Murder story of Shchors Jews in the Korzhovskiy Forest

In October (actually, most likely in November) 1941 30-50 Jewish men from Shchors were murdered by the Germans. Local police entered Jewish houses and ordered the Jewish men to come to carry out some work project. They were taken under police guard to the Korzhovskiy Forest on the outskirts of Shchors and shot dead by Germans and Ukranian police. It is likely that Hungarian occupation troops also participated in the murder. Jewish women were ordered to bury the bodies. In January 1942 a second murder operation was carried out with the result that the Jewish street in Shchors was liquidated. The remaining Jews were moved near the forest, to an empty house with broken windows that had been the student dormitory of the local industrial school. The Jews had to live in this building without heating in winter. Three days later, a total of about 80-100 Jewish old men and male children were removed from the house by members of the German gendarmerie and the Ukrainian police. These Jews were taken first to the gendarmerie and from there to the forest, where they were shot by Germans and Ukrainian police and buried in a mass grave. In the spring of 1942 Jewish adults and children from surrounding villages were taken to the forest of Shchors in two trucks. Some of the adults were shot; others were buried alive by Germans and Ukranian police. The children were killed by being thrown against the wheels of trucks or were buried alive. On September 20, 1942 Jews of both sexes and all ages were taken from Yelino in Shchors County and murdered immediately upon their arrival in the forest near Shchors by German gendarmes.