Murder Story of Tarnopol Jews in Petrykow

…It was at the end of September or the beginning of October [1943] that the liquidation of Tarnopol ghetto began…I traveled that day to the battalion. It was there that I heard the first news of the "Aktion" that had begun that morning…It is clear that individual units of the battalion took part in this. A rifle company that was garrisoned in the Franz Josef Barracks in Tarnopol at the time, as well as units of the armored train regiment, were also present. Early in the morning the alarm was sounded in these units, and they encircled the ghetto. The Aktion was directed by the security chief [security police] stationed in Tarnopol. In addition, Ukrainian gendarmes [policemen] and camp guards [Jewish camp police] took part in the Aktion. They were supposed to help drag their compatriots out of various secret hiding places. The latter were, as I learned, the last to be shot that same day. Furthermore, the so-called "store managers" were supposed to carry out their functions until the security chief [security police] took over the shop from them. I also want to point out that people were working in the bakery and in the kitchen until evening, until they had, as it were, finished feeding their executioners. The Aktion was divided into stages: to seek out the unarmed victims and to gather them in one place. The last ones were hiding in the most impossible corners and refuges. The scene was approximately as follows: in front of the ghetto stood a large crowd of people made up of inhabitants and visitors from the city, and of soldiers, too. Guards were posted along the fence that surrounded the ghetto. There were even machine guns set up here and there. The Ukrainian police looked for victims and dragged them out of the crowd and their hiding places. I myself witnessed the following: several people were hiding in the cellar of one house that stood to the left of the hospital. The Ukrainian police and the soldiers looked for the entrance to the cellar. It was clear that one resident of a nearby house knew the way into this hiding place and showed it to them. They proceeded with great care because, as I later found out, several shots had rung out in the neighborhood. Several hand grenades had even been tossed from an opening. When the victims came out, they were led to the assembly point under guard. I want to mention here that I was posted in the ghetto that day, and that I saw for myself part of what I related above. Until that time I had been unable to imagine that such things could happen. That dreadful reality gave me the ability that day to live through all the horrors. During my time in the ghetto, I visited a hospital and one apartment. Everything was smashed, scattered about and lying in dreadful disorder. Beneath the building (the hospital, that is) there was supposedly a bunker. More detailed information revealed that approximately sixty to one hundred people were walled up in there. These were more substantial [well-to-do] people, including doctors. As I later learned, this bunker was discovered a few days later (the Aktion continued for several days), as such secret refuges had not yet been uncovered. I know that the security chief [security police] even took pictures of this bunker. A junior officer from the armored train was stabbed sometime later; it was said that he had taken part in the search for concealed hide-outs without a corresponding order… The victims who went to the assembly point had to pass by the dead who were already lying there. Their bodies had been lying there for many days. The victims herded together to the assembly point were supposed to surrender all their valuables as well as everything that they were carrying on their persons [had by them]. They had to get undressed; their clothes formed an entire mountain. Several victims burrowed their way into this heap of clothing, but they were found afterward and shot then and there. Groups that numbered between two and three hundred were led off to the place of execution. Heavily armed soldiers escorted the transport so that none of the innocents could get away. The victims had to make their last journey to the place of execution on foot. They came out from the lower or back gates past the slaughterhouse. A large group of inhabitants thronged the streets. The route continued on across the bridge over the Seret River at Petoykovo [Petrykow]. Here some jumped off the bridge into the stream and were, from all appearances, shot by guards escorting them. During one of my trips in a boat, I saw a body in the water. The place of execution was located in one of the hollows between Petoykovo [Petrykow] and Zagrobelye [Zagrebelye]. People from the Ukrainian Labor Front had dug large pits there. The last act of this terrible crime was played out in approximately this way: the victims had to undress almost completely at an appointed place as they arrived and to sit beside each other. The first ones stood single file in front of the pit and had to strip entirely. Eight to ten people would go up to the pit and would sit on the edge facing inward. The security chief's ["security service", security police] "erasers" [butchers] did their work. One of them was walking among the victims with a pistol and shooting each of them in the back of the head. He pushed those who did not fall by themselves down into the pit with a kick. There were three men who were carrying out this process. While one kept up constant fire, a second loaded a pistol and passed the loaded weapon to him. The third man helped out with a machine gun. They say that this team had carried out this horrid work not only in this instance, but also earlier, in various places. While they were fulfilling this dreadful duty, it would seem that they were always under the influence of alcohol. And yet the process of execution was always carried out in the manner indicated above. In the course of all this, there were heartrending scenes. Yet the thing that struck everyone was the calm with which the victims went to their death. Whole families were led to their executions. Just before, they kissed each other goodbye. Couples in love walked to their deaths with their arms wrapped tightly round each other. The shootings went on that day until evening. Almost everyone was exterminated…

……in July 1941 about 5,000 (five thousand) men were murdered, including my husband. David left the house on July 7, 1941 (Tammuz 12, 5701) and did not return. He voluntarily reported to the [office of the] Judenrat that had been established. Despite my objections, he saw it as his duty to report and to go there [since he might serve there] as a spiritual guide [for his community]. He wanted to speak for the people. After six weeks… of searching, I found his body among many of the bodies that had been taken to the cemetery from the brick factory [where the victims had been murdered]…. During the past days thousands were again being shot. A new method was used. People were "officially" taken to their death. Previously, they were supposedly going to be "settled" or "resettled" somewhere. That was no longer the case. The recent events were horrible, like the previous ones. There was a collection point in our camp. There the human victims were chosen, dragged by Jewish policemen from their hiding places, and taken to be killed. We in the camp were able to see everything from our living quarters. Those sights, those images, how would it be possible to describe them? None of us is human any longer, we are now animals who have lost every human feeling. Sons brought their parents to death, fathers their children, mothers left their children at the square and tried to escape. In other cases, children saw their parents at the square and went together with them to their death, even though they could have saved themselves for a brief time by entering the camp. One could see the square filling up with more and more people going to their death. Mass graves had been prepared in Petrykow. The victims had to leave their overcoats at the square. The men even had to take off their shirts and were taken "on foot," like a flock of sheep, to their death. It [the murder site] was very close. Why should they [the Germans] waste fuel for trucks, why should they use the railway? That would be a shame. It was much easier to get rid of the harmful element right there and then. If people were transported by train, some might be able to escape from the railway cars. So this possibility was foreclosed. In my opinion, however, such a death is much easier. To travel for two-three days knowing that you are traveling to your death would be very terrifying. Here at least it happened quickly. Thus, in Petrykow things went like this. People were forced to strip completely naked in front of a pit, to kneel, and to wait to be shot. People lined up, awaiting their turn. Those who were waiting had to arrange the bodies of those shot in the graves so that the space there could be well-used and in order. The entire procedure did not last long. Within half an hour the clothes of the thousands of shooting victims were back in the camp….

…on the night of July 21, 1943, Gestapo [men] surrounded the entire [labor] camp, that had already been encircled with barbed wire. Criminals and robbers were posted at the gates and a tight guard was also stationed along the fence. At dawn the liquidation of the camp started. Everyone was taken by force to the roll call square. The first were those desperate people who had long ago lost everything: their families had perished and life had long been unkind to them. All the others were then forced forward with iron rods; in the course of one day 2,500 Jews were taken to Petrykow. The Germans discovered some bunker hiding places. When the Germans attacked a bunker on Baron Hirsch Street, the Jews hiding there defended themselves. They shot at the Germans with the weapons in their hands. This situation lasted for almost an entire day. Apparently several Gestapo men were killed and then the Jews committed suicide. The lives of the several hundred surviving Jews continued, but only for 10-12 days. The Germans deceived those last remnants with lies and false promises. They said that, after the Jews repaired some camp buildings, they would be transferred to another camp to the west. [However,] after two weeks they met the same fate as their predecessors: they were murdered in Petrykow…

…The first murder operation by shooting [in the Jewish labor camp in Tarnopol] was one of the most violent, most cruel, and quickest murder operations in our city. The previous murder operations were also cruel and of a similar character but this one was the most terrible. For the first time the members of the Judenrat and of the [Jewish] police themselves felt what it meant to lose dear ones. Apparently the butcherers had received special orders, as they did not stop at anything, but rampaged through the ghetto like mad dogs, murdering and destroying everything or everyone in their way. Whoever was dragged out of a bunker was doomed. No papers or certificates were of any use. For the first time they used hand grenades to break open bunkers. Never before were so many murdered in such a confined space. In many places they set fire to many houses to force people to leave them…. The murder operation lasted until 2 p.m.… On that day 1,200 people died a horrible, brutal death; many of them were buried alive…. There was a brick factory in this area…. In this murder operation there perished our rabbi, known all around for his good deeds. This was the noble, exalted and pious man, our master teacher, the rebbe of Medzhibozh. He was killed with his entire family and with his students. The [Jewish] policemen intervened with the Germans and succeeded [in their agreeing] to exempt him. However, the heroic rabbi replied: "The place of a shepherd is with his flock." He had only one request - to be allowed to put on his prayer shawl and phylacteries and not to be forced to kneel at the collection square. He was granted his request. He went to his death first in line, festively dressed, with his hands raised to God and with a prayer on his lips. At the time of his murder he stood by his grave and recited the "Vidui" [confession] prayer. This made it easier for the other Jews to die, hearing his words during the last moments of their life. In a tender, pleasant, and noble voice he asked the Jews to be reconciled with God, and spoke of the eternal life in the other world awaiting those Jews who died for the sanctification of God's name. He was among the last to be shot. He was shot by a Gestapo man….

…We heard shots from the direction of Tarnopol - indeed the end had arrived: the ghetto was being liquidated. The Jews still remaining in the ghetto were being taken to be murdered and buried. We all agree that the site of the murder was in a field not far from the bank of the Seret River, below a hill in the area between the villages of Zagroblja [Zagreblya] and Petrykow, near the mill that operated using the water of the river….

On Wednesday, May 12 [1943], two days after the second murder operation, the German beasts again descended upon the remnants of the Tarnopol Jewry… 500 Jews perished in this murder operation and were buried in pits [at] Petrykow… On Sunday, May 16 [1943], for the fourth time in 12 days, the Teutonic predators preyed upon Jewish victims. We did not work in the camp on that day. We were forbidden to leave our living quarters. Whoever was caught outside would be yet another victim of the murder operation…This murder operation was even worse than the previous ones. They set on fire two houses and shot three Jewish policemen because they disobeyed the order to find those in hiding. The murder operation lasted until 4 p.m.; 1,000 people perished in it, in pits in the Petrykow Forest… On Thursday, June 22 [1943] the last murder operation, that was to result in the liquidation of the Tarnopol ghetto, started. In the morning the Germans rounded up the several hundred defenseless elderly people and children who still remained in the ghetto. The raging Germans were riding in cars or on horses, and there were also ordinary policemen [on foot]. They attacked the ghetto from all sides, running forward, shouting "Hurrah," as if they were attacking at the front. This murder operation embodied German cunning and sadism. They not only shot people on the streets, they also beat and humiliated their victims. On the collection square every one was forced to strip and every one, without exception, was beaten mercilessly. It was raining on that day and the Germans were not satisfied with just breaking their thick sticks over the heads and backs of the unfortunates whom they would murder within just a few hours. They ordered their victims to wallow in the mud and to smear mud on their faces and heads. Moreover, the poor Jews were ordered to dance and to sing under the threat of horrible tortures, to grimace, and, in similar ways, to make the Germans laugh. Only the bloodstained ghetto walls bore witness to the German bestiality, sadism, and murderousness, which reached and even surpassed the cruelty they had displayed earlier. Only satanic minds of those belonging to the nation of murderers could invent such forms of violence against defenseless people. The murder operation lasted until 4 p.m., by which time they had collected about 800 people and murdered them in the Petrykow Forest… In the course of three days, July 21, 22 and 23, 1943, the [Jewish] camp in Tarnopol was liquidated. The Jewish communities of Tarnopol and of the entire district were completely liquidated. From then on Tarnopol was characterized in the language of the nation of the murderers by the horrible words "Judenfrei" (free of Jews). For that murder operation the Germans utilized all the military and police forces of the entire area. Rows and rows of Germans were ready to launch the operation against the remnants of the Jews of the city of Tarnopol. Soldiers of the garrison, [German] policemen [and] SS men, Ukrainian policemen, and even soldiers of General Vlasov [sic], a Russian traitor who fought against his Motherland on the side of the German invader, all well armed, were brought into action against the Jews. Ukrainian policemen surrounded the camp and shot anyone who could have been seen from the fence. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising had presumably taught the Germans a lesson and they took precautionary measures. The whole city was surrounded by policemen; all the streets and the whole way to the murder site were heavily guarded. At 8 a.m. the Jews began to be forced out of their barracks. Regardless of whether the Jews had left on their own or not, the Germans shot people on the smallest pretext so that soon the camp was littered with bodies. Groups of people closed themselves up the houses, blocking the entrances to put up resistance. But what could Jews armed with knives do against a fully equipped army? They blew up gates with hand grenades and knocked down houses with volleys from machine-guns. The whole area of the camp was littered with the [bodies] of those who had been killed. Since [many of] the Jews did not want to be led to their death, they ran toward the fence, preferring to be shot down on the spot. The bodies of people just shot were lying under every bush around the camp; the earth was soaked with their blood, still fresh and warm. The whole way to Petrykow was covered with the bodies of boys and girls who had preferred to die on the run rather than at the pit. An additional page, this time the final page, in the history of Tarnopol Jewry was written with the blood of the best of its sons and daughters. During those three days 4,000 people were killed in the pits in the Petrykow Forest…Once again the earth was heaving and once again blood was flowing in streams into the Seret River. The murder operation ended on July 24 [1943], on the first day of the week. Jews had resisted in three places. One German and one Vlasovite were killed. Five wounded were taken to a hospital. After liquidation of the camp, the Germans left 100 Jews to search for Jews in hiding. According to the Germans, the surviving Jews and those about to be caught were to be transferred to the camp on Janowska Street in Lwow. [In the meantime] one hundred Jews worked sorting the belongings left behind by the murdered [Tarnopol] camp prisoners. After a week, they were told to proceed without a guard to the train station, where train cars to Lwow would be waiting for them. The train was supposed to leave at 4 p.m. Five minutes before [the supposed] train departure, two companies of urban policemen, "Schutzpolizei" appeared, loaded the Jews onto trucks, and took them to Petrykow, and murdered them there….

...On Monday, May 10 [1943], the Germans again hunted down their prey. This second massacre started at 6 a.m. In the morning we saw the police, the "Schutzpolizei," surrounding the ghetto…. I hid in an attic and, from there, saw the victims being taken to the collection square. I also saw our house. Policemen entered it [more than once] but left empty-handed. Each time they entered, my heart froze. It appeared suspicious that many members of the Jewish police force were wandering around my house. I learned later that someone had informed the police that there was a hiding place in the house. They searched the whole day but found nothing. The murder operation lasted until 6 p.m. 800 people were taken and shot in the Petrykow Forest….

My wife was in a camp in Tarnopol from the time it was established until her death. In January 1945 [sic] the camp in Tarnopol was liquidated. I do not know the exact date. 60 people, including my wife, still remained [in the camp]. At the morning roll call camp commander Rokita informed them that on the afternoon of the same day they would be transferred to Lemberg [Lwow]. They would be allowed to take with them all their belongings, especially jewelry and money. When, in the afternoon, they arrived as ordered at the cargo train station, they were assigned two railway cars and when they took their places, the doors were closed on one side. On the other side a car appeared with Gestapo men who attacked with clubs the unsuspecting people and started to beat them. The Jews were forced into a truck standing ready, were taken to Petrykow, and shot at the brick factory there….

…On April 9, 1943 also there was an expulsion operation in which Mueller, Leks, Hermann, Reinisch and [other] Gestapo [men] participated. The Jews were then taken 2 kilometers from Tarnopol to the village of Petrykow, where 3,000 Jews were shot to death…

…In 1943, in March, when I entered the city when I was returning from work to the Tarnopol labor camp, I saw …4 Gestapo officers taking a group of Jews from the ghetto 2 kilometers outside of Tarnopol to Petrekow [Petrykow], where all the Jews who had been brought there by the officers were shot by the above-mentioned 4 officers…

…The Gestapo man Leks…frequently entered the ghetto and, without any reason, arrested Jews who were then delivered to the prison. All these people were then shot in the Petrikow [Petrykow] Forest near Tarnopol…

…Obersturmfuehrer and chief of the Gestapo in Tarnopol Mueller was assigned to Tarnopol during the German occupation… By November 5, 1942 several murder operations had been carried out on his orders. He ordered large pits to be dug in Petrekow [Petrykow] near Tarnopol and in every murder operation Jews were murdered there. During every murder operation Jews were collected at the collection place, where they were surrounded by Ukrainian Schutzpolizei [urban police, sic], cavalry squads, and SD [officials]. Mueller took particular pleasure in torturing and abusing women and children. At the execution site parents were forced to strip naked their children, who were then thrown into the pits. The parents were shot in the back of the head and fell dead on top of their children. Because of this the children started to cry and the Gestapo men began to shoot into the pits….