ARTEMOVSK
Pre-1941: Artemovsk (until 1924 known as Bakhmut), city, Stalino oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1943: Artemowsk, Rear Area, Army Group South (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Süd); post-1991: Artemovsk, Donets’k oblast’, Ukraine
Artemovsk is located about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Donetsk. The 1939 census reported 5,299 Jews in the city (9.56 percent of the total population).
Troops of the German 17th Army occupied the city on October 31, 1941, more than four months after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The majority of the Jews were able to evacuate to the east. However, approximately one quarter of the pre-war Jewish population remained under German occupation.
From the start of the occupation until its end in September 1943, a military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) ran the city. The German military authorities set up a city administration and an auxiliary Ukrainian police force, which took an active part in the persecution and murder of the Jews. The man appointed to be in charge of the city administration was Golovnya, a former German-language teacher.
Sonderkommando 4b, a detachment of Einsatzgruppe C, was stationed in the city from mid-November 1941 until the summer of 1942. SS-Untersturmführer Hans-Joachim Sommerfeld was its commander.1 It was this unit in particular that organized the murder of the remaining Jews in Artemovsk.
On November 18, 1941, the Ortskommandantur ordered all Jews to be registered and to wear “a white armband three fingers wide” on their right sleeves. The Jewish population was also conscripted to perform different forms of heavy labor.2
In the middle of December 1941, Sonderkommando 4b planned to carry out a “cleansing Aktion” in Artemovsk. However, this operation was halted on orders from the chief of staff of the 17th Army, “to await clarification from the front.”3 When the go-ahead was finally given, the Sonderkommando made preparations to murder all the Jews of Artemovsk.
On January 7, 1942, the newspaper Bakhmutskii vestnik (Bakhmut Herald) published an article titled “The Treatment of the Jews in the City of Bakhmut” in which the Jews were ordered to assemble “in the park where the former NKVD railway was located” with “the aim of [establishing their] isolated accommodation.” Every Jew could bring along up to 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of luggage and food supplies for eight days.4 Upon their arrival at the meeting point, the Jews were then resettled into the cellars of the city’s administrative headquarters, where they remained until the middle of February 1942.5 From these cellars they were taken on February 15, 1942,6 to a deserted alabaster quarry where members of Sonderkommando 4b shot them. There were 1,224 Jewish victims of this Aktion.7
On January 12, 1973, in the criminal case against former members of Sonderkommando 4b for their participation in the murder of the Jews in Artemovsk, the court in Düsseldorf declared:
At a later point during their visit to Artemovsk, the defendant [Fritz] Braune—who was then commander of Sonderkommando 4b—informed the defendant Sommerfeld—who was then in the city with the detachment—about the order of the former commander for murdering all the Jews in Artemovsk, and at the same time delivering instructions to put together lists of all the Jews living there for the sake of their future liquidation. The defendant Sommerfeld then ordered the local police to put together the lists. After that was done, the defendant Sommerfeld took the results to the defendant Braune. A few days later, the defendant Braune again came to Artemovsk, where he supervised the rounding up of all the Jews and preparations for their mass execution. Both of the defendants consulted with an officer from the intelligence section who was on the staff of the XLIV Army Corps, which was then functioning as part of the German 17th Army. Together they inspected the situation in the city and selected a site for the execution, in the quarry of a former alabaster production facility.
The rounding-up of the Jews went on for one or two days, and was carried out by the local police. The Jews were taken into a large building in the city, [End Page 1762] and placed under guard. Altogether there were at least 300 Jewish men, women, and children. The cleansing Aktion was carried out sometime between the end of January and early February 1942. On an unspecified day, the defendant Braune, his deputy at the time, Thiemann, and some of the members of the Sonderkommando came to Artemovsk to take part in the operation. At night the victims were taken in large trucks … to the alabaster mining area…. Upon their arrival, the trucks headed off about 80 to 100 meters [262 to 328 feet] and into the mining gallery [shtol’nia]. There the victims had to lie down in groups in the large cavern, which had been carved out of the stone. The cavern was located 30 or 40 meters [about 98 to 131 feet] from the parking lot, next to the mining gallery. Near the entrance door to the cavern from the mining gallery, there was an entrance in the rock, which measured less in length and width than the doors. Floodlights were set up in the car parking area and in the cavern where the shootings would take place. After the victims entered the cavern, the members of the Sonderkommando unit killed them with shots to the back of the head…. The shooting went on for a few hours, and when it was over, the entrance to the cavern was sealed from the outside.8
Despite the threat of being killed, some local residents hid Jews in their own homes. For around 19 months, the family of Dr. D.V. Plygunovaia hid a Jewish girl. Sofia Skibina and Ksenya Chistiakova, the residents of the house at 8 Tsiolkovskaia Street, gave shelter to a young Jewish boy, Tolia Wainshtein. A doctor named Ionov handed out passports of dead ethnic Russians to the Jews. A doctor named Balashova gave false testimony about some deaths in order to save the lives of the captured Jews. Aleksandra Smirennomudrenskaia and her son Nikolai hid a 12-year-old girl named Pana Olykus, but they were caught and murdered together.9
SOURCES
A short article on the fate of the Jews of Artemovsk (“Artemovskaia tragediia”) by S. Tatarinov was published in 2000; see Katastrofa evropeis’koho evreistva pid chas druhoi svitovoi viiny: Refleksii na mezhi stolit’—Zbirnik naukovykh prats’; Materialy konferentsii 29–32 serpnia 1999 r. (Kiev: Instytut iudaiky, 2000), pp. 114–115.
Documentation regarding the destruction of the Jews of Artemovsk can be found in the following archives: BA-BL; BA-L (B 162/14472); GARF (7021-72-30); and StA-N.
NOTES
1. In 1973, Sommerfeld was sentenced by LG-Düss (8 Ks 3/70) to six years in prison.
2. Tatarinov, “Artemovskaia tragediia,” p. 114.
3. See the report on the activities of the 1st Staff unit of the 17th Army for the period from December 13, 1941, to March 10, 1942 (memorandum for December 14, 1941), in StA-N, Bestand KV-Anklage, N-Doc. 3350.
4. GARF, 7021-72-30, pp. 3–4.
5. Ibid., p. 21.
6. Ibid., pp. 22–23.
7. Ereignismeldung UdSSR no. 177, March 6, 1942, in BA-BL, R 58/220. According to the report, “Sonderkommando 4b executed 1,317 persons, including 63 political activists, 30 saboteurs and partisans, and 1,224 Jews. By these means the city of Artemovsk was ‘cleansed’ of its Jewish population.” Information on the executions and activities of Sonderkommando 4b are for the period February 13–19, 1942.
8. See the verdict of LG-Düss (8 Ks 3/70), December 1, 1973, BA-L (B 162/14472).
9. Tatarinov, “Artemovskaia tragediia,” p. 115.
