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

Pre-1941: Zvenigorodka, town and raion center, Kiev oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Swenigorodka, Rayon and Gebiet center, Generalkommissariat Kiew, Reichskommissariat Ukraine; post-1991: Zvenigorodka, Cherkasy oblast’, Ukraine

Zvenigorodka is located 156 kilometers (97 miles) south of Kiev and about 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Uman’. In 1926, there were 6,584 Jews in the town (36.5 percent of the total population); in 1939, there were 1,957 (14 percent of the total population).

On July 29, 1941, German forces occupied Zvenigorodka. In the intervening five weeks after the start of the German invasion, a few hundred Jews were able to evacuate to the east, and a number of Jewish men were called up to the Red Army. Others stayed behind, believing they had nothing to fear from the Germans as they were not members of the Communist Party. Approximately 1,300 Jews remained in Zvenigorodka at the start of the German occupation, including some refugees from western Ukraine who became trapped in the town as they tried to flee eastward.

In the summer and fall of 1941, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) administered the town. The German military commandant established a local administration in the town and an auxiliary Ukrainian police force recruited from local residents.

In December 1941, power was transferred to a German civil administration. Zvenigorodka became the administrative center of Gebiet Swenigorodka, which also included the Rayons of Shpola, Ekaterinopol’, Mokraia Kaligorka, and Ol’shana. Oberbannführer Hannjo Becker became the Gebietskommissar. In turn, Gebiet Swenigorodka was incorporated into Generalkommissariat Kiew within Reichskommissariat Ukraine.¹ A squad of German Gendarmerie based in the town supervised the local Ukrainian police.

Shortly after the start of the occupation, the German military commandant ordered the local administration to register the Jews, who were required to wear white armbands bearing the Star of David. The Jews were forced to perform heavy manual labor (such as repairing roads, cleaning, and construction work), during which they were frequently beaten. A few weeks later, in September 1941,² an open ghetto (“Jewish residential district”) was established on the orders of the German military commandant, on Comintern Street, Gul’kina Street, and several other small streets in the northern part of town. Jews were also brought to the ghetto from the surrounding villages of the Swenigorodka Rayon. Several families had to share each house. The ghetto was not surrounded by barbed wire, but Jews were prohibited from leaving the ghetto area or communicating with the local population. Jews were permitted to visit the market for only a short period in the afternoon. Ukrainian police guards manned checkpoints around the ghetto to enforce these regulations. The Ukrainian policemen and German officials often entered the ghetto and took clothing, dishes, shoes, and any valuables. At night drunken policemen assaulted and robbed the Jews in their houses.³

In September 1941, a detachment of Einsatzkommando 5, commanded by SS-Obersturmführer Lehmann, arrived in Zvenigorodka, where it was based for several weeks.⁴ At the end of September or the beginning of October 1941, Lehmann’s mobile squad of Security Police conducted the first Aktion in Zvenigorodka, seizing about 100 Jewish men and shooting them.⁵

German regulations prohibited the Jews from buying products from the local Ukrainians. However, although entering and leaving the ghetto was forbidden without a special permit, some Ukrainian civilians still came to the ghetto to exchange food for Jewish clothing and furniture. Conditions in the ghetto were very overcrowded, with several families sharing each house. Due to lack of food and heating materials, some ghetto residents died of starvation and disease, including at least one death from typhus. There also were arbitrary arrests and individual killings of Jews conducted by the local police and the Germans.⁶

In the ghetto, there was a Jewish Council (Judenrat), which was established on the orders of the German authorities. The head of the Jewish Council was a man named Lazurik. Among the tasks of the Jewish Council was the organization of daily Jewish labor details, including the repair of roads and cleaning latrines. There was a clinic headed by Dr. Starosel’skaia, who still managed to perform complicated surgery without adequate medications or equipment. There were two dentists, one of whom, Lisa Prober, also treated the locally based German officials. The Germans closed down the clinic in the ghetto after a short time, but the residents continued to improvise medical services despite the lack of medicine and bandages.

At the beginning of May 1942, the German authorities transferred about 100 Jews from the ghetto in the town of Ol’shana.⁷ They brought them to Zvenigorodka at the end of the day, and at night they put them in a prison. The next morning, they selected the able-bodied Jews among them for assignment to a labor camp. Those who were not considered fit to work were sent to the Zvenigorodka ghetto.⁸ On May 5, 1942, by order of the Gebietskommissar, the Ukrainian police and German Gendarmerie rounded up the able-bodied Jews to perform road repair work on the Transit Highway IV (Durchgangsstrasse IV) project. These Jews were resettled into a labor camp that was created in the stables in the village of Nemorozh.⁹ On May 17, 1942, around 150 Jews were resettled in Zvenigorodka from the village of Ekaterinopol’,¹⁰ [End Page 1611] bringing the total number of people in the ghetto to around 1,500. On June 18, 1942, the Germans liquidated the ghetto. Before the liquidation, a group of Jewish craftsmen, their families, and other able-bodied individuals were selected out. The remaining 1,375 people were shot in the nearby meadow.¹¹ The shooting was organized by a detachment of the Security Police and SD subordinated to the Commander of the Security Police (KdS) in Kiev, assisted by the Ukrainian police and German Gendarmerie. The Jewish craftsmen survived in the town until August 1943, when they were also shot.¹²

Fanya Shubinskaya managed to flee when the labor camp at Nemorozh was liquidated and survived with the help of Zinaida Shchaslyva in Novaia Greblia.¹³