IANUSHPOL’
Pre-1941: Ianushpol’, town and raion center, Zhitomir oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1943: Januschpol, Rayon center, Gebiet Berditschew, Generalkommissariat Shitomir; post-1991: Ivanopil’, Zhytomyr oblast’, Ukraine
Ianushpol’ is located 55 kilometers (34 miles) southwest of Zhitomir. In 1939, 721 Jews lived in Ianushpol’. (In the entire Ianushpol’ raion, there were only 963 Jews.)
German troops occupied the town on July 3, 1941. During July, a detachment of Einsatzkommando 5 carried out the first anti-Jewish Aktion. Mention of this Aktion can be found in Einsatzgruppen Report no. 58 of August 20, 1941:
In recent days, in the town of Ianushpol’, where the Jewish population comprised about 25 percent of the inhabitants, the Jewish women behaved with especial insolence and impudence in response to the social restrictions imposed upon them. They became so incensed that they ripped off their own and their children’s clothes. As a provisional punishment measure and to calm down the situation in general, members of the Einsatzkommando shot 15 Jewish men. Further punitive measures will follow.1
It is probable that a “Jewish residential quarter” or “open ghetto” was created in the town of Ianushpol’ as early as July 1941. The Jews were ordered to mark their identity by wearing a piece of fabric in the shape of a yellow star on their clothing. Furthermore, they were forced to carry out physically demanding work. During the winter of 1941–1942, the Jewish inmates of the ghetto suffered from hunger and cold. The ghetto was liquidated on May 29, 1942. A unit of the German Security Police and SD, probably from the outpost in Berdichev,2 in collaboration with members of the German Gendarmerie and Ukrainian auxiliary police, shot several hundred Jews (according to one source, 680).3 From among the victims, about 80 Jews who were capable of work were selected and sent to the labor camp in Berdichev. According to other sources, in the town of Ianushpol’ the German forces shot 520 local Jews4 and approximately 400 Jews from other neighboring areas, together with 60 Roma (Gypsies).5 Of the few Jews who escaped, some joined the Soviet partisans.
The other Jews of Rayon Januschpol resided mostly in the villages of Raigorodok, Krasnopol’, and Stetkovtsy. In the village of Raigorodok, 157 Jews were killed between 1941 and 1942. Among the victims were Jews from Ianushpol’ and other towns.6 Two mass killings of Jews took place: one on September 10, 1941, and another in July 1942. During the second Aktion the last so-called specialist workers and their families were killed. In the village of Krasnopol’, German security forces shot 35 Jews.7 In Stetkovtsy, 12 Jews were killed.8 Finally, in the village of Lemeshi, 5 Jews who had escaped from the ghetto in Ianushpol’ were shot.9
SOURCES
A brief article on Ianushpol’ can be found in Shmuel Spector and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds., The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem; New York: New York University Press, 2001), p. 1474. This article specifically mentions the existence of a ghetto but does not reveal its sources.
Documents regarding the annihilation of the Jews in Ianushpol’ and the surrounding villages can be found in GARF (7021-64-812 and 7021-60-317).
NOTES
1. A. Kruglov, ed., Sbornik dokumentov i materialov ob unichtozhenii natsistami evreev Ukrainy v 1941–1944 godakh (Kiev: Institut iudaiki, 2002), p. 51; see also Peter Klein, ed., Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42 (Berlin: Hentrich, 1997), p. 160.
2. The Sipo/SD outpost in Berdichev was commanded from June 1942 by Alois Hülsdünker; see Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 16 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1979), Lfd. Nr. 490; LG-Be, 3 PKs 1/57 (Strafsache gegen Knop u.a.), p. 346.
3. GARF, 7021-64-812, pp. 172–173.
4. Ibid., 7021-60-317, pp. 68–75 (list of local Jews who were killed).
5. Ibid., p. 67.
6. Ibid., pp. 33–35 and reverse.
7. Ibid., pp. 8 and reverse.
8. Ibid., pp. 52 and reverse.
9. Ibid., p. 41.
