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

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Jews are rounded up in Zhitomir and forced to watch the hanging of Mosche Kogan and Wolf Kieper on the market square, August 7, 1941.

USHMM WS #17547, COURTESY OF YIVO

Pre-1941: Zhitomir and parts of the Vinnitsa, Poles’e, and Gomel’ oblasts, Ukrainian and Belorussian SSRs; 1941–1944: initially Rear Area, Army Group South, then from October 1941, Generalkommissariat Shitomir, Reichskommissariat Ukraine; post-1991: parts of central Ukraine and southern Belarus

Generalkommissariat (Gk) Shitomir was a German administrative unit carved out of the pre-war Soviet Vinnitsa, Zhitomir, Poles’e, and Gomel’ oblasts. The period of ghettoization in Gk Shitomir lasted from July 1941 until the spring of 1942. In total, there were some 58 ghettos established in Gk Shitomir. The last ghettos, mainly remnant ghettos that resembled forced labor camps, were liquidated in the winter of 1942–1943, although small groups of specialist workers survived in some places until later in 1943.

In 1939, the Zhitomir oblast’ contained 125,007 Jews, and the Vinnitsa oblast’ had 141,825 Jews, of which just over half—about 75,000 Jews—lived in the area that subsequently became part of Gk Shitomir. In the Belorussian portions of the region, more than 17,000 Jews lived in Mozyr’ and over 7,000 in Rechitsa, the two largest urban centers. Therefore, allowing for an evacuation rate of up to 50 percent, it can be estimated that more than 110,000 Jews remained in the area of Gk Shitomir at the start of the German occupation.

The video and oral testimonies of Jewish survivors taken by the USC Shoah Foundation Institute (VHF) and other organizations since 1990 have added considerably to our knowledge of ghettoization. These have proved especially valuable in helping to identify a number of previously unknown ghettos in Gk Shitomir, for which little or no German documentation is available. At least 21 open ghettos have been identified in the region, including several not mentioned in the existing scholarly literature. For example, on July 15, 1941, a week after the occupation of the town, the German commandant established a “Jewish residential district” (open ghetto) in Chudnov in a part of town that had been severely damaged in the fighting. One main street and a few side streets were reserved only for the Jews, but there was no barbed wire surrounding the area.¹ Another early open ghetto was in Baranovka, created at the end of July 1941 by the German military administration in a few small houses on Zhaboritskaya Street.² The Germans conducted several Aktions in Baranovka during the summer of 1941 but did not liquidate the ghetto until January 6, 1942. According to the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) report and German Einsatzgruppen reports, the Germans established an open ghetto in Radomyshl’ in August 1941. A detachment of Einsatzgruppe C used this ghetto primarily to concentrate the Jews of the surrounding area for their rapid destruction within a few weeks.³

One striking feature about Gk Shitomir is the difference between the northern part, where there were few ghettos, most of which were short-lived (such as the ghetto in Iurovichi that existed for just over one month), and the southern part, where more than a dozen ghettos, mostly remnant ghettos set up for selected laborers and their families, existed for more than six months, that is, until the second wave of mass killings in the spring and summer of 1942. The overlap between the local ghetto inmates and the labor force used for work on Durchgangsstrasse (highway) IV (DG IV) seems to have been much less in this region than in neighboring Gk Kiew or Gk Wolhynien und Podolien. Most of the Jewish labor used on DG IV appears to have been brought in from Romanian-occupied Transnistria in the summer of 1942, just after the liquidation of most remaining ghettos in Gk Shitomir.⁴

For the area around Vinnitsa, which was captured by the German 17th Army in mid-July 1941, the initial activities of the military administration are well documented. A provisional town administration was appointed on July 22, 1941. Then Rayonchefs were appointed in the surrounding area, while a labor office (Arbeitsamt), housing office (Wohnungsamt), and a food supply office (Ernährungsamt) were established in Vinnitsa.⁵ A local police force was also recruited from volunteers and made answerable to the local mayors and the military administration. The military authorities were not always satisfied with the loyalty of Ukrainian nationalist appointees, and some were subsequently dismissed. The local police guarded the Jews as they performed their forced labor, repairing war damage in the streets and performing other tasks for the German authorities. In Vinnitsa, the Jews had to wear armbands bearing the Star of David, but there was no immediate ghettoization.⁶

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Unidentified men examine a field strewn with the clothing of 4,000 Jews in Vinnitsa, 1941—1942.

USHMM WS #25246, COURTESY OF YIVO

[End Page 1510] As the research of Alexander Kruglov indicates, the first wave of mass shootings was particularly devastating in the core territories of the Zhitomir oblast’. Learning from the rapid slaughter of more than 23,000 Jews organized by the Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (HSSPF) Russland-Süd, SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, at the end of August 1941 in Kamenets-Podolskii (area of Gk Wolhynien und Podolien), units of Einsatzgruppe C and the Order Police murdered more than 40,000 Jews in the Zhitomir oblast’ (about three quarters of all those killed there) in the three months of August, September, and October.⁷ Wendy Lower demonstrates that some of the larger ghettos, such as that in Berdichev, were established with the idea of destruction clearly in mind. Here Jeckeln ordered the establishment of a ghetto on August 26 and then completed the mass murder of the bulk of the ghetto’s Jews (between 10,000 and 15,000 people) within three weeks, by mid-September.⁸

In the southern part of Gk Shitomir (the northern part of Vinnitsa oblast’), however, this first wave was not quite so lethal. Kruglov’s estimates indicate that roughly half of the remaining Jews were killed here in 1941, with the second wave in 1942 accounting for most of the rest. In Vinnitsa, more than 5,000 of the 18,000 Jews that came under German occupation were still alive in January 1942. Some nearby towns, such as Brailov and Khmel’nik, escaped with only minor losses in the summer and fall of 1941, and both military and civil authorities pursued a more concerted policy of establishing ghettos in this area.

On October 20, 1941, the German military was replaced by a civil administration in Gk Shitomir. The Generalkommissar in Shitomir was Polizeipräsident Kurt Klemm. In Gk Shitomir, low-level administrative posts were filled mainly with reliable Ukrainians, a few Russians, and some ethnic Germans. The office of Reichskommissar Erich Koch issued orders only to establish “Jewish residential districts” (ghettos) in localities with more than 200 Jews. The inmates of the ghettos were to be prohibited from leaving the premises without special authorization.⁹

In practice, the local Gebietskommissars played a key role in establishing, overseeing, and liquidating the ghettos, alongside the offices of the Security Police and the Order Police. In Olevsk, in the northern part of Gk Shitomir, for example, on the establishment of the German civil administration, the assistant Gebietskommissar, Neukirchner, issued an order for the Jews to be ghettoized. The Polis’ka Sich (Ukrainian nationalist activists) and the local Ukrainian police then forced the entire Jewish population to move into a ghetto established on three streets. This ghetto was then liquidated within a few weeks, with the active participation of the Ukrainian police and some members of the Sich.¹⁰

Yet the existence of ghettos for much longer periods in places such as Ruzhin, Lipovets, Teplik, Ternovka, and Zhornishche reflects the intention of some German administrators to exploit skilled Jewish labor, where possible, at least for a few more months. Many of the ghettos were remnant ghettos, established in the wake of mass killing Aktions. This was the case, for example, in Litin. On December 19, 1941, a squad of German Security Police from Vinnitsa organized the shooting of some 2,000 Jews in the town. The German authorities selected about 200 craftsmen and their families, who were placed into a ghetto comprising a few houses on two narrow streets.¹¹ The Germans also subsequently permitted those Jews who had hidden during the mass shooting to enter the ghetto. Around 300 Jews were concentrated there surrounded by a fence. The Jews were prohibited from leaving on pain of death. Although food was scarce and hunger severe, nobody was allowed to go to the market to obtain food.¹²

In Ruzhin, after a mass shooting Aktion in September, a remnant ghetto consisting of a “barrack camp surrounded by barbed wire” was established for selected specialists and surviving Jews brought in from the surrounding villages. The Ukrainian village elder ordered the Jews to renovate about 200 former Jewish houses for the use of the Germans and the Ukrainian police, who guarded the ghetto. The Germans appointed a Jewish elder by the name of Yankel, who organized several craft workshops.¹³

Living conditions in most ghettos were harsh, depending especially on access to additional food supplies. Trading with non-Jews was possible for many ghetto inhabitants, but other than craftsmen, most had little to trade, and the Ukrainian population, especially in the cities, was itself short of food. Anna Grinboim, a survivor from Pogrebishche, recalled: “There was no water to drink or to wash with, no food, terrible hunger. Occasionally kind Ukrainians came and brought food they had already prepared. Every morning all the young people and all the men were taken to work.” Her own work consisted mainly of cleaning—streets, bathrooms, and stores. Anna’s grandmother died of hunger, as did many others. No holidays were celebrated in the Pogrebishche ghetto, and there were very few children, since most of them had been killed in the first Aktion. The most terrible thing, she recalled, was the knowledge that sooner or later there would be another Aktion to end it all.¹⁴

Apart from the craftsmen, who mainly produced clothing and tools for the Wehrmacht, German officials, and also (sometimes clandestinely) for the Ukrainian population, the Jews in the ghettos of Gk Shitomir were engaged in a variety of forced labor tasks. These included work in agriculture, cleaning the streets and clearing them of snow in winter, construction work, and for Jewish women, cleaning the quarters of German officials. Those who worked were more likely to receive some meager rations. Many survivors stress the deadly role of the Ukrainian police. Michael Tokar, for example, reported that “anyone who refused to work was killed on the spot. The Ukrainian police drank all the time and would beat the Jews just for fun in their drunken stupor.”¹⁵

The attitudes of the local population towards the ghettos varied from direct participation in German anti-Jewish policies to providing assistance and shelter. The local Ukrainian police hunted down Jews who escaped from ghettoization, and they participated in mass shootings. Ukrainian guards also harassed and brutalized Jewish labor details. In some places [End Page 1511] Ukrainian policemen moved into vacated Jewish apartments. On the other hand, many of the few Jewish survivors state that they managed to escape death because of the bravery and kindness of individual Ukrainians. In Gk Shitomir some Jews escaped from the ghettos and joined the Soviet partisans, while others passed as non-Jews, hid in the countryside, or escaped to the Romanian-occupied zone (Transnistria), where conditions were much less lethal by the end of 1942. A handful were even deported to Germany as forced laborers, while passing as non-Jews.

Although the killings never completely ceased in the winter of 1941–1942, as explosives were used to prepare mass graves, for example, in Strizhavka, despite the frost, the second wave in Gk Shitomir effectively began in the spring of 1942. Following the murder of most of the remaining Jews in Vinnitsa on April 15, 1942, an intensified wave of mass shooting Aktions was organized by the Security Police and SD, assisted by the Gendarmerie and the local Ukrainian police. These Aktions swept away most of the remaining ghettos in May and June of 1942.

In Samgorodok, a ghetto was established for the 500 Jews living there only in mid-May 1942, shortly before its liquidation on June 4. The local police chief selected out 10 or 15 specialist workers, who were sent to Kazatin and subsequently shot by the SD in September. Gebietskommissar Wolfgang Steudel carefully supervised the mass shooting in person.¹⁶ Other mass shootings were carried out at this time against the ghettos in Pliskov, Monastyrishche, Lipovets, and Vcheraishe. In the small town of Gnivan, near Vinnitsa, where no ghetto was established, about 100 Jews were killed in the early part of the summer of 1942, most of whom were women and children.¹⁷

In early June 1942, the Generalkommissar in Shitomir reported that: “the Jewish question has for the most part been settled in my region. That valuable labor was often eliminated is well known. 434 Jews were resettled in Gebiet Illinzi, 606 Jews in Ruzhin.”⁸ This report reflects the intensive steps taken to reduce the remaining Jewish population of the region at this time and at least on paper to declare the region cleansed of Jews (judenrein). In practice, however, many hundreds of Jews remained in Gk Shitomir after this date, mostly in small remnant ghettos for craftsmen but also in some forced labor camps, including those used for road construction along the DG IV, which contained mainly Jews who were being brought in from Transnistria.

Confirmation of the active role played by the Ukrainian local police in the ghetto liquidation Aktions can be found in a German report recommending the Ukrainian Schutzmann, Wasyl Palamartschuk, in Samgorodok, for a decoration in 1943, as he had “especially distinguished himself during the resettlement of the Jews in June 1942 and in the subsequent apprehension of individual Jews who variously concealed themselves.”¹⁹

The Vinnitsa Gendarmerie Captain issued an order in June 1942 that Jews were no longer to be employed by the Gendarmerie.²⁰ Most of the remaining specialist workers did not survive the summer sweep for long. At the beginning of August 1942, members of the Security Police outpost in Berdichev shot more than 300 Jewish workers. In Ruzhin, 44 Jews were shot by members of the SD on October 1, 1942.²¹

Some Jews managed to survive the roundups during the second wave by hiding in cellars and other places of concealment. They later sought refuge in the surrounding countryside. However, the Gendarmerie in the region threatened severe reprisals against entire villages if they failed to report any Jews hiding in the vicinity.²² Over the ensuing nine months from July 1942, most of the Jews in hiding were captured by the Gendarmerie and local police (Schutzmannschaft). For example, on March 1, 1943, a patrol from the Gendarmerie post in Samgorodok found two female Jews, Busa and Sulka Chernus, hiding in a hayrick, and they were then “shot trying to escape.”²³

The Khmel’nik ghetto was probably the last to be liquidated in Gk Shitomir, on March 3, 1943. According to the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) report, more than 1,000 people were shot on that day.²⁴ The 135 artisans who survived the massacre (127 men and 8 women) were put into a school building that was turned into a labor camp. The craftsmen had to train Ukrainians as their replacements; 67 people managed to escape from this camp before the remainder were killed in turn.²⁵ Some Jewish skilled laborers held in a Security Police prison in Berdichev were shot on January 3, 1944, just as the Germans were being forced out of the region by the Red Army.²⁶