Sienkiewiczowka

In the late 19th century about 40 Jewish families settled in the village of Sienkiewiczówka. After World War I, under Polish rule the Jewish population of the village increased to 120 out of a total of 500 residents. In the interwar period many Jews worked in the local leather industry and in agriculture; others were merchants or craftsmen. On the eve of World War II about 60 Jewish families lived in Sienkiewiczówka. The Germans entered Sienkiewiczówka on June 25, 1941. Shortly afterwards a Jewish council (Judenrat) was established by the Germans. The Jews were ordered to wear a Star of David (replaced in September by a yellow patch) on their clothes and to hand over to the local authorities whatever currency and valuables they had. The Jewish men had to perform forced labor. Apparently in February 1942, the German authorities set up a ghetto consisting of a few streets surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by Ukrainian auxiliary police. It was overcrowded: apart from the local Jews, Jews from the surrounding villages were also confined there. Apparently in early October of 1942, most of the inmates of the ghetto were shot to death by an SS murder squad near Sienkiewiczówka railway station. According to one testimony those who had managed to escape this murder operation but were found later were made to perform different kinds of forced labor outside the village. Apparently after several months they too were killed. Sienkiewiczówka was liberated by the Red Army on April 1, 1944.