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

Pre-1941: Vcheraishe, village and raion center, Zhitomir oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1943: Wtscherajsche, Rayon center, Gebiet Rushin, Generalkommissariat Shitomir; post-1991: Vcheraishe, Ruzhyn raion, Zhytomyr oblast’, Ukraine

Vcheraishe is located 57 kilometers (36 miles) southeast of Zhitomir. According to the 1939 population census, 494 Jews lived in the village (12.9 percent of the total population). Additionally, 131 Jews lived in the villages of what was then the Vcheraishe raion.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, some of the Jewish population was able to evacuate, but others who tried to leave were forced back by the rapid German advance. At that time, men of military age were conscripted into or enlisted voluntarily for the Red Army. Around 400 Jews remained in Vcheraishe at the start of the German occupation.

The village was occupied by German armed forces in mid-July 1941. From July to October 1941, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) ran the affairs of Vcheraishe. The German military commandant set up a local administration and organized an auxiliary Ukrainian police force from among the local villagers. Soon after the occupation of the village, the Ortskommandantur ordered the registration and marking of the Jewish population. The Jews had to wear armbands bearing the Star of David.

Between August 10 and August 23, 1941, Einsatzkommando 5 “inspected” the village on two separate occasions. During the first Aktion, the German Security Police shot 22 Jews and Communists; during the second one, they shot an undisclosed number of Jews and activists.¹

At the end of October 1941, authority passed to a German civil administration. Vcheraishe was initially incorporated into Gebiet Rushin, where Regierungsassessor Ganglhoff was the Gebietskommissar. In turn, Gebiet Rushin formed part of Generalkommissariat Shitomir, within Reichskommissariat Ukraine.² The head of the local police in Vcheraishe from April 1942 until December 1943 was the ethnic German Feldwebel in the Schutzmannschaft, Arthur Reglin. In July 1942, the Gendarmerie post in Vcheraishe had a nominal strength of four Gendarmes and 40 local policemen (Schutzmänner).³ By 1943 Vcheraishe had been transferred to the neighboring Gebiet Kasatin, where the police forces were commanded by Gendarmerie-Gebietsführer Behrens.

In the late summer or fall of 1941, all the Jews of Vcheraishe were forcibly resettled into an open ghetto (Jewish residential district) on one street. Some Jews were also brought into the ghetto from outlying villages. Several families were forced to share a single house. People had to sleep on wooden bunks or on the floor. The local physicians were forbidden to provide medical care to the Jews, and the local population was forbidden to sell them food. Despite some illegal bartering for food, people suffered from hunger in the ghetto, and in the overcrowded conditions diseases spread rapidly. The Jews were routinely beaten by the local police as they were escorted daily out of the ghetto to various forms of manual labor.⁴

On May 1, 1942, a large Aktion took place in which about 200 Jews were brutally dragged out of their houses in the ghetto and were assembled by the German Gendarmerie and the local police. Once the skilled workers had been selected, these forces then escorted the bulk of the Jews to the ditches that had been prepared in the forest about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from Vcheraishe near the village of Budenovka. Some Jews were shot on the way. Four Gestapo men (members of the Security Police and SD from Berdichev) then shot the Jews in a mass grave.⁵ Warned by the head of the village, Vladyk, some Jews managed to escape or hide during the Aktion, but most returned to the run-down houses of the ghetto a few days later, as they were unable to find refuge among the surrounding population.

A second Aktion was carried out about six weeks later when about 40 Jews were shot. After these two Aktions, around 40 artisans remained behind in the village. The Gendarmerie and local police continued to search for any escaped Jews in the surrounding countryside for many months afterwards. On June 9, 1943, Meister der Gendarmerie Strumpf in Vcheraishe reported that he had “resettled” (shot) 3 Jews who had been found wandering around in Rayon Wtscherajsche.⁶

For over a year, the remaining Jews continued to perform forced labor, registering every day with the police. At the end of July 1943, 6 of the Jews escaped.⁷ When this was discovered at the daily roll call, the Germans decided to kill most of the few Jews left. On July 31, 1943, the Gendarmerie post in Vcheraishe reported that the SD in Berdichev had “resettled” 24 Jews in the village.⁸ According to witness evidence, the Jews were shot by two Gestapo men at the cemetery.⁹ After this Aktion, only about 7 Jews remained. To prevent an escape, they were placed in cells and employed only for special work assignments. On one occasion Soviet partisans attempted to liberate them, but 4 of the 7 detainees were shot in the ensuing exchange of gunfire.¹⁰

Altogether about 300 Jews were killed in the village of Vcheraishe between July 1941 and August 1943, including more than 100 children.¹¹