Murder Story of Zdolbunow Jews in the Mylsk Stary Area

September 21, 1959 Strade From the indictment against Robert Georg Marschall, former district commissar of Zdołbunów: …I remember that, in fall 1943 or early 1944 [sic for 1942], a murder operation took place in Zdołbunów. To my knowledge, it claimed the lives of 1,600 or 1,700 Jews. One morning at 4 AM, I saw the Jews being herded into a large square. Many Jews were still trying to escape, and a large part of those who could not be recaptured were shot on the run. This murder operation was carried out by the Green [Order] Police and the Ukrainian militia. There were women and children among the victims. After being assembled, they were taken away by truck. As I would later learn, they were supposedly shot on the same day, at a spot some three kilometers northeast of Zdołbunów. Apparently, pits had been dug at the site before the annihilation. The Jews came without luggage, but all of them were dressed.

May 27, 1963 Nuremberg From the verdict against Josef Paur, former district commander of the rural police in Zdołbunów; Wilhelm Wacker, former chief of the rural police station in Zdołbunów, and Otto Koeller, former deputy district commissar in Zdołbunów: …A few days before October 13, 1942, an SD officer from Równe… paid a visit to the defendant Paur in Zdołbunów and informed him that, on three consecutive days, the ghettos in Zdołbunów, Misocz, and Ostrog were to be liquidated, and all the Jews would be shot at killing sites outside the localities, where large mass graves were to be dug…. Early in the morning of October 13, 1942, the defendant Wacker, with his rural policemen and the Ukrainian auxiliary policemen subordinated to him, cordoned off the Zdołbunów Ghetto, in accordance with the instructions he had received. He ordered his men to occupy the exit points and set up posts around the ghetto, especially in the direction of the Horyn River. The men at the posts were ordered to shoot any Jew trying to escape the evacuation to the execution site…. The Jews – men, women, and children – were driven out of their homes by members of the SD squad from Równe. Any attempts at resistance would be brutally suppressed. The houses were set on fire. All those trying to escape were shot by the SD on the spot. Bodies were strewn all over the ghetto streets. The Jews were crammed into the trucks and driven to the execution [site]. Their agonized screams rose to high heaven. At the shooting site, which lay several kilometers from Zdołbunów, they had to strip naked, get into the mass grave, and lie there face down. The women had their children with them. The families, gripped by mortal terror, huddled tightly together. The SD members then shot the prone people in the back of the head or through the neck with submachine guns. Subsequent groups of Jews had to lie down atop the bodies of those shot before them. Thus, the shooting went on, layer by layer, until the last Jew from the ghetto was shot. Many of the victims were not killed, but merely wounded. They eventually suffocated from the blood and the weight of bodies pressing down on them. Only a tiny handful of Jews managed to get out of the mass grave in the night and escape under cover of darkness. They are the surviving witnesses of this horrible massacre, which claimed the lives of at least 1,000 Jews….

Ludwigsburg February 25, 1960 From the notice of the Public Prosecutor: …On October 13, 1942, SS-men from Rowno and Ukrainian militiamen surrounded the Zdołbunów Ghetto. Some 1,500 persons were loaded onto trucks and taken to Novo-Mylsk, approximately one kilometer east of Zdołbunów. There, they had to remove their clothes and lie down in rows in the pits. SS men and volunteers from the Zdołbunów rural police shot the victims in the back and the neck. Some sick Jews were taken there, as well, and murdered in the same way….