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

Pre-1941: Vin’kovtsy, town and raion center, Kamenets-Podolskii oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Winkowzy, Rayon center, Gebiet Dunajewzy, Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien; post-1991: Vin’kivtsy, raion center, Khmel’nyts’kyi oblast’, Ukraine

Vin’kovtsy is located about 48 kilometers (30 miles) south-southeast of Proskurov. In 1939, the Jewish population of the town was 2,251 (52 percent of the total).

Forces of the German 17th Army occupied Vin’kovtsy in mid-July 1941. In July and August 1941, a German military administration governed the town, establishing a town council and an auxiliary police force recruited from local residents. In September 1941, power was transferred to a German civil administration. Vin’kovtsy became a Rayon center within Gebiet Dunajewzy, where the Gebietskommissar was Gemeinschaftsführer Eduard Eggers.¹ There was also a German Gendarmerie post in Vin’kovtsy, which assumed control over the local detachment of Ukrainian police. [End Page 1488]

At some time in the summer or fall of 1941, the German authorities established a ghetto in Vin’kovtsy. According to the account of Sima Lerner, she returned from another village one day and was informed by a Ukrainian policeman that she would have to join all the other Jews in the ghetto. He escorted her personally to the ghetto, where she was given yellow patches to wear on her chest and back to show that she was Jewish. The Germans fenced in the ghetto, so that nobody could leave. In her apartment, three families lived together in overcrowded conditions. They were required to perform various forced labor tasks, such as building bridges and roads. In April 1942, all the children were rounded up and escorted to the main square. Here they were told that they could only walk in certain parts of the town, whereas the dogs were allowed to go wherever they wanted. Then they were all sent back to the ghetto.²

In May 1942, there was another roundup. Sima’s father said to her that she should not report for the roundup, as she had not done anything wrong, so he hid her and everyone else left. Soon she heard many gunshots and immediately understood what was happening. There was a pit prepared in the forest near Vin’kovtsy, and the Jews were escorted to this pit and then shot. Sima meanwhile escaped to the house of her non-Jewish aunt, where she went into hiding. Subsequently she was moved to another house nearby. Here she stayed in the basement and never went outside. During a subsequent roundup, her uncle and grandfather were killed. Sima was not found during this roundup but then fled from Vin’kovtsy.³

Soviet and other sources indicate that there were two or three Aktions conducted against the Jews in Vin’kovtsy in the late spring and summer of 1942. These Aktions reportedly took place on April 14, May 9, and August 6. The Aktions were probably organized by a squad of Security Police and SD from the outpost (Sipo-Aussendienststelle) in Kamenets-Podolskii, assisted by the German Gendarmerie and the Ukrainian police. Soviet sources indicate that 1,875 Jews were killed in April and 450 in May, but these figures are probably too high. According to a German report, 703 Jews were shot in “Wonkiwzi” (probably Vin’kovtsy) and Sibkiwzi on August 6, 1942. These last Jews to be shot were probably the remaining skilled craftsmen and their families. It is likely that around 1,875 Jews were shot in Vin’kovtsy in 1942.⁴

Another Jewish survivor, Iosif Shalita, has given a brief description of the ghetto in Vin’kovtsy. He states that it consisted of about five or six houses grouped together, which contained about 300 people. Around the yards of the houses there was barbed wire and beyond that a gate. The food the Jews had available to them was horrible and limited, as there were so many people. Living conditions were deplorable due to the overcrowding; people slept very little, lying down wherever they could find space on the floor. The Jews worked at a nearby kolkhoz. The work was absolutely terrible, but people thought they were safer if they made themselves useful. In the ghetto there was order; people would go to each other for help. Somehow people learned that the police were planning another Aktion two days in advance. Shalita knew he had to escape and managed to crawl through the barbed wire and left Vin’kovtsy. His testimony, however, is problematic, as he dates his escape from the ghetto in September 1943, having been there for only one month. It is possible that he was mistaken by just over one year and is describing the ghetto in the period leading up to its liquidation in early August 1942; or perhaps he is describing a subsequent forced labor camp or remnant ghetto for Jews in Vin’kovtsy in 1943.⁵