SOBOLEVKA
[End Page 1568] Pre-1941: Sobolevka, village, Teplik raion, Vinnitsa oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Sobolewka, Rayon Teplik, Gebiet Gaissin, Generalkommissariat Shitomir; post-1991: Sobolivka, Teplyk raion, Vinnytsia oblast’, Ukraine
Sobolevka is located 103 kilometers (64 miles) southeast of Vinnitsa. In 1926, 1,168 Jews lived in the village, while 23 more Jews lived in the three surrounding villages of Brodok, Orlovka, and Velikaia Mochulka.1 According to the available sources, only 434 Jews were still residing in Sobolevka in 1939 (7 percent of the total population).
The village of Sobolevka was occupied by German troops on July 28, 1941, five weeks after the start of their invasion of the Soviet Union. By this time a number of Jews had managed to escape to the east. When German troops arrived in Sobolevka, about 400 Jews were still residing in the village. The German occupiers named an administrative head (starosta) for the village and created a local police force. Between October 1941 and the liberation in 1944, the village was in Gebiet Gaissin, within Generalkommissariat Shitomir. The Gebietskommissar was Kreisleiter Becher, and Leutnant Pösselt commanded the Gendarmerie forces in Gebiet Gaissin.2
At the beginning of September 1941, a ghetto was established in Sobolevka. However, it was not strictly guarded. The head of the Jewish Council ( Judenrat) in the ghetto was Ioyna Zhornitzkii. In April 1942, about 100 young Jews were selected and sent to a labor camp. The German forces, assisted by their collaborators, shot the rest of the ghetto inmates, about 300 people, on May 27, 1942. The shooting Aktion took place in a forest about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 mile) from the village. Jews had dug the pits over the course of two months, thereby digging their own graves. Among those murdered were Rabbi Srul’ Chechelnitzkii and his family.3
Due to the help of some of the local Ukrainian inhabitants, a number of Jews survived the Aktion. Among those who helped to hide Jews were the Moiko family, Anatoly Magera (who saved four individuals), and the Liakhovski family (which saved three people).4
SOURCES
Information about the killing of the Jews of Sobolevka can be found in an article by L. Trachtenberg, “Sobolevka. Istoriia proshlogo bez budushchego (XVII–XX veka),” in Istoki: vestnik Narodnogo universiteta evreiskoi kul’tury v vostochnoi Ukraine, Khar’kov (Kharkov, 1999), no. 4, pp. 124–135.
The files of the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) investigations into the crimes committed by the German forces and their collaborators can be found in DAVINO (R6022-1-43) and in GARF (7021-54-1237).
NOTES
1. Trachtenberg, “Sobolevka,” pp. 124–126.
2. 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.
3. Trachtenberg, “Sobolevka,” pp. 132–133. According to the ChGK report (GARF, 7021-54-1237, p. 50), 382 Jews (90 men, 150 women, and 142 children) were shot on May 27, 1942. In reality, this figure probably represents all the Jews who were killed or died during the German occupation.
4. Trachtenberg, “Sobolevka,” p. 134.
