Szack

In 1921, when Szack was part of the Polish Republic, it was home to 238 Jews, who comprised 13.6 percent of its total population. In the 1930s, there were about 200 Jewish families in the town. Most of the local Jews were craftsmen or petty merchants. On September 17, 1939, the Red Army invaded Poland in the aftermath of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and Szack became part of Soviet Ukraine. The Germans occupied Szack on June 25, 1941. Sometime later, they set up a labor camp surrounded by barbed wire, where Jews from Szack and the surrounding area were interned. In July 1942, the labor camp was liquidated, and several hundred of its remaining inmates were shot by a German unit at Lake Chernoye outside the town. Former Soviet activists of Ukrainian and Russian origin, along with their family members, were also shot there. Szack was liberated by the Red Army on July 21, 1944.