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Murder story of Zhabokrich Jews in Zhabokrich
Murder Site
Zhabokrich
Ukraine (USSR)
On July 27, 1941 about 400 Zhabokrich Jews of all ages and both sexes were driven by Romanian soldiers or policemen into several cellars of houses and shops in the town of Zhabokrich. Initially the Romanians planned to burn the victims alive but later those inside were shot by machinegun, submachine-gun, and rifle fire through the openings of the cellars. The massacre continued until July 29, 1941. Only a few Jews who hid under the dead bodies or in corners of the cellars survived the massacre. After the massacre the bodies of the victims remained unburied for a long time. Eventually the survivors were forced to bury them in three mass-graves. According to some survivor testimonies, Jewish men and Soviet POWs were shot on the territory of the Shlyakhom Lenina collective farm; according to other testimonies, they were shot in one of the cellars in Zhabokrich on the first day of the massacre.
untoldStories.relatedResources
Resources.tabstitle.written Testimonies
Resources.tabstitle.chgk Soviet Reports
From the Letter of Sima Landa to the Hall of Names of Yad Vashem, 2011:
… My mother, my brother, who was born in 1924, my sister, who was born in 1927, and I, who was born in 1930, arrived from Yampol in the town of Zabokrich [Zhabokrich] not far from Kryzhopol, in the Vinnitsa District. We arrived on Thursday [and] on Friday they rounded up all the men [and] boys, we did not know where they were going to be taken or, to be more precise, I did not understand why, and on Saturday they rounded up the rest of the Jews, all of them without exception. Initially, they [the Romanians] wanted to burn them in barns, but they changed their minds, forced them into cellars, and mowed them down there with machineguns. Then they checked and, if anyone was still moaning, they finished them off. My sister was murdered there. Anyone who was [covered] by the bodies and kept silent saved himself. I and my brother survived, mother was in another cellar and survived too….
YVA O.33 / 4133
From the Memoirs of Bronya Dorfman (Zitser):
...Sometime around mid-July 1941 toward evening German troops entered our village [Zhabokrich].
As soon as the Germans entered our village, they started the killing. They drove all the people into cellars; they stood on the steps with sub-machineguns and shot us. There was loud screaming, moaning, and crying. It was indescribable. [My] aunt and her children were killed in the cellars. Our mother put us under the dead bodies and we lay that way until the Germans stopped shooting. Late at night mother and grandmother pulled us, i.e. me and my older brothers, out from under the dead bodies and took us to some barn….
TYKESh, CHERNIVTSY copy YVA O.33 / 4468
Zhabokrich
cellar
Murder Site
Ukraine (USSR)
48.383;28.983
Resources.tabstitle.video
Ida Tzirulnik was born in 1923 in Zhabokrich and lived there during the war years
USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 42195 copy YVA O.93 / 42195
Semen Veksler was born in 1936 in Zhabokrich and lived there during the war years
USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 45278 copy YVA O.93 / 45278
Roman Mazler was born in 1938 in Zhabokrich and lived there during the war years
USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 37161 copy YVA O.93 / 37161