On Mach 31, 1942, a couple of days before Passover, German security policemen, supported by urban and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen, carried out an operation in the Stanisławów Ghetto, in the course of which several thousand Jews were deported to the Bełżec death camp. During this operation, houses in various parts of the ghetto were set on fire, and their residents were either burned alive inside them or shot while trying to run out. Many inmates were shot dead in the ghetto streets. In subsequent murder operations in the ghetto, the perpetrators continued the practice of burning the inmates alive in their houses and shooting them in groups in the streets. According to the former urban policeman Josef Dunkl, such killings also occurred during the liquidation of the Stanisławów Ghetto in early 1943.

Related Resources

Written Testimonies

German Reports / Romanian Reports

ChGK Soviet Reports

From the memoirs of Salomon Guensberg:

…The period of apparent “calm” in the ghetto was shattered on the night of March 31 – April 1, 1942. That day, the Gestapo staged a "St. Bartholomew Day's massacre" in the ghetto. Already at about 8 PM, the Order Service [ghetto police] was ordered to stay put. At about 10 PM, the ghetto was surrounded from all sides, while armed gangs of Gestapo men, urban policemen, and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen entered the ghetto. Now, the criminals were not only armed with submachine guns, but also festooned with grenades and equipped with small incendiary bombs. The barbarians methodically surrounded individual apartment blocks in various parts of the ghetto, doused them with gasoline, and threw grenades and incendiary bombs at them. The ghetto began to burn. The glow of the fire suffused the air. The unfortunate residents tried in vain to escape the burning houses. The criminals, foreseeing such an eventuality, surrounded each burning building, mowing down anyone who tried to jump out of a window to escape death. The Hitlerite beasts erected a huge pile of logs in the center of the ghetto, which they ignited after dousing it with gasoline. Tearing the children and nursing infants out of their mothers' arms, grabbing the babies and children by the legs, they hurled them into the flames. Others placed children in paper bags and threw them onto the burning pile. About 7 (seven) thousand ghetto inmates perished during that night….

ZIH, WARSAW 302/136 copy YVA M.49 / 136

From the memoirs of Stanisław Gajkowski (born 1860):

…Often, in the evenings I saw a glow over the ghetto – the Gestapo men would set the houses on fire, locking the residents inside. Whoever tried to jump out of windows or from the attic would be fired upon and pushed back inside the burning building….

YVA O.62 / 527

From the testimony of Rosa Zelwer (born 1917):

…The second-large scale murder operation (Akcja), which claimed the lives of many Jewish residents of Stanisławów, was a fire in the ghetto. It was the Passover holiday. The Germans set fire to the ghetto simultaneously from all sides. Some of the Jews ran out of their houses in a panic. They were shot on the spot. The people perished in the flames, as the conflagration engulfed the ghetto area. My husband’s parents, along with his entire family, died in this murder operation.

YVA O.3 / 1074

Stanisławów Ghetto

Ghetto

Murder Site

Poland

48.921;24.713

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USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 582 copy YVA O.93 / 582