Murder Story of Wiśniowiec Nowy Jews at the Former Soviet Police Station in Wiśniowiec Nowy

… Several days before my return to the town [of Wiśniowiec, i.e. on July 10, 1941] 36 people [i.e. Jewish men] were taken hostage and locked into the cellar of Rabbi Ishar Sofer [i.e. in the building that had been the former Soviet police station of Wiśniowiec County]. To my bad luck, 35 of them were murdered on the day of my return home. These arrested were not killed by usual murder weapons in an ordinary way. It is strange but the fact is that the [unusual] way they were murdered added further misery to this terrible event. The Ukrainians received permission, even encouragement, from the Germans to kill them. They [the Ukrainians], led by the two Ostrovskyi brothers, attacked the enclosure [i.e. the cellar where these men were being held] and, carried away with murder lust and a desire for blood, they tore off the front door and began throwing into the tiny room heavy stones and some other heavy items, that gradually crushed and suffocated the prisoners. The latter could see their death coming closer and closer. With each remaining centimeter of the diminishing space and with each stone that was thrown into it [the cellar], [it was clear] that there was no way [to remain alive]. Of all those trapped there only one remained [alive], Alter, the son of Mechzi Ruah, miraculously… survived. He was short and thin and, when the tortured [men] were shoved into the corner of the jail [i.e. cellar], he was left under a pile of human bodies that were twitching in the final moments of their death throes. Hidden under the bodies, he managed to create a hole where he hid his head and, thus, remain alive. Toward evening, the Ukrainians left the murder site, after checking and not finding any sign of life from the bodies…. At that point Alter extricated himself from the human avalanche that had buried him, emerged from cover, and found a place to hide in my house. He told me about all this. His description of the way the killing had taken place and the final convulsions of the victims bruised my heart and left an impression on it forever.…

… After [about] the two first weeks [after the German capture of Wiśniowiec, i.e. on July 10, 1941], a Gestapo [sic] company … of about 30 people – began murder operations. The first [murder] operation was [carried out as follows]: "to avenge" those four people who had been killed by the Russians [i.e. Soviets, sic] before their retreat [from the town]. [For this purpose], for every one of these four [victims] – thee Ukrainians and one Jew, a refugee from Germany – [the Germans] decided to kill 10 Jews. The Ukrainian [auxiliary] police collected the victims and killed the 40 Jews in the cellar of one of the houses in the town [i.e. in the building of the former Soviet police of Wiśniowiec County].