DZERZHINSK
Pre-1941: Dzerzhinsk (Romanov until 1933), town and raion center, Zhitomir oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1943: Romanow (Dsershinsk), Rayon center, Gebiet Tschudnow, Generalkommissariat Shitomir; post-1991: Dzerzhinsk, raion center, Zhitomir oblast’, Ukraine; [post-2003: Romaniv]
The 1939 census indicated 1,720 Jews (24.2 percent of the total population) in the town of Dzerzhinsk and 1,188 Jews living in the villages of the Dzerzhinsk raion. The town is located 53 kilometers (33 miles) west-southwest of Zhitomir.
On July 7, 1941, German forces of the 6th Army occupied the town. By then a few hundred Jews had been able to evacuate to the east. Eligible men were called up to the Red Army or enlisted voluntarily. About three quarters of the pre-war Jewish population remained in Dzerzhinsk at the start of the occupation. In addition, a few hundred Jewish refugees had arrived, bringing the population in the settlement to around 1,800 Jews.
From July to October 1941, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) administered the settlement. The German military authorities established a local administration and an auxiliary Ukrainian police unit recruited from among the local residents.
At the end of October 1941, power was transferred to a German civil administration. Dzerzhinsk became part of Gebiet Tschudnow, and Hitler Jugend (HJ)-Oberstammführer Dr. Blümel was appointed the Gebietskommissar.1 Shortly after the occupation of Dzerzhinsk, the Ortskommandantur ordered the registration of the Jews and marking them with armbands. They were also forced to perform heavy labor, solely on account of their being Jewish.
At the end of July 1941, the Ortskommandantur declared the establishment of an open ghetto (“Jewish residential district”) in Dzerzhinsk, designating for this purpose two streets, which were guarded by the local police.2 Jews were [End Page 1525] forbidden to leave the ghetto area or to buy products from the Ukrainians. As a result, the Jewish population experienced shortages of food, and starvation began to set in.
On August 25, 1941, German security forces conducted the first Aktion in Dzerzhinsk. Jewish men were executed in two ditches in the forest, close to the town.3 A company of the 45th Reserve Police Battalion, commanded by Martin Besser and subordinated to the Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer Russland-Süd, probably carried out the shooting. They murdered 549 people altogether.4
In the middle of October 1941, Ukrainian policemen carried out a second Aktion in the public park, killing more than 100 Jews.5
On October 23, 1941, the Dzerzhinsk ghetto was liquidated. The Ukrainian police shot some 850 elderly people, women, and children in the forest near the town.6 After this Aktion, only the Jewish craftsmen and their families—around 300 people—remained in the town. On December 7, 1941, the Ukrainian policemen shot 168 of them at the former military airfield near the village of Romanovka.7 The remaining 122 persons were shot in the public park in Dzerzhinsk on June 15, 1942.8
Altogether in 1941–1942, around 1,800 Jews were murdered at different sites in Dzerzhinsk.9
A number of Jews were also killed in the villages around Dzerzhinsk. In the villages of Miropol’ and Pechanovka, 41 Jews were murdered: 16 men, 10 women, and 15 children.10 And 253 people were killed in the village of Kamenka.11
SOURCES
Information on the persecution and extermination of the Jewish population of Dzerzhinsk can be found in the following publication: Garri Fel’dman, Zabveniiu ne podlezhit: Sbornik materialov o Kholokoste, perezhitom moimi zemliakami (Zhitomir: Polissia, 2000).
Documents regarding the fate of the Jews of Dzerzhinsk during the Holocaust can be found in the following archives: BA-BL; DAZO; GARF (7021-60-291); and VHAP.
NOTES
1. BA-BL, BDC, SSHO 2432, Organisationsplan der besetzten Ostgebiete nach dem Stand vom 10. März 1942, hg. vom Chef der Ordnungspolizei, Berlin, March 13, 1942.
2. Fel’dman, Zabveniiu ne podlezhit, p. 51.
3. GARF, 7021-60-291, pp. 4, 60, 87–88.
4. VHAP, KdO-Stab RFSS, Tele gram no. 179 from the Higher SS and Police Leader Russia South, August 26, 1941. According to the report of April 10, 1945, after the sites were uncovered, approximately 620 corpses were found in the mass grave (GARF, 7021-60-291, p. 4). The witnesses G. Shnaiderman and B. Zel’tser said that there were around 890 people murdered (pp. 87–88).
5. Inquiry results passed to the author by the Security Service Administration of Ukraine in Zhytomyr oblast’ December 4, 1991. According to the testimony of V. Pekeman, this shooting probably took place on October 18, 1941; see Fel’dman, Zabveniiu ne podlezhit, pp. 34, 135.
6. Testimony of B. Zel’tser, May 25, 1945, GARF, 7021-60-291, p. 88. According to another source, the mass shooting took place on October 25, 1941.
7. Fel’dman, Zabveniiu ne podlezhit, p. 35.
8. Report of May 27, 1945, GARF, 7021-60-291, p. 60.
9. Only 1,499 names of Jews killed in Dzerzhinsk are known. See GARF, 7021-60-291, pp. 61–86.
10. Ibid., p. 121. The shootings took place in September 1941 and February 1942.
11. Ibid., p. 404. The shootings took place on September 28, 1941, in December 1941, and in January 1942.
