SMOTRICH
Pre-1941: Smotrich, town (PGT) and raion center, Kamenets-Podolskii oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Smotritsch, Rayon center, Gebiet Kamenez-Podolsk, Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien; post-1991: Smotrych, Dunaivtsi raion, Khmel’nyts’kyi oblast’, Ukraine
Smotrich is located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Kamenets-Podolskii. In 1939, the Jewish population of Smotrich was 1,075, 18.5 percent of the total. In addition, there were another 1,227 Jews living in the other villages and settlements of the Smotrich raion. At this time 1,139 Jews were living in nearby Chemerovtsy, and another 1,204 Jews in the rest of the Chemerovtsy raion.
German forces occupied Smotrich on July 8, 1941. In the first two and a half weeks after the start of the invasion on June 22, a number of Jews were able to flee or were evacuated to the east. During the first days of the occupation, German security forces killed 40 Jews. In July and August 1941, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) was in charge of the village; it appointed a local authority and organized an auxiliary police force. In September 1941, authority was transferred to a German civil administration. Smotrich became the center of Rayon Smotritsch in Gebiet Kamenez-Podolsk, which in turn was part of Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien.
At some time before June 1942, probably in the fall of 1941, the German authorities established a separate Jewish residential area (an open ghetto) in Smotrich. According to the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) report, the area was not separated by a fence, but its borders were marked and the Jews were prohibited from crossing them.1
Under the German occupation, some of the Jews of Smotrich were forced to work at the train station close to Balin, loading and unloading cargo trains. In winter they were assigned the task of clearing snow, both at the train station and from the highways. Other assignments included cleaning the horse stables belonging to the Gendarmerie, cleaning the police station and also the Gendarmerie headquarters, cleaning shoes, and doing the laundry for the Germans. A specially assigned Jewish boy had to bring milk for the Germans from the village of Balin, which lay 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) away [End Page 1470] from the Balin train station. None of the Jewish forced laborers received any payment for this work. The half-starved Jews assigned to work outside the ghetto had to walk up to 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) to their workplace and then work for the entire day. Those who were exhausted and could not keep up with the pace of work ordered by the guards were severely beaten. For a handful of dry peas, a rotten potato, or anything else that could at least partially still their hunger, the Jews ran the risk of being brutally beaten. If they were caught stealing food, their community also had to pay a fine for the “theft” either in cash or in food to compensate for the “losses incurred by the Germans.” The Jewish community of Smotrich was once forced to pay a large fine in gold to put an end to the beatings of one of its members, so the Jews had to surrender their wedding rings, jewelry, and even pre-1917 gold coins.2
At some time in the summer of 1942, probably in late July or early August, the remaining Jews in the Smotrich ghetto, together with the Jews of Chemerovtsy, were transferred to Kamenets-Podolskii. Semjon Waisblei, a survivor from Chemerovtsy, spent one night in Smotrich on his way to Kamenets-Podolskii. It is possible there was also an open ghetto in Chemerovtsy, but Waisblei does not mention this. He states that on arrival in Kamenets-Podolskii, he was among about 20 or 30 Jews who were placed in the ghetto there, from which he escaped about three months later, when children of his age started to be killed.3
In Kamenets-Podolskii, most of the Jews brought there from Smotrich and Chemerovtsy were shot on August 11, 1942, by members of the Security Police and SD outpost (Sipo/SD Aussendienststelle Kamenez-Podolsk). According to the report sent to the Commanding Officer of the of the Security Police and SD (KdS) in Równe, Dr. Pütz, 813 Jews were shot in total.4
It is estimated that during the entire period of the occupation, about 670 Jews from Smotrich were murdered.
SOURCES
Information on the fate of the Jews of Smotrich during the Holocaust can be found in the following publications: A. Kruglov, Katastrofa ukrainskogo evreistva 1941–1944 gg.: Entsiklopedicheskii spravochnik (Kharkov: “Karavella,” 2001), p. 290; Shmuel Spector and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds., The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust ( Jerusalem: Yad Vashem; New York: New York University Press, 2001), p. 1205.
Documentation regarding the annihilation of the Jews of Smotrich can be found in the following archives: DAKhO; GARF (7021-64-799); IPN; and USHMM.
NOTES
1. USHMM, RG-22.002M, reel 2 (GARF, 7021-64-799, pp. 98–116), Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) report for Kamenets-Podolskii.
2. Ibid.
3. Boris Zabarko, ed., “Nur wir haben überlebt”: Holocaust in Ukraine—Zeugnisse und Dokumente (Wittenberg: Dittrich, 2004), p. 428.
4. IPN, GKŚZpNP, Zbiór zespołów szczątkowych jednostek SS i policji, sygn. 77, pp. 5–6, report of Sipo u. SD Aussenstelle Kamenez-Podolsk to KdS Rowno, August 13, 1942.
