UŚCIŁUG
Pre-1939: Uściług, town, województwo wołyńskie, Poland; 1939–1941: Ustilug, Volyn’ oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Ustilug, Rayon center, Gebiet Wladimir-Wolynsk, Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien; post-1991: Ustyluh, Volyn’ oblast’, Ukraine
Uściług is located on the Bug River, 13 kilometers (8 miles) west of Włodzimierz Wołyński. According to the 1921 census, 2,723 Jews resided in Uściług. Allowing for natural increase and the effects of emigration in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the influx of refugees in 1939, there were probably slightly less than 3,000 Jews in the town in June 1941. In September 1939, German forces bombarded Uściług, killing several Jewish and non-Jewish civilians and destroying almost [End Page 1487] half the buildings in the town. The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact placed Uściług just on the Soviet side of the border with the newly created Generalgouvernement. The Soviets deported about one third of the Jewish population, including many refugees from central Poland, primarily to the nearby town of Włodzimierz Wołyński.1
When the Germans attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, they bombarded Uściług a second time. The town caught fire, and a majority of the houses were destroyed. Units of the German 6th Army entered the town on June 23. In July and August, a German local military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) governed Uściług, and in September 1941, authority was officially transferred to a civil administration. Uściług then became a Rayon center in Gebiet Wladimir-Wolynsk. The Gebietskommissar was Wilhelm Westerheide, who had assumed his post by the beginning of November 1941, and the SS- und Polizei-Gebietsführer from July 1942 was Leutnant der Gendarmerie Grigat. He was in command of 18 Gendarmerie officials spread over several Rayons, including Rayon Ustilug; this post, manned by three or more Gendarmes, was in charge of a squad of local Ukrainian police (a few dozen men).2
In the summer and autumn of 1941, a series of anti-Jewish measures was implemented in Uściług: Jews were ordered to wear distinguishing symbols such as the Star of David (later on, a patch in the shape of a yellow circle), they were assigned to forced labor largely without pay, and they were not allowed to leave the boundaries of the town. They were also subjected to systematic looting and beatings by the Ukrainian police. Local Gendarmerie officials organized a Judenrat, appointing Mikhel Shafran as its chairman.3
In the first large anti-Jewish Aktion in Uściług, German security forces shot 30 Jews in late June 1941 for allegedly having collaborated with the Soviet authorities. In October 1941, approximately 890 Jews were gathered together and marched out of town. They and their families were told that they were being relocated to a forced labor camp. In fact, they all were shot.4
In March 1942, the German authorities established a ghetto in Uściług. Soon the severe overcrowding and atrocious living conditions in the ghetto led to an outbreak of typhus. To prevent the further spread of the disease, the German Gendarmes sent Ukrainian police into the ghetto to kill anyone who was running a fever.5 In the first half of September 1942, a unit of the Security Police and SD from Łuck, assisted by the German Gendarmerie and the Ukrainian police, murdered 1,847 Jews.6 A few hundred Jews escaped to the forests, hid in bunkers, or were temporarily spared as forced laborers. The last two groups were put in a Wehrmacht forced labor camp that was liquidated in the winter of 1942–1943. Of those who escaped to the forest, some were killed by members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA); others succeeded in joining units of the Polish Armia Krajowa.7
SOURCES
Articles on the destruction of the Jewish population of Uściług can be found in these publications: Shmuel Spector, ed., Pinkas ha-kehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Poland, vol. 5, Volhynia and Polesie (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1990), pp. 32–34; A. Kruglov, Katastrofa ukrainskogo evreistva 1941–1944 gg.: Entsiklopedicheskii spravochnik (Kharkov: “Karavella,” 2001), p. 323; and in the yizkor book edited by Arye Avinadav, Kehilat Ustila: Bevinvanah uvehurbanah (Tel Aviv: Irgun yots’e Ustila be-Yisrael uve tefutsot, 1961).
Documentation regarding the murder of the Jews of Uściług can be found in DAVO and GARF (7021-55-8).
NOTES
1. Arye Avinadav, “Sippuran shel Shetey Ahiyot,” in Avinadav, Kehilat Ustila, p. 139; Nahman Burlvant, “Hurban Ustila,” also in Kehilat Ustila, p. 239.
2. LG-Dort, Ks 45 Js 32/64, Bd. LXIII, Indictment in the case against Wilhelm Westerheide.
3. Yeshayahu Meltsman, “Al Hurvot Ayartenu,” in Avinadav, Kehilat Ustila, pp. 125–126; Avinadav, “Sippuran,” p. 140; Burlvant, “Hurban Ustila,” pp. 240–241.
4. See Meltsman, “Hurvot,” p. 126; and Avinadav, “Sippuran,” p. 140. The Germans were relatively successful at concealing this Aktion from the remaining Jews, so these two testimonies do not refer to it as such, only to a large-scale deportation. The figures from the ChGK report, however, support the figure posited by Spector in Pinkas ha-kehilot and given here.
5. Meltsman, “Hurvot,” p. 126.
6. GARF, 7021-55-8, pp. 35–37. According to the ChGK report for the Ustilug raion, 2,535 people were killed in total during the occupation; see also Meltsman, “Hurvot,” p. 126; Avinadav, “Sippuran,” pp. 140–141; and Burlvant, “Hurban Ustila,” p. 240.
7. Meltsman, “Hurvot,” pp. 140–141; Burlvant, “Hurban Ustila,” p. 241.
