Murder Story of Warkowicze Jews at the Former Gruferman Estate

According to one testimony on the eve of the liquidation of the Warkowicze ghetto, the Germans collected from the Jews about 2.3 kg. of gold and good items of clothing. Early in the morning, apparently on October 7, 1942, several trucks with members of the Gendarmerie (German rural order police) and Ukrainian auxiliary police arrived in Warkowicze from the town of Dubno. They were headed by the chief of the Gendarmerie von Papke. On the order of the town's commandant Rasse, they surrunded the ghetto and, after a roundup, took its Jewish inmates – men, women, elderly people, and children, in groups by truck, to the sandpit located 1 kilometer east of the town on the former Gruferman estate. Upon arriving at the murder site, the Jews were made to strip naked and forced in groups into a pit that had been prepared in advance by Soviet POWs. The Jews had to lie inside the pit facedown and then were shot to death in the back of the head with machine-guns and pistols by Gendarmerie men. Then another group of victims had to lie on the top of the bodies and was shot to death in the same way. During the shooting Ukrainian auxiliary policemen headed by Dimitryi Harchihsin [sp ??] guarded the killing site. According to one testimony, following each shooting, the Germans covered the layers of bodies with lime. After the end of the murder operation local residents had to cover the bodies in the pit with earth. According to Soviet sources, around 1,500 Jews from Warkowicze were shot to death, along with up to 1,000 Jews from the neighboring village of Ozeriany. The clothing of the murder victims was taken to Dubno, where the best items were taken by Germans, who also looted the Jewish houses, and shipped the contents to Germany. Ukrainian auxiliary policemen were allowed to keep the less valuable clothing. Because many Jews went into hiding or tried to escape the murder operation lasted two or three days while repeated searches were made for Jews in the ghetto and the surrounding area.