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

Pre-1941: Gaisin, town and raion center, Vinnitsa oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Gaissin, Rayon and Gebiet center, Generalkommissariat Shitomir; post-1991: Gaisyn, raion center, Vinnytsia oblast’, Ukraine

Gaisin is located 82 kilometers (51 miles) southeast of Vinnitsa. In 1939, there were 4,109 Jews in Gaisin (27.7 percent of the total) and 380 Jews living in the Gaisin raion.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, part of the Jewish population was able to evacuate to the east. Men were conscripted or enlisted voluntarily in the Red Army. About 2,000 Jews remained in the town when the occupation began (50 percent of the pre-war population).

The town was occupied by the Wehrmacht on July 25, 1941. In the summer and fall of 1941, a German military commandant’s office—Ortskommandantur I (V) 275—commanded by a Major Heinrich ran the town. A raion administration and an auxiliary police unit were formed from among the local residents. In the fall of 1941, authority was transferred to the German civil administration. Gaisin became the administrative center of Gebiet Gaissin, and Kreisleiter Becher was named the Gebietskommissar.¹ Gebiet Gaissin also included the Rayons of Teplik and Dshulinka, and it became part of Generalkommissariat Shitomir.

In the summer and fall of 1941, German forces implemented a series of anti-Jewish measures in the town. A Jewish Council ( Judenrat) was created, and all Jews were ordered to wear distinctive armbands bearing the image of the Star of David. Jews were forced to perform heavy labor for the occupying German military forces and were prohibited from leaving the limits of the town. They also had to surrender all their items of value. Jews were not allowed to buy products on the market, and in turn the local Ukrainians were not permitted to have any contact with them. Violators of these regulations were subjected to severe punishments.

At some date in the summer or fall of 1941, Major Heinrich ordered the creation of an “open ghetto” ( Jewish residential district) in Gaisin. One street (Rabochnaia Street) was cordoned off for this purpose, and Jews were expressly prohibited from living on any of the other streets.²

On September 16, 1941, an anti-Jewish Aktion was carried out in the town during which at least 1,409 local Jews were murdered, together with 29 brought in from Ladyzhin, where a similar Aktion had taken place on September 13. The shootings were carried out by men of Police Battalion 304, led by its commander, Major Karl Deckert. The battalion was stationed in Gaisin from September 6 to 19, 1941.³ On the day before the Aktion, the local Ukrainian police marked the houses in which the Jewish victims were living. At 6:00 a.m. on the next day, members of the police battalion drove the Jews out of their houses and gathered them on the market square. From here the victims were escorted to a killing site about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) outside the town. Those Jews unable to walk were carried by others. At the grave site, the Jews were made to lie facedown in the ditch in groups of up to 10 persons, and German policemen shot them from behind with machine pistols. The Aktion continued until 4:00 p.m.⁴ Local commandant Heinrich reported on September 17, 1941, that he had received several items of gold jewelry handed in by a Ukrainian policeman (Milizsoldat) as a result of the “Jewish Aktion” carried out in Gaisin.⁵

The ghetto in Gaisin was basically liquidated after this Aktion. Only about 150 Jewish artisan workers remained in the town thereafter. The majority of them were shot on May 7–10, 1943.⁶ This mass shooting apparently was conducted by members of the local Security Police outpost (Sipo-Aussendienststelle) along with the Ukrainian police. This Security Police outpost was present in Gaisin from 1942 to 1944 and served under the commanding officer of the Security Police and SD in Zhitomir (KdS Shitomir).⁷

In the summer of 1942, a forced labor camp for Jews was created in Gaisin. Jews were resettled there from “Transnistria,” the Romanian-occupied zone of Ukraine. Jewish labor was exploited to build a bridge across the Sob River, which was part of the main road to Vinnitsa. After the completion of the building project, the Jews were shot and buried under the bridge. On October 14, 1942, 230 Jews were shot. On November 6, 1942, 1,000 Jews were shot.⁸ These murders apparently were carried out by Lithuanian policemen of the 7th Lithuanian Police (Schutzmannschaft) Battalion. The military staff of the 4th Company of this battalion was present in Gaisin with one platoon from April to December 1942. The order for the shootings came from SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Christoffel, who from March to November 1942 was the head of the Second Roadbuilding Section (from Vinnitsa to Uman’) and had a residence in Gaisin.

Some names are known of Ukrainians who saved Jews from extermination: Miasnikova, Kutok, and Efrosyn’ia Semeniuk. Semeniuk saved the lives of seven Jews. The German Landwirtschaftsführer (agricultural leader) Fritz Ginzel also [End Page 1527] kept Jews in hiding. He was shot by People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) agents in 1944. The Jewish doctor Niderman was protected by his Ukrainian patients for some time, but the Germans came and arrested him in the middle of the night.⁹

A group of Jews from Gaisin participated in the partisan resistance movement. Partisan sections were based in the Shcheblianskii Forest, which was located near the town. There was a separate detachment composed of Jews, including many women, children, and elderly persons. Many Jews fought actively in the detachment, and other detachments provided the means of protection for them. In addition, at least 12 Jews in the Gaisin region were members of Soviet underground organizations.¹⁰