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Murder story of Radziwillow Jews in the Brody Forest
Murder Site
Brody Forest
Poland
On July 15, 1941 an SS unit arrived in Radziwiłłów and arrested, according to a list compiled by local Ukrainian administration, 28 Jews (mainly men and several women) for being allegedly Communist activists. Among arrestees were also some wealthy Jews who had given property to local Ukrainians for safekeeping and were denounced to the Germans by these acquaintances who wanted to lay their hands on the Jewish property. After being detained for a short time, the Jews were given shovels and taken by truck, under the guard of Ukrainian auxiliary police and Gendarmerie (German rural order police) to the forest near the East-Galician city of Brody, located about 8 kilometers to the west of Radziwiłłów. With their arrival to the murder site, the victims were forced to dig a pit in the forest, made to get inside it and shot to death by the members of the SS unit. After the shooting their bodies were covered with earth.
Related Resources
Written Testimonies
ChGK Soviet Reports
From the letter written in Russian in December 1944 by Lyusya Gekhman to Ilya Ehrenburg, Jewish Soviet writer, journalist and a member of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, about the killing of Radziwiłłów (Krasnoarmeysk) Jews in July 1941
… In the month of July [1941] the Gestapo men… arrived [in Radziwiłłów]. At night they took away some Jews – 6 women and 18 men. They had been kept under the arrest for a day, by evening they were taken by truck somewhere. The next day a neighbor, near which were living four [Ukrainian auxiliary] policemen heard their conversation: "We had to wash our hands from the Kike's blood".
We couldn't believe for a long time that they had been killed, but shortly afterwards we learned that they [victims] indeed were taken to the Brody Forest, forced to dig [there several] pits and then were shot to death and buried in those pits.…
YVA P.21 / 61
From the testimony of Ite Gun who was born in 1886 in Radziwiłłów and who was living there during its German occupation
… [In July 1941] Germans gathered 30 Jews and ordered them to dig pits in the [Brody] Forest, and after that [Germans] shot them to death. Among them were Zalman Levitan, a bookkeeper at the mill, Yakira Harviner, and one young man Sioni Zilberman.…
Yaakov Adini, ed.: Radziwiłłów, Book of Remembrance (Tel Aviv: Irgun yots'ei Radzivilov be-Yisrael, 1966), p. 254 (Hebrew)
From the testimony of Itzchak Veinstein, who was born in 1907 in Radziwiłłów and was living there during its German occupation
… On July 15, [1941] a group of the Gestapo men came to the Ukrainian committee [i.e. the town's municipality] and asked them to hand over a list of "dangerous Jews." The Ukrainians piled up immediately a list of 200 Jews and an additional list of 100 rich Jews. For some reason the first list had been reduced later on to only 28 [Jews]. These were mainly those that the Ukrainians were interested in eliminating them out of private scores. [These] Jews had hidden with them [i.e. Ukrainians] money and different artifacts, and now they saw an opportunity to get rid of the Jews and to robber their property. Among the first ones [appearing] in this list were: Zalman Levitan, Shimon Merder, Mania Venstein, David Vasser, Esther Groismann, the Chomut brothers and others. In the morning of the same day the Gestapo men took out those Jews, with shovels, and ordered them to dig a big pit in the Brody Forest, located not far away from the Brody- Radziwiłłów railway. When the pit had been dug out, the frightened Jews were ordered to run quickly forward … the echo of the shots and screaming of the unfortunates was scattered from far away…. These details were passed to us by Leib Ruchantsis who was among those who dug [the pit].…
Yaakov Adini, ed.: Radziwiłłów, Book of Remembrance ((Tel Aviv: Irgun yots'ei Radzivilov be-Yisrael, 1966), p. 213 (Hebrew)
Brody Forest
Murder Site
Poland
50.129;25.253