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Murder story of Horodno Jews in the Horodno Forest
Murder Site
Horodno Area
Poland
Apparently around mid-September 1942 the Horodno ghetto population was shot in trenches that had been prepared in advance on the pretext of protecting the population from the approaching Red Army. The trenches were apparently located in the forest in the vicinity of Horodno. 600-700 Jews were murdered in that operation. Some sources report that about 200 women, children, and old people were shot in July 1942, while the rest of the ghetto population, about 400 Jews, was shot in September 1942 in the Podraliche Ravine, three kilometers from Horodno, on the way to Terebieżów village.
Ascher Turkenitz, who was born in 1927 in Horodno and lived there during the war years, testified:
Anti-tank trenches… the priest's daughter told us that the following day or several days afterward all the Jews would going to be taken to be shot….So I escaped, ran away and …entered the forest…
And this was, as I said, before Rosh Hashana 1943 [sic]. In the morning after sunrise, at nine or ten, we heard the shooting which was not far off, so we knew that all the Jews, several hundred Jews, had been annihilated.
YVA O.33 / 7809
Iosif Dryzhuk, who was born in 1925 in Horodno and lived there during the war years, testified:
Did you hear what happened in the ghetto after you ran away from there?
Of course, we heard. It was close to us, not far. We heard but what could we do?
….When was the shooting in the ghetto carried out after you had escaped from there?
In September.
At the beginning of September?
No, later.
YVA O.3 / 9719
Horodno Area
forest
Murder Site
Poland
51.866;26.500
Grigorii Druzhinin, who was born in 1925 in Horodno and lived there during the war years, testified:
USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 18847 copy YVA O.93 / 18847