Szumsk

Jews began to settle in Szumsk in the first half of the 18th century. In 1897, under the rule of the Russian Empire, the Jewish population of the town numbered 1,962 and comprised approximately 87 percent of its total population. After World War I Szumsk was incorporated into the independent Polish state as part of the Volhyn Region. In 1921 the Jewish population of the town stood at 1,717 and comprised 73 percent of its total population. In the interwar period some Jews were grain or lumber merchants, while others were artisans. Zionist parties and youth movements (such as HeHalutz and Beitar) were active in the town. Szumsk also had a Hebrew-language Tarbut school, that for some time operated a kindergarten. After September 17, 1939, with the arrival of the Red Army in the town following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Szumsk became part of Soviet Ukraine. Shortly afterward, several hundred Jewish refugees from the Nazi-occupied part of Poland settled in Szumsk. However, in 1940 many of them were deported by the Soviet authorities to the eastern part of the USSR. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, several Jewish families fled eastward; however, most Jews did not want to or were unable to evacuate. At the start of the German occupation it is estimated there were probably more than 2,000 Jews still in the town. The Germans captured the town on July 3, 1941. A few days later some Ukrainian residents organized a pogrom that lasted about a week and included the looting of Jewish homes and property. Several Jews were killed when they attempted to defend their property. In the summer and fall of 1941 the German authorities implemented a series of anti-Jewish measures in Szumsk. They established a Judenrat (Jewish council) under Rabbi Yosef Rabin, who was soon replaced by Weissler, a German-speaking refugee from Katowice. The Judenrat assigned Jews for forced labor, for example, for repairing roads and bridges, working in sawmills and on farms, and clearing snow in the winter. A Jewish Order Police force, under the command of Horowitz, was also set up. One of the tasks of the Jewish Police was to collect Jewish "contributions" of items, such as gold, silver, and furs, for the Germans. Jews were required to wear distinctive symbols (initially an armband, then from September 1941 yellow patches). They were prohibited from trading or otherwise contacting non-Jews. They were also forbidden to use the sidewalks and were required to bow before passing Germans. In early March 1942 (at the time of the Jewish holiday of Purim), the German administration issued orders for all the Jews from Szumsk and the surrounding villages to be imprisoned in a ghetto by March 12. The ghetto was located in the poorest section of the town. Living conditions were terrible with m any Jews dying of hunger or disease, especially typhus. There was no hospital, but the Judenrat organized soup kitchens for the many poor Jews. In order to survive Jews had to smuggle into the ghetto food that was traded for their last possessions from local peasants. During the ensuing month, the ghetto Jews were charged frequent "taxes," which had to be paid in valuables or crops. When the Jews were unable to meet one such a demand in early June 1942, thirty ghetto inmates were murdered. On German orders several workshops for Jewish craftsmen engaged in tailoring and the repair of shoes and watches for the Germans and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen were established outside the ghetto. Most of the ghetto's inmates were killed on August 12-13 (or according to another source, on August 18-19) 1942, when 1,792 of them (mainly women, children, and elderly people) were taken to pits located outside the town on the bank of the Viliya [Neris] River, near the village of Kruholets, and shot to death by the Gendarmerie (German rural order police), assisted by Ukrainian auxiliary police. After this mass murder operation, some of the Jews were able to hide in previously prepared bunkers. Over the ensuing days and weeks, in order to catch those hidden Jews, the Gendarmerie and Ukrainian auxiliary police regularly searched the territory of the former ghetto, shooting to death near the Viliya River all the Jews they had found and captured. The last group of Jews, including about 100 who had been temporarily spared to help clear up the ghetto and sort the remaining Jewish possessions, was appparently shot to death by October 1, 1942, at the same murder site. Some of the fifteen remaining specialists who had been selected from 100 Jewish workers to live a bit longer succeeded in escaping. Szumsk was liberated by the Red Army on February 28, 1944.