Murder Story of Kozin Jews in Hranówka

One day in late May 1942, after the Jews had been held in the ghetto for seven days, a detachment of the Sipo and an SD unit from Równe, assisted by Ukrainian auxiliary policemen, surrounded the ghetto and removed about 400 of its inmates, who were deemed "unfit for work" – mainly women, little children, and elderly people. These people were taken out of the town, to a site near the village of Hranówka, about 4 kilometers west of Kozin. Upon their arrival at the murder site, the victims had to strip naked, and then, in small groups, they were taken to a pit, which had been dug in advance by the Jews of Kozin. They had to lie inside the pit face down, and were then shot dead in the back of the head with machine guns by a detachment of the Sipo and SD from Rowne, with the assistance of the 1st company of the 33rd Reserve Police Battalion, which had also arrived to the killing site. According to a ChGK document, little children were buried alive in the pit. This murder operation was carried out in coordination with the German agricultural administrator of Kozin, De Von Beck Krause, and the Ukrainian county chief, Nikolay Serednitzkyi. One day in early October 1942, members of the German Gendarmerie (German rural order police) and Ukrainian auxiliary police surrounded the ghetto and loaded its remaining inmates onto trucks, which drove them to a site near the same village of Hranówka. Upon their arrival at the shooting site, the Jews were forced to strip naked and climb down into a pit, where they were shot dead in the back of the head, with machine guns, by a Sipo and SD detachment from Równe.