Korzhovskiy Forest Related Communities
# Follow us
Languages
English
ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
RESEARCH & COLLECTIONS
COMMEMORATION
EDUCATION & E-LEARNING
MUSEUMS & EXHIBITIONS
RIGHTEOUS
Murder story of Shchors Jews in the Korzhovskiy Forest
Murder Site
Korzhovskiy Forest
Ukraine (USSR)
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.
Related Resources
ChGK Soviet Reports
Testimony of Avksentiy Kurilik, who was born in 1893:
… About September 20, 1942 the German police [sic], together with members of the gendarmerie, took a group of [Jewish] children, women, and old people from the village of Yelino in Shchors County to the town of Shchors. They were then taken right away to the Korzhovskiy Forest and shot. The shooting was carried out during the daytime. On the same day 32 people were taken from the [local] prison and also shot dead. These two groups were buried in pits which were opened for investigation [later, by the Soviet investigatory commission]....
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-78-32 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19995
Testimony of Moria Kozheliy, who was born in 1887:
… I saw how bodies of murdered people were thrown into pits in the spring [of 1942]. In each pit about 100 people were buried. These were the bodies of people who had been shot in the winter. On the day that the bodies were buried two trucks carrying civilian adults and children arrived. The adults were shot. The small children were killed by being smashed against truck wheels or were buried alive. I saw clearly how the Jew Dresler was buried alive. The policeman Yakovlev buried him. …
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-78-39 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19995
Testimony of Petr Kondratenko, who was born in 1899:
… In October 1941 the terror began. Policemen began taking Jewish civilians with shovels to the commandant's office under the pretext that they were being taken to work, Then they ordered them to line up and took them under guard to the forest where they were abused and then shot. Jewish women in the town were collected and forced to bury their husbands. This was the first case of [local] terror, when the occupiers murdered as many as 100 Soviet citizens
... In January 1942 the remaining Jews – women, children, and old men – were forced to move to a house near the forest, a former dormitory of the industrial school, in which the windows were broken. The poor people had to live in such a building when the temperature outside was 40 degrees minus zero Celsius. They didn't stay in this house long. Three days later members of the gendarmerie and the police entered the house, forced out the elderly Jewish men and [Jewish] boys, ordered them to line up, and marched them under guard to the commandant’s office and, then, from there to the forest, where all of them were shot and buried in a single grave....
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-78-39 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19995
Testimony of Vera Trapo, who was born in 1924:
… In early November 1941 German troops carried out a mass shooting of Jewish men. The shooting took place on the edge of the forest near the town of Shchors.… On November 20, 1941 policemen from Shchors, on orders of the German authorities, rounded up Jewish men in the early morning [supposedly] for work. They also took me. In this way they collected 30 people and took them into the forest under guard. On the way and before the shooting started we were beaten with rifle butts. Our group was made to stop near a large pit in the forest. Each time several people from the group were taken to the pit and immediately shot….
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-78-32 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19995
Korzhovskiy Forest
forest
Murder Site
Ukraine (USSR)
51.822;31.943