Murder story of Stanislawow Jews in the Pawełcze Forest

…The first task of the Judenrat was registering the entire Jewish intelligentsia of the city of [Stanisławów]…. The Judenrat announced that everyone should register, or else the Gestapo threatened collective retribution against the entire Jewish population of the city. This explains why all the members of the intelligentsia complied with the Gestapo orders and showed up at its headquarters on August 3, 1941…. Already in the early morning of the next day, August 4, 1941, columns of covered trucks with members of our intelligentsia were driving along Halicz Street toward the Pawełcze Forest. One of the doomed individuals, who had merely been wounded, got out of the grave at night. He was an acquaintance of mine, and he described the execution to me in the following way: The mass graves had already been dug in the forest, at the horse burial grounds of Pawełcze. Our brothers and sisters were ordered to crawl 500 meters to… the grave, where the murder squad shot [them] with submachine guns, cutting the threads of their lives. Many of the wounded suffocated after being buried alive.

…On August 3, [1941], under the guise of a meeting, the Germans lured almost all the members of the Jewish intelligentsia of the city of Stanisławów [into a trap], and a few days later they shot all of them near the forest at Pawełcze, some ten kilometers from Stanisławów. For almost two months afterward, the Jews would put together packages for those people, who were long dead….

…Several days later, an announcement was posted on the gate of the Jewish council offices, informing the locals of the compulsory gathering of members of the professional intelligentsia – doctors, engineers, lawyers, dentists, high school teachers – at the Gestapo [offices] on Biliński Street, for the purpose of registration, to enable them to continue their professional activities. All the members of the intelligentsia showed up, not suspecting any foul play. All of them were detained, and only the medical professionals were released. It was said that, upon arrival, they had been ordered to kneel in the lobby. Sometime later, several persons were selected to be tortured. This took place in Krueger's presence, who laughed and ordered the martyrs to dance. Afterward, they were loaded onto vehicles covered with boards (some of them remained open) and driven to the execution site in Pawełcze. The people were transported without jackets and with bowed heads, and anyone who raised their head would be beaten with rifle butts by the Ukrainian policemen standing in the vehicles….

The first act of the Germans against us was the annihilation of our entire intelligentsia. On the very first day, a Judenrat was established, and it ordered all the members of the intelligentsia to assemble on a certain day. 600… individuals – doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, officials – showed up. Except for a few doctors [and] specialists who could eventually be of use to the Germans, none of those taken away ever returned. I myself saw the naked people being driven away by vehicle. They were shot in the Pawełcze Forest, and there were [also] a few members of the Polish intelligentsia among them, mostly teachers….

…The Judenrat was established, we are talking about July [1941]…, and it was announced that all the members of the intelligentsia… had to register to be able to work. And everyone came forward, dressed in their finest clothes…, to present themselves to the German authorities. And the Germans rounded up all those members of the intelligentsia and gathered them in a certain place, where a selection was carried out. Very few individuals – such as doctors and engineers, who were essential for some maintenance work – were released. And all these members of the intelligentsia…were taken to a forest near the village of Pawełcze, where they were all murdered….