Jews appear to have first settled in Andrushevka in the early 18th century. In 1897, the town was home to 430 Jews, who made up sixteen percent of the total population. Before World War I, the Jewish community of Andrushevka played a major role in the local commerce. Most of the shops in the town were owned by Jews, as were a local pharmacy and turpentine factory. In 1939, there were 658 Jewish residents in Andrushevka, making up ten percent of the total population.
Andrushevka was occupied by German troops on July 16, 1941. The local Jews, along with a number of Jewish refugees from elsewhere, were shot...
The Jewish survivors of the first massacre – mostly women, children, and elderly people – were apparently murdered in April 1942, although some testimonies date the second murder operation to May or early June 1942. The Jews were taken from the ghetto to the shooting site in the forest near the village of Andrushevka, with the sick and the elderly being transported in carts. They were shot there. According to some sources, the mothers were first ordered to put their children in the pit, stacking them one atop the other, and then to lie down on top of them. The total number of victims is estimated at over 250.
By the early 1960s, Jewish survivors from Andrushevka, who had returned to the village after spending the war in the Soviet interior, had apparently managed to erect tombs over the Jewish mass graves, fence them off, and put up inscriptions with the names of some of the victims. By the early 2000s, some former Jewish residents of Andrushevka, including the Balshins family, had apparently begun to search for the names of the other victims. Thanks to their efforts, which were supported by the local authorities and some local businesses, several memorial boards with a list of the victims' names were set up at the...
The first shooting of the Jews of Andrushevka took place on August 19, 1941, in the Lysaya Gora ravine in the nearby forest. Some testimonies refer to the murder site as "Krasnaya Gora". Most of the victims of this massacre were men and young women.
Testimony of Maria Levin, born in the Andrushevka region, Ukraine, 1922, regarding her experiences in hiding, in Nuremberg, Ravensbrueck and on a death march
German occupation of Zhitomir, 1941; life in hiding; detention with a female friend, 1943; deportation to Nuremberg, Germany; forced labor; beatings; escape attempt; capture and detention in the Nuremberg prison; deportation to the Rosenweiz [?] camp; beatings; deportation to Ravensbrueck; difficult subsistence conditions in the camp; camp life for one year and three months; on a death march for two days and liberation by the Red Army.
Consequences...
Testimony of Cila (Korostinishevsky) Vinokur , born in Galchyn, 1924, regarding her experiences in Galchyn, the Andrushevka Ghetto, hiding and forced labor in Berlin and Zossen
The family and childhood in Galchyn; attending a Ukrainian school; difficult economic situation.
Outbreak of the war and entry of the Germans, 1941; murder of the uncle and grandfather; deportation of the family to the Andrushevka Ghetto in August; memories from the murder of her mother and father; abuse by Ukrainians; work in villages, 1942; hiding with an Ukrainian family; move to Chmelnik with the Ukrainian family; work in a...
Roiko, Mariya
Kapitskaya-Roiko, Nadezhda
Mariya Roiko and her three daughters lived in the village of Galchin (today Hal’chyn, Zhytomyr District) and were members of an Evangelic sect. The girls – Nadezhda, Valentina, and Tamara – attended school in Andrushevka, the county seat, along with the children of the Blaivais family, who were Jews, and the parents met through the children. On July 16, 1941, Andrushevka (now Andrushivka) was captured by the Germans. In the following month the town’s Jewish population was decimated in a large-scale murder operation, and the remaining Jews were herded into a...