Murder Story of Kolomyja Jews in the Kolomyja Prison Courtyard

…It was on the tragic day of November 5, 1942 that I and several thousand other Jews got caught in an annihilation operation. First, we were gathered in the large square opposite the labor offices. Then, under a reinforced guard of all the occupying squads, we were marched to the prison courtyard…. Later that night, a shooting began in the prison courtyard, and it lasted until dawn. By the first rays of the morning sun, we saw many horse-drawn carts waiting at the prison gate. The bodies of the shot Jews were being piled upon these carts like slaughtered cattle. These were actually the victims of the night shooting – the elderly, the infirm, the sick, and the children – who had been unable to walk to the mass graves at Szeparowce....

The second murder operation of this kind was carried out on Mokra Street. The Ukrainians informed [the Germans] about a Jew who had worked as a policeman under Russian rule, and who now lived on that street. The Judenrat was ordered to hand the man over to the Gestapo. The Judenrat sent its policemen to fetch him from his house, but he had apparently escaped or gone into hiding, vanishing without a trace. Then, the Gestapo [officers] came and subjected Mokra Street to the same treatment they had meted out to Wałowa Street. The entire street was blocked off, and all of its Jewish residents, without exception, were driven out of their apartments and dragged to the prison. Apart from this, there were searches and arrests of groups of people, and also of individuals. Those arrested in these “retail” murder operations had to wait at the prison until the necessary quota was reached.… Those weakened by hunger and torture were executed right in the prison courtyard….