ULANOV
Pre-1941: Ulanov, village and raion center, Vinnitsa oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Ulanow, Rayon center, Gebiet Kalinowka, Generalkommissariat Shitomir; post-1991: Ulaniv, Khmil’nyk raion, Vinnytsia oblast’, Ukraine
Ulanov is located about 70 kilometers (44 miles) north-northwest of Vinnitsa. According to the 1939 population census, 1,188 Jews were living in the village (70.5 percent of the total population). Altogether, in 1939 there were 1,754 Jews living in the Ulanov raion, with most of the others residing in the nearby village of Sal’nitsa.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, a small part of the Jewish population was able to evacuate. At that time, some men of eligible age were conscripted into or enrolled voluntarily in the Red Army. More than 80 percent of the total pre-war Jewish population remained in Ulanov at the start of the occupation.
German armed forces occupied the village in July 1941. From July to October 1941, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) ran the village’s affairs. The military commandant established a local administration and an auxiliary Ukrainian police unit recruited from among the local residents. The head of the Ukrainian police was a man named Lorenz. Initially there were seven men serving under him.1
Shortly after the occupation of the village, the Ortskommandantur organized the registration of the Jewish population. The Jews were required to wear armbands on their sleeves and also to perform various forms of heavy manual labor. In August 1941, the German military administration recorded a village population of 1,200, a figure that included some 1,000 Jews.2
At the end of October 1941, authority passed into the hands of a German civil administration. Ulanov was incorporated into Gebiet Kalinowka, and Regierungsrat Dr. Seelemeyer became the Gebietskommissar. In turn, Gebiet Kalinowka became part of Generalkommissariat Shitomir.3 In November or December of 1941, a squad of four Gendarmes arrived in Ulanov from Germany and established a post initially under the command of Josef Rückl. The Gendarmerie also assumed control over the Ukrainian police, now renamed Schutzmannschaft-Einzeldienst, which consisted of about 30 men.4
At some time prior to December 1941, the German authorities in the village ordered the creation of a ghetto. One street was cordoned off in the center of Ulanov and was surrounded by barbed wire. Jewish families lived together in this confined area.5 Jews were prohibited from leaving the limits of the ghetto and were forbidden to buy goods from the local Ukrainians. Starvation quickly broke out in the ghetto as a consequence. In December 1941 and in the spring of 1942, more than 450 Jews from the village of Sal’nitsa were resettled into the ghetto.6 Probably in mid-May 1942, several hundred able-bodied Jews were taken in two groups to an airfield site near Kalinovka, where a Jewish forced labor camp was established.7
The ghetto was liquidated on June 10, 1942.8 The Gendarmes in Ulanov received notice of the forthcoming Aktion, as they were instructed to prepare the necessary pits in advance. The Gendarmerie and local police, including forces brought in from Kalinovka under the command of the SS- und Polizei-Gebietsführer, Leutnant der Gendarmerie Konrad Lange, rounded up somewhere between 600 and 1,200 people from the ghetto and escorted them to the Jewish cemetery opposite the Gendarmerie post on the edge of town. Here a small squad of the Security Police and SD, probably from Vinnitsa, carried out the shootings, while the Gendarmerie and local police guarded those waiting to be shot. The Gendarmerie based in Ulanov also carried out at least two subsequent shooting Aktions at the same site against smaller groups of Jews uncovered in and around the town over the ensuing weeks.9
Only a few Jews managed to survive the Ulanov ghetto by escaping and either hiding in the surrounding countryside or successfully concealing their Jewish identity.10
SOURCES
Documentation regarding the annihilation of the Ulanov Jews can be found in the following archives: BA-L (B 162/7364); DAVINO (R4422-1-39; R1683-1-10); GARF (7021-54-1234); RGVA (1275-3-662); VHF (# 29072, 29097, and 51316); and YVA. Microfilm copies of much of this documentation are also available at the USHMM.
NOTES
1. RGVA, 1275-3-662, p. 24, Feldkommandantur 675 (Abt. VII) in Winniza an Sicherungsdivision 444 (Abt. VII), August 25, 1941.
2. Ibid.
3. 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.
4. BA-L, B 162/7364 (ZStL, 204a AR-Z 134/67), pp. 135–138, statement of E. Heinisch on July 19, 1977.
5. Ibid.; Heinisch commented that the ghetto was in existence on his arrival in Ulanov in November or December 1941. Also see DAVINO, R4422-1-39; R1683-1-10.
6. GARF, 7021-54-1234, p. 4.
7. See the entry in this volume for the Kalinovka ghetto.
8. GARF, 7021-54-1234, pp. 1, 5.
9. Ibid., pp. 1, 5, 7. According to the findings of the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK), during the course of the three Aktions in June 1942, there were 3,285 Jews killed. This number appears to be significantly too high. E. Heinisch on July 19, 1977, stated that the number of Jews in Ulanov at the time could not have exceeded 600; see BA-L, B 162/7364, pp. 135–138.
10. VHF, # 29072, 29097, and 51316, video testimonies of Aleksandra S., Elizaveta G., and David F.
