Communists organized a militia to welcome the expected arrival of the Red Army. However, they clashed first with a retreating Polish force before the Red Army entered the town. The Jewish population of the town was increased by the arrival of hundreds of refugees from central Poland, but the Soviets also deported some Jews to Siberia, which paradoxically saved their lives. The Soviet authorities also expropriated land around Rożyszcze, establishing kolkhozy for agricultural production.¹ In mid-1941, there were in excess of 3,000 Jews living in the town.

Units of the German 6th Army occupied Rożyszcze on June 25, 1941. In July and August 1941, a German military administration governed the town, and from September 1941, power was transferred to a civil administration. Rożyszcze was a Rayon center in Gebiet Luzk, within Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien. The Gebietskommissar in Łuck was Regierungsassessor Lindner.²

A Ukrainian local authority and a local police force were formed in Rożyszcze. The local police was subordinated to the German Gendarmerie post (established after September 1941), which consisted of several German Gendarmes.

As soon as the Germans occupied the town, they killed several Jews, and Ukrainian nationalistic antisemites also started victimizing Jews through robbery, extortion, and cruelty.³ Within a few days, the temporary German military authorities established a Jewish Council ( Judenrat) and a Jewish police force. During July 1941, there followed a series of roundups of Jews, supposedly for work assignments outside the town. First a group of about 80 of the wealthiest and most influential Jews were escorted out of town and were never heard of again. A few days later, the Germans and local police rounded up several hundred Jewish men, who also did not return. In a further roundup, the Germans took away even old people, women, and children, as all the men had gone into hiding. These people were all murdered and buried in a pit outside town.⁴ These Aktions were probably conducted by a squad of the Security Police and SD, which was based in Łuck, assisted by the local Ukrainian police. Another Aktion was carried out in Rożyszcze in October 1941, when 603 people were shot (600 men and 3 women).⁵

In the summer and fall of 1941, the German authorities implemented a series of anti-Jewish measures in Rożyszcze. Jews were required to wear distinctive symbols, and they were forced to surrender horses, cows, bicycles, and radios. They were compelled to perform work, organized by the Jewish Council, during which they were beaten and otherwise abused. According to German regulations issued by the new civil administration in September 1941, Jews were forbidden to leave the town limits without special permission.

In the fall of 1941 (according to another source, on February 15, 1942), a ghetto was established in Rożyszcze. The Jews were given only two hours to move into the ghetto, taking only what they could carry with them. As the Jews entered the ghetto in the northern section of town, “Oyfn Barg” (On the Hill), most were severely beaten.⁶ The ghetto, consisting of 60 one-story houses, had to accommodate not only the local Jews but also Jews brought in from surrounding villages (such as Kopaczowka Nowa and Wołnianka).⁷ This influx resulted in considerable overcrowding in the ghetto’s small confines, with several families sharing a single room. Altogether, there were about 4,000 Jews in the ghetto, which was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.

The food allocation in the ghetto was only 50 grams (less than 2 ounces) of bread per person per day. Those assigned to work outside the ghetto were sometimes able to smuggle in extra food, which they obtained by bartering. One enterprising group of Jews even risked going to the Kowel ghetto to obtain rare items such as needles and thread, which were much sought after by the local peasants. However, Jews caught smuggling were severely beaten by the Ukrainian police.⁸

Among the tasks performed by Jews in the ghetto were sweeping the streets around the town, cooking for the Germans, and working in the wool factory. The German authorities also demanded “contributions” from the Jews in the form of money or leather goods. In the summer of 1942, the Jewish Council was arrested to ensure the collection of an additional tribute. Even though the “contribution” was delivered on August 10, 1942, most members of the Jewish Council were shot anyway, including Spector, Bruner, Klimbord, and Kleisman.⁹

The ghetto was liquidated about 10 days later, on or around August 22, 1942,¹⁰ when a unit of the Security Police and SD from Łuck, assisted by the German Gendarmerie and Ukrainian police, shot most of the Jews: in excess of 3,000 people. The Jews were transported from the ghetto to the killing site in trucks, with logistical support provided by the Luzk Gebietskommissar. Some Jews also were collected from surrounding kolkhozy or work camps. Local workers dug the grave in advance in a sandpit 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) outside the town.¹¹ As the Jews received some warning of the impending Aktion, several hundred of them were able to hide or escape to the forest. Most of these Jews who evaded the initial roundup were captured by the Ukrainian police and subsequently shot at the Jewish cemetery.¹² A few dozen Jews managed to survive in the forests, receiving food and shelter from Polish farmers or Seventh-Day Adventists living in the vicinity.

After the liberation of Rożyszcze by the Red Army, a group of Jews returned and lived together in one house. Some of them tried to harass those who had assisted the Germans until the Soviet authorities started putting the collaborators on trial. However, a local Ukrainian murdered one Jewish woman when she tried to retrieve her family’s possessions.¹³ Within a few years after the war, there were no Jews living in Rożyszcze.