Murder Story of Buczacz Jews at Fedor Hill

... I saw about a dozen SS men and Ukrainians. They were approaching a house nearby, and then they surrounded it. In seconds I heard the terrible sound of broken doors and loud shouting. "Out, damned Jews!" ... Thousands of Jewish people were murdered in that action. The discovery of many bunkers took place due to a young Ukrainian dogcatcher who used his dogs to find the hiding places. He was later killed by an unknown person. The people were murdered next to mass graves on the Fador [Fedor Hill] and on Baszty [Hill] near the Jewish cemetery....

My dear and beloved children! I am writing you the last letter of my life since I am going, after four months of hiding with three goats in a goat shed - I can not stay here. All I can do is to go to the Gestapo and ask them to shoot me, since, unfortunately, I cannot bear... these conditions any longer. I have suffered all this in the hope of perhaps surviving to see you, [but] unfortunately, [lack of] strength does do not allow me to endure this any longer.... I will provide you with a little picture of our life.... This dangerous soyne [enemy in Yiddish] arrived and soon began to rob us of furniture, clothes, carpets, and soon also, of life. Synie was the luckiest, he did not have to suffer too long-in August 1941, that is, after two months, they took him up to Fedor and shot him, together with 400 others.... In October 1942 they began to shoot Jews every couple of days ... wherever they found them. Each operation lasted three days and left 800-1,000 dead. The late Bacharje and Wittel were rounded up in the second operation and taken alive together with other hundreds of Jews, presumably to Belzec, and burned to death. My late father-in-law was caught in the fourth operation; he was taken out of bed naked in winter and also taken there [Belzec]. We stayed with a peasant outside the city and succeeded in hiding in the woods for one or two days during part of the operation and, therefore, remained alive. In February of this year all the Jews had to vacate the right side of the city and to live only on the city's left side. All Jews from Monasterzyska, Potok [Zloty], Jazlowiec, and Uście [Zielone], more than 25,000 Jews, were forced to live in Buczacz. Thus I too had to move to the city together with the Balin family. We lived there in the house of the administrator Langer. There, in a schron [hiding place in Polish] your late beloved mother was discovered and shot together with the Balin family in the corridor on April 13, 1943. She lies in the Jewish cemetery, where I myself placed her body for her eternal rest. Our beloved Fancia, your dear sister, was also discovered there then and shot at Fedor [Hill], together with hundreds of others and thrown into a mass grave. Unfortunately, I had to hide in a schron in the room, and I heard the voices of those who were discovered. I was given six months more to endure my great pain. Four months ago Buczacz was proclaimed free of Jews, i.e. all [surviving Jews] were taken to Tluste, where they were shot on the second day. Zosia Rosenman, who was taken together with her father and sister, was killed on the way there. The rest, those who remained here in Buczacz, were taken to Fedor and shot, [among them] our beloved Frydzia Lipka and all her children. The peasants did not want to hide [them] since they would have risked being killed. The parents of our beloved Malka were dicovered a month ago, in September, in a schron in a cellar in the city and, unfortunately, were shot, as [happened to] our beloved Lolka. Munio apparently escaped and is living somewhere. I was... robbed and stabbed by bandits, left with only my shirt but no other clothes, penniless, so I now have to turn myself in and put an end to my life. Dear beloved children, stay well, I kiss you many times, your father Leon For six months now I have not bathed, had my hair cut or shaved. For four weeks now I have been wearing the same clothes that are full of lice. The peasant does not want to keep me any longer without being paid....

...In August 1941 Kaznowski, head of the city police in Buczacz, ordered the registration of all men from 18-50 years old. He told them that workers were needed for a couple hours of work. He had several Ukrainians dig large pits near Sosenki (near Buczacz). I later measured the pits: they were 16.5 meters long and about 4 meters wide. When all the people, a total of 483, were collected in the jail, about 60 of them were released to work for the Nazi forces.... On the same day at about 8 p.m. all of the victims were forced to descend to the cellar of the jail. Kaznowski and several other Ukrainian policemen came in with sticks and began to beat their victims. Some of the victims had their arms broken. The terror and the cries of the tortured people that took place that evening in the prison in Buczacz cannot be described. Kaznowski and his henchmen even forced their victims to drink their own urine. Early in the morning all the arrested people were taken to the massacre site at Sosenki and shot there in cold blood by machine-gun fire. Before the execution took place [they] were forced to strip and were executed completely naked. After the massacre Kazanowski and his henchmen brought their booty to town and bartered the belongings of the unfortunate victims for liquor and vodka. They celebrated their easy victory with cries of "Death to the Jews and Poles. Long live independent Ukraine"...

On February 2, 1943 the third and the harshest operation took place. On the previous evening the city was surrounded by Germans and Ukrainians and shooting was heard from all directions. The Jews tried to flee the city but only a few succeeded. Many were shot by the murderers who surrounded the city. My parents and my sister, may they rest in peace, tried to escape but were caught by a Polish policeman. My mother, who always kept her head, took the gold ring off her finger and gave it to him and, in return, he let them go. They returned home and concealed themselves in a hiding place. The rest of the family, including me, reached the house of my uncle Ben-Zion and hid in a bunker he had constructed there. This operation lasted two days and some 2,000 Jews were caught in it.

On February 4, 1943, after the operation of February 2 and 3, 1943, he [the head of German gendarmerie in the Buczacz region] took 30 children, several women, and an old man from the prison and brought them to Fedor Hill, where the executions were carried out. He killed the old man personally with a pistol and kicked his body off the road.