Murder Story of Korzec Jews in Szytnia

…I recall one beautiful summer day in 1941; it was the Ukrainians' Preczysta holiday, celebrating the day that Mary rose to the heavens. Early in the morning, two Germans, accompanied by Ukrainian policemen, stormed into our house and ordered my father to go with them. This was nothing new; things like that happened all the time. They quickly disappeared into a tarpaulin-covered truck; we couldn't see if there was anyone else in the truck. As they drove off, I remained on the street to try to find out where the truck had gone and who else was being taken that morning. I then contacted some other children, who, as usual, were trying to track down the whereabouts of Jewish laborers. When we were involved in this kind of spying, we would walk in the side streets, close to the walls; we were stealthy, careful not to be seen, not to give away our very existence. But suddenly something unusual happened; something that changed all the rules of the game. A terrible rumor started flying in all directions; people were shouting and crying, and the news spread like wildfire. "The Germans and Ukrainians are setting up roadblocks!" someone shouted; and another, "The Ukrainians are rounding up all the Jewish males!" and a third, "The Germans are coming – we're finished!" I felt the blood boiling in my head, as if a thousand hammers were pounding at my brain. I thought of Father, who might have been one of the first to fall into the murderers' hands. Then I thought of my beloved uncle Menashe Weiner, my mother's brother, who worked in the sugar factory; he was one of those who had been issued a certificate by the Germans, stating that this work was essential. My other uncle, with the similar name Michael Weiner, was also my mother's brother. I was unable to control myself and ran through the main street, towards the sugar factory. Large numbers of Ukrainian policemen appeared suddenly out of nowhere and used ropes to tie the hands of the Jewish males. But nothing was different in this scene; now the work was being done by young Ukrainian "volunteers" who were not policemen. Their cruel blows aimed to kill; nothing was worse than falling into their hands. It all happened on the main street that led from Russia to Poland. I managed to make my way to the pharmacy on the corner of Stalina and Berezdowa. From some distance, I spotted my beloved uncle among the Jewish men who were surrounded, their hands tied, by numerous policemen. The policemen and Ukrainians directed the victims towards an alleyway. Jewish children crowded around me, trying to follow their loved ones. We decided to take a roundabout route in an attempt to see where the men were being led and what was being done to them. We soon discovered that they were being led along the main street towards a house that had belonged to a wealthy Jews called Mahler, where a Ukrainian police unit (not the central police) was now stationed. The yard contained a huge granary warehouse, and it was to this building that all the victims were taken. With all the other children, I circled the warehouse looking for holes in the walls, to peek inside, but found none. I squeezed myself next to the wall and asked loudly if anyone had seen my father inside. There were many voices, all saying the same thing at the same time, but the message was clear: 'It's so crowded in here that we are suffocating and can't even see each other." Mahler's house stood a short distance from where we were. Suddenly, we were attacked by a group of policemen, who captured two children, aged twelve and thirteen, from the group near me and marched them into the warehouse to join the others. I was the only girl in the group, and it transpired that I was spared, not because I was more agile than the others, but because, on that particular day, they were not interested in catching girls. I ran and hid in the cellar under the big pharmacy to witness with my own eyes what was going to happen to the Jewish men trapped in the warehouse. Suddenly, I noticed that the Jewish men were being led from the alley in which that police station was located, directly onto the main road. I was able to keep my eyes on them and I stared through a low, small window facing the main street, literally opposite the victims. Numerous Germans and their Ukrainian sidekicks organized the Jews into rows, as if they were organizing a procession. Hands tied, the Jews, including children, were arranged in rows. I saw my mother's brother in the first row, and will always remember him as he looked then: tall, handsome, athletic, and statuesque. All the men in the first rows were tall and muscular. I looked around wildly for my father, my eyes full of tears. The terrified children had been placed in the back rows and were weeping bitterly. Was my father among them? I decided impulsively to run after them; I went out into the middle of the road; I wanted to be beside my father at this terrible time. I watched the Ukrainians, not the uniformed policemen, busily beating the tied-up Jews with clubs, all the time looking around for new victims. The Ukrainian policemen were occupied in endless discussions. A crazed, bloodthirsty crowd was whipping those defenseless Jews mercilessly, as if those Jewish men and boys, exhausted from forced labor and near starvation, could have put up a fight! Later in the ghetto, I learned that their number had been five hundred and fifty – exhausted and weak Jewish men, against a wild, ferocious crowd. They were under close guard and surrounded by a circle of murderers, which made it impossible to get very close to them. A young Ukrainian man, aged around twenty, was first to notice me. He was an old acquaintance and a frequent customer in Father's store.… I was shocked to see him now among the murderers, wielding an enormous club usually used to separate horses harnessed to wagons. Things started happening quickly and unexpectedly: The first blow knocked me down on my face. The man continued to beat me until I lost consciousness. People must have thought I was dead and just left me there. I don't know how long I lay there; I was unable to see or hear anything….

…On August 5 [sic for 20] 1941, during the holiday the Ukrainians called Preczysta, some benighted Ukrainian nationalists, headed by the implacable enemy [of the Jews] Mitka Zawierucha, went on a rampage [and] abused the Jews. Mitka declared, with great enthusiasm, that God had sent him to rid the area of Jews and to root them out from among the non-Jews. On the same day, SS men arrived in the town and attacked the Jewish houses, arresting the men and taking them in an unknown direction. The women and children screamed to high heaven. The Germans calmed them down by saying that they [the Jewish men] had been sent to work, and that soon they would come back safe and sound. The poor women naively trusted these promises, and began to look forward to the return of their husbands…. When we had come back to the town [of Korzec] in 1944, we found these Jews, some 300 people, buried in a big mass grave 2 kilometers from the town….