Murder Story of Trembowla Jews in Plebanówka

It was on April 7, the day of the second unexpected "aktion" [i.e., murder operation], whose purpose was quite different from the first one. The people were concentrated in the Market Square. They were ordered to strip to their underwear and taken out of town in the direction of the village of Plebanόwka, where ditches had been dug. There, they were all shot in turn, except for some 30 young men whom Rokita took to the barracks [i.e., the labor camp in Tarnopol]. The members of the Judenrat and the Jewish police were spared during that massacre, although the policemen who were found in some hiding places were shot to pieces - but only after being forced to reveal the locations of dozens of other hidden people. No mercy was shown to the members of the policemen's families. The poor victims suffered horribly. They were shown no pity. They were abused and beaten, and dogs were set upon them mercilessly. It is impossible to describe what went on there. One couldn't imagine a mother abandoning her child in that place, with all those condemned to death, and simply running away. Fathers who were policemen, or members of the Judenrat, could bring their closest relatives – wives, children, parents – to the square, expose them to the bullets, and watch them die; and then go on living and working for those criminal gangsters, serving them as if they were gods, carrying out all their orders without the slightest attempt at self-defense.

A tumult arose. The murderers resumed their shooting, and the victims began to drop. Some Jews took advantage of the confusion to escape. I was forced to collect [the bodies of] those who had been murdered and heap them on carts that the Germans had commandeered for this purpose. When I sensed that the murderers were paying me no heed, I quietly began to move to the end of the line. I knew the town well and looked for an opportunity to escape. Near the train station, I chose an alley and ran into it. Behind me, I heard the sound of machine gun volleys. The murderers tried to kill me, but I reached the fence and managed to get over it. The bullets hit the fence. Miraculously, I survived. The murderers guarding the poor wretches who were being marched along were sure that they had hit me, that I was lying dead on the other side of the fence, and that they could just leave me there. I lay there for some time, and then crawled to a nearby wooden shack that was used as a toilet. I left the hut when it was already dark. From there, I went to the residence of a Ukrainian I knew named Jan Zagorski. He let me in and arranged a hiding place for me in his house. He lived on Zielona Street, among some trees on the outskirts of Trembowla. That night, a woman who had escaped from the mass murder site in Plebanόwka turned up at Zagorski's house. She was half-naked. The Hitlerite murderers had ordered their victims to remove their clothes and pile them in one place. The murderers were repeating the humiliating routine to which they had subjected the Jews in the market square. However, this time they also forced the unfortunates to remove their underwear near the pits. This woman said that the gendarmes had been rather sloppy. They thought that everyone had been killed, but, after the murderers had left the area, they [some survivors] emerged from under the dead bodies. Some 1,500 Jews were annihilated in this massacre. I returned to the ghetto. Of all the Jews of Trembowla, who had numbered approximately 4,000, and of those who had been brought here from nearby villages, only several hundred were still alive.

The second murder operation took place on April 7, 1943. After the first operation, the size of the Jewish quarter was reduced. The Germans and Ukrainians surrounded the quarter very early in the morning and forced some 700 people out of their apartments and bunkers. They were marched to the nearby village of Plebanόwka. There, the Jews dug some pits. One pit had already been prepared. A plank was placed over the grave, and the Jews walked [i.e., were forced to walk] on it. When the pit had been filled, the Jews themselves covered it with soil. In the meantime, other Jews were digging more pits. This operation claimed the lives of many people in the town, while others were killed in bunkers that were discovered after the operation. The third operation, the final liquidation, took place on June 3, 1943. As in the second operation, some 900 people were shot in Plebanόwka. This [i.e., the third] time, the Jewish quarter (the ghetto), which by then consisted only of a few houses, was surrounded by a larger number of Germans, Ukrainians, and policemen/members of the Gendarmerie. It was easier to search the houses and bunkers. The arrested people were taken by truck to Plebanόwka. Some 1,000 Jews were still hiding in bunkers, in the woods, and in "Aryan" residences. The rest had fled to other locations, or were dead already. In the afternoon of June 4, 1942, Plebanόwka was declared "judenfrei".