Hier sind einige Notizen zu Krzemieniec vom USHMM
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CAMPS AND GHETTOS, 1933–1945
(dies soll nicht heißen, dass diese Fotos diese Ereignisse widerspiegeln, sondern für den Kontext sorgen).
p1318 USHMM Vol2 Part b
The Aktions were coordinated by the Security Police, using manpower of the Gendarmerie and the local police (Schutzmannschaft) to round up and escort the Jews. In mid-August 1942, the German Security Police reported, for example,
the shooting of 6,402 Jews in Krzemieniec, 3,399 Jews in Kamien Koszyrski, 1,792 Jews in Szumsk, and the killing of 420 Jews in Mikaszewicze.
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BERE[CE
Pre- 1939: Bere{ce, town, województwo wołynskie, Poland;
1939– 1941: Velikie Berezhtsy, Kremenets raion, Ternopol’ oblast’,
Ukrainian SSR; 1941– 1944: Bereshzy, Gebiet Kremenez,
Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien; post- 1991: Velyki
Berezhtsi, Ternopil’ oblast’, Ukraine
Bere{ce lies on the left bank of the Ikwa River, 8 kilometers
(5 miles) west of Krzemieniec. In 1921, the Jewish population
of Bere{ce was 181.1
German forces entered Bere{ce in early July 1941. During
July and August 1941, a German military administration temporarily
governed the small town until September 1941, when
power was transferred to a German civil administration. The
town was in the Rayon and Gebiet of Kremenez, in Generalkommissariat
Wolhynien und Podolien. The Gebietskommissar
in Krzemieniec was Regierungsrat Müller.2
In the summer and fall of 1941, German forces implemented
a series of anti- Jewish mea sures in Bere{ce: Jews were
required to wear distinctive symbols (fi rst a white armband
with a Star of David on the right arm, and later a yellow patch
sewn on their clothing), and they were compelled to perform
forced labor, during which they were beaten and otherwise
abused.
In the spring of 1942, the Germans established a small
ghetto in Bere{ce. It contained 238 Jews and was guarded by
the local police, as recalled by Mikhail Tkatschuk, who subsequently
became the head of the local police in Bere{ce.3
In August 1942, the Security Police and SD, assisted by the
German Gendarmerie and Ukrainian police, conducted a series
of Aktions against the Jews of the Krzemieniec ghetto. In
mid- August 1942, the Jews from the ghetto in Bere{ce were
brought in trucks and murdered along with more than 6,000
Jews in Krzemieniec.4
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p1394
KRZEMIENIEC
Pre- 1939: Krzemieniec (Yiddish: Kremenets), town, województwo
wołynskie, Poland; 1939– 1941: Kremenets, raion center, Tarnopol’
oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941– 1944: Kremenez, Rayon and
Gebiet center, Generalkommissariat Wolhynien und Podolien;
post- 1991: Kremenets’, Ternopil’ oblast’, Ukraine
Krzemieniec is located 77 kilometers (48 miles) southsoutheast
of Łuck. In 1931, 7,256 Jews lived there (26.5 perdescriptions
cent of the population). By 1941, the Jewish population exceeded
12,000, including more than 4,000 refugees. After the
start of the German invasion, several hundred young Jews
were able to fl ee into the Soviet Union.
The Germans occupied the town on July 3, 1941.1 During
July and August 1941, a German military administration temporarily
governed the town; in September 1941, authority was
transferred to a German civil administration. The town became
the administrative center of Gebiet Kremenez, in Generalkommissariat
Wolhynien und Podolien. The Gebietskommissar
in Krzemieniec was Regierungsrat Müller.2 A Ukrainian
local council and police force were created in Krzemieniec.
The Ukrainian police, renamed the Schutzmannschaft, was
subordinate to the German Gendarmerie post consisting of
several German Gendarmes.
According to a report dated July 20, 1941, by Einsatzgruppe
C based in Zhitomir, the Soviets had killed 100 to 150 Ukrainians
just before their retreat from Krzemieniec. Some of these
people were apparently thrown into a cauldron of boiling water,
as evidenced by the fact that the corpses, when exhumed, had no
skin. The German Einsatzgruppe report states that on July 3,
1941, “the Ukrainians killed 130 Jews with clubs as a form of revenge.”
3 The account of B. Shvarts indicates that the pogrom
lasted for several days. He reports that Jewish stores were
robbed, and Jews were badly beaten and thrown in jail. The SS
and “Gendarmerie” (probably “Feldgendarmerie” of the Wehrmacht)
assisted the Ukrainians, who arrived in groups from the
surrounding villages to beat and kill Jews. Shvarts writes that a
group of Jews bribed the German commandant to stop the murders;
he estimates that about 800 Jews died during the pogrom.4
In the summer and fall of 1941, German forces implemented
a series of anti- Jewish mea sures in Krzemieniec: a
Judenrat was created, Jews were required to wear distinctive
symbols (fi rst a white armband with a Star of David on the
right arm, and then a yellow patch sewn on the shoulder, a
little below the collar), and they were compelled to perform
forced labor during which they were beaten and otherwise
abused. It was forbidden for Jews to use the sidewalks, and
they had to take off their hats when passing a German.
On one occasion, a Jewish child who had tried to buy
something in the marketplace was caught and forced to dance
on a table and then lick a German’s spit off the table. On another
occasion, German offi cials sent the beadle home and
stole everything valuable from the synagogue. They then
brought in barrels of kerosene and other fl ammable material
and set the synagogue on fi re. Only its stone walls were left
standing. Afterwards, the Gestapo came to the Judenrat to
“investigate” who had burned down the synagogue. They
wrote an offi cial report claiming that the Jews had burned
it down themselves. Gebietskommissar Müller decided to pull
down the walls of the burned- out synagogue and sow the
place where it stood with grass. During the destruction of
the walls, one wall fell and crushed some people.5
On July 23, 1941, the German Security Police arrested and
killed members of the Jewish “intelligentsia” (several hundred
people).6 According to Shvarts, the Gestapo arrived in Krzemieniec
and ordered the Judenrat to collect people with an
academic status for forced labor. Those gathered (mostly intelligentsia
and religious leaders) were taken away to be shot:
800 people were killed, destroying the fabric of the Jewish
community’s leadership.7
Soon after their arrival, the Germans appointed a Jewish
Council (Judenrat). The fi rst chairman was Dr. Benjamin
Katz, and other members included Dr. Buzi Landesberg and
Dr. Lione Grinberg. The Judenrat consisted of well- respected
individuals from the town as well as refugees from the west
who knew German.8 After Katz was murdered for his refusal
to collaborate with the Nazis, Bronfeld became the Judenrat
chairman (in the summer of 1942). After Bronfeld was killed
by the Nazis, Dr. Mandel became chairman. The Judenrat
was responsible for supplying Jews for forced labor and for
distributing the daily bread ration of 75 grams (2.6 ounces)
per person.
The head of the Jewish Police was Dr. Mandel from Kraków,
who spoke German well. Two of the Jewish policemen acted as
German agents: Bronfeld, a Czech Jew (who later became
Judenrat chairman), and a Jew from Łódz, Itsi Diamant. Diamant
was connected to an international band of thieves and
swindlers. He was shot when diamonds were discovered in his
house. Before the establishment of the ghetto, the Jewish Police
were responsible for collecting contributions and for ensuring
that people went to work as instructed. The police would go
from house to house, collecting people for forced labor. The
workers were fed a half- liter (16.9 ounces) of soup and 250 grams
(8.8 ounces) of bread per day. Cleanliness was very important
and enforced by the Jewish Police, as was the 7:00 p.m. curfew.
The police helped smuggle food into the ghetto at night because
they were allowed past the ghetto guards.9
On March 1, 1942, the remaining Jews (about 8,000 people)
were driven into a ghetto.10 The ghetto was located in the west
part of town. It was 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) long and 100 meters
(328 feet) wide. It was initially set up at the end of January 1942
and sealed off from the rest of the town on March 1. The
ghetto was surrounded by a wooden fence 3 meters (9.8 feet)
high. Although Jews were allowed to bring in their belongings,
the ghetto was so overcrowded that there was nowhere to
put them, and much had to be left behind.11
Some 10 to 12 people died of hunger every day, owing to
the meager daily bread allotment. Gebietskommissar Müller
issued some 500 death sentences based on false accusations of
alleged “crimes.” The German authorities demanded a “contribution”
of 25 tons of grain. Women and men were forced to
have short hair. Jews had to dismantle the Jewish cemetery
because the Germans needed the stones for their own construction
projects. Müller ordered the Judenrat to set up a
brothel for Jewish youths aged 16 to 19. Every youth was ordered
to visit the brothel and received a special note acknowl-
edging his visit. This order was revoked for youths whose
parents could afford to pay off the Germans. In August 1941,
Jews had to “contribute” more than 10 kilograms (22 pounds)
of gold and silver to Müller.
A standard day in the ghetto proceeded in the following
way: fi rst, people stood in line in the morning at one of the
three wells for water. After cleaning and sweeping the streets,
people went to the kitchen for soup and to distribution points
for bread. Sometimes people fought for bread when there was
not enough, and the police had to intervene. The youths were
taken to their workplaces; people walked in columns, with a
policeman at the head. On the way back from work, people
were searched and beaten if the Germans caught them smuggling
anything. The hospital was not assigned any food, so
workers would sometimes bring some back for the sick.
There was an illegal market in the ghetto.12
Once, a drunken German entered the ghetto. All the
adults ran away, leaving only the children. The German gave
them all candy and embraced and kissed them. Then he cried
and lamented, “Poor Jewish children! Why does that damned
Hitler persecute you?” The ghetto guards could sometimes
be bribed to let wagons of food into the ghetto.
When the Jews in the Krzemieniec ghetto heard about killing
Aktions in other towns, they began to look for ways to escape
death. Some people escaped from the ghetto; others built
hiding places underground (bunkers). The bunkers were so
small, however, that people were unable to stay in them for an
entire Aktion, and many ended up coming out. Others were
able to build bunkers that had electricity and sewage facilities.
In mid-1942, there were about 8,500 Jews in the ghetto.13
One week before the fi nal Aktion (in August 1942), the
German forces made announcements in the city, inciting the
local population against the Jews. On Saturday, August 9,
1942, the workers received an order to report to the trains
after work to load grain onto wagons. They worked half the
night, which ensured that they would be even more exhausted
than usual and unable to resist when the Aktion was carried
out. During the night of August 9– 10, loud shooting broke
out in the ghetto. The ghetto fence was torn down, and Jews
were dragged out of their houses. Some people were caught in
the crossfi re and died in the ghetto; some people escaped to
their hiding places. About 60 Gendarmes and a force of Ukrainian
Schutzmänner, mainly from the locally based battalion,
entered the ghetto. The Nazis claimed that the shooting
throughout the night was carried out by Jews who had initiated
an uprising.
The Judenrat was ordered to gather all those capable of work
at the gate. The Gendarmes and the Security Police performed
a selection to determine who would be removed from the
ghetto. People were lined up at the gates in two long lines, and
the Ukrainians stood between the two lines. The security
forces led people in groups of 400 from the gate to Belaia Krinitsa
under heavy guard. Those who tried to escape were shot.
According to one account, 1,500 able- bodied prisoners were
dispatched to perform forced labor in Belaia Krinitsa,14 while
another account gives the number as 1,200 Jewish craftsmen
The fi rst victims of the Aktion (which took place on the
following day) were the patients in the hospital and the poor,
who occupied a former hotel. They were gathered in the
synagogue square and taken from there to the old barracks
behind the city in wagons or on foot. The victims were beaten
and forced to undress and lie down in the ditches. Local
Christians watched as the victims were shot. The German
police and their collaborators returned to the ghetto to look
for people hiding in bunkers. The cries of infants often gave
people away. Sometimes the children were suffocated or poisoned
by their desperate parents. Some people committed
suicide with their families to avoid falling into the hands of
the enemy.16 The Aktion was carried out by a team of Security
Police and SD with the assistance of the German Gendarmerie
and Ukrainian police, including the 102nd Ukrainian
Schutzmannschaft battalion, based in the town before its
transfer to antipartisan operations in Belorus sia. About 5,000
Jews from the ghetto and half the Jews in Belaia Krinitsa
were killed.17
On August 14, 1942, 1,500 more Jews were shot, making a
total of 6,402 people.18 A German report dated August 15
states that Jews from the small nearby ghetto in Bere{ce were
brought in trucks to Krzemieniec and killed along with the
local Jews. The victims were 2,322 men, 2,925 women, and
1,155 children.19 On August 16, 1942, about 400 Jews from
Belaia Krinitsa were killed together with Jews captured in
the ghetto and transported to the killing site in two cars.
Some 200 craftsmen were brought from Belaia Krinitsa to
the prison in Krzemieniec. On August 20, 1942, a team of
Security Police and SD shot 1,210 more Jews (848 women
and children and 362 men). During the night of September 2,
1942, Jews hiding in the ghetto set it on fi re to cover their
escape. Most of them were captured and shot (several hundred
people).20
Another account states that the Germans set the ghetto on
fi re to kill the Jews remaining in hiding. Firemen were brought
in to make sure the fi re did not spread outside the ghetto. The
people escaping the fi re from the bunkers were killed by the
fi remen, Germans, and Ukrainians.21 Additionally, 120 Jewish
craftsmen from the prison were shot on September 2. Later
the remaining craftsmen were killed.22
Sixteen- year- old R. Kravets witnessed the slaughter on August
10, 1942, and recorded the following in his diary: “Behind
the town there is an old entrenchment, about a kilometer [0.6
mile] in length . . . that is where the execution took place. The
removal of the Jews from the ghetto began at approximately
3:00 a.m. and lasted until late in the night.” He writes that
people were loaded into a truck in layers: the fi rst people on
the bottom of the truck, the next set on top of the fi rst, and so
on. There was absolute silence; no one talked or screamed or
cried. Trucks returned, fi lled with clothing. The drunken
Ukrainian policemen pocketed the victims’ watches and hid
clothing in secure places in the forest to pick up later for themselves.
At the site of the killings, the victims were unloaded
from the truck, forced to undress, and led one by one to the
entrenchment.
The entrenchment was fi lled with human bodies, covered
with chlorine. People were forced to lie down on the corpses
and were shot by two Gestapo men. Some Jews resisted, not
wanting to undress or get into the ditch. These people were
shot on the spot and thrown into the pit. When it seemed full,
a policeman covered it with some earth, and the people were
led to the adjacent ditch. The Ukrainian policemen were constantly
given alcohol to keep them drunk. “People were completely
apathetic— they just wanted it to end, and quickly: this
is a result of the famine and beatings.”23
It appears that only a handful of Jews from the ghetto
survived.24
SOURCES Several fi rsthand accounts of events in the ghetto
can be found in the yizkor book, which contains material in
Hebrew and Yiddish, edited by Abraham Stein, Pinkas
Kremenets: Sefer Zikkaron (Tel Aviv: Irgun ‘ole Kremenits be-
Yisrael, 1954). There is also some material concerning
survivors from Krzemieniec in M. Goldenberg et al., eds.,
Kol yotsai Kremenits be-Yisrael v’batfutsot (Booklet 11) (Tel
Aviv: Or ga ni za tion of Kremenets Emigrants, 1974); see www
.jewishgen .org/ Yizkor/ kremenets1/ kremenets1 .html .
Documents on the annihilation of the Jews of Krzemieniec
can be found in the following archives: AYIH (301/1393);
BA- BL; BA- L (ZStL, II 204 AR- Z 163/67); GARF (7021-
75-3); IPN; and YVA (JM/324 and JM/10598).
Ester- Basya Vaisman
NOTES
1. Another source indicates that the Germans entered
the town on July 4; see B. Shvarts, “Ghetto Martyrology and
the Destruction of Kremenets,” in Stein, Pinkas Kremenets,
pp. 416– 435, here p. 416.
2. BA- BL, BDC, SSHO 2432, Übersicht über die besetzten
Ostgebiete nach dem Stand vom 10. März 1942, hg. vom
Chef der Ordnungspolizei, Berlin, March 13, 1942.
3. BA- BL, R 58/214, Ereignismeldung UdSSR no. 28,
July 20, 1941. According to another source, 300 to 500 Jews
were killed during the pogrom or ga nized by local Ukrainian
antisemites; see GARF, 7021- 75- 6, pp. 13 reverse, 20, and 49.
4. Shvarts, “Ghetto Martyrology,” p. 418.
5. Ibid., pp. 419– 422.
6. GARF, 7021- 75- 3, p. 14.
7. Shvarts, “Ghetto Martyrology,” p. 420. According to
Shvarts, the Aktion took place in August.
8. Ibid., p. 418.
9. Ibid., pp. 423– 426.
10. A. Kruglov, Katastrofa ukrainskogo evreistva 1941–
1944 gg.: Entsiklopedicheskii spravochnik (Kharkov: “Karavella,”
2001), pp. 173– 174. Kruglov notes that the Soviet Extraordinary
State Commission (ChGK) report gives the fi gure of
some 13,000 Jews enclosed in the ghetto. However, in light of
subsequent reports on the fate of the ghetto’s Jews, this number
is almost certainly too high.
11. Shvarts, “Ghetto Martyrology,” p. 421.
12. Ibid., pp. 423– 425.
13. Ibid., p. 428.
14. Ibid., pp. 431– 433.
15. Kruglov, Katastrofa, pp. 173– 174.
