Murder story of Bolechów Jews at the Bolechów Jewish Cemetery

…In the morning of March 28, 1943, using the population registry, the Ukrainian police began to arrest the "rag pickers." All the members of this group (except for its leader, Szyj Freilich), some twenty people in total, were taken to the [Jewish] cemetery and shot. The grave had been dug in advance. The following people died there: Alter Diamand and his daughter Pepcia, Malka Rechter-Rotfeldom and her two children, Lustig Reinharz with his wife Fania (née Szuster) and their two children, the wife of Szyj Freilich and her daughter, Bauman from Polanica, and Chawa Kornblich.… In the morning of June [sic for March] 5, 1943, the Gestapo came from Stryj and arrested the Jewish Order Service of Bolechów and some 100 workers from the barrel factory. The latter were Jews from Bolechów, who had been brought back from the Stryj Ghetto by the manager of the barrel factory a few days previously, to work in Bolechów. These 100 people had received police permits to reside in Bolechów – as Order Service employees, their family members, physicians, and dentists. The others, who worked in Bolechów on a permanent basis, had badges marked "R" and "W" (Rüstung and Wehrmacht). The assembled 100 people were taken to the [Jewish] cemetery and shot there.… The following people died there: the lawyer Pressler, Professor Pasternak, Dr. Goldaszlak, Herman Kaufan, Hersz Klreinberg, Lejzor Rotbaum, Wilf, Sabka Garther, and the physician Frankfurterum.… …On August 21, 1943, the resettlement of some Jews from the Hobag barracks began. They were all bathed and disinfected. The commandant of this camp was Grzymek, an ethnic German from Śląnsk who spoke very good Polish. He declared that nothing would be done to the camp inmates. The children were also illegally allowed to move into the camp. On August 24, 1943, the Jews held a feast at the camp in honor of the new life that was about to begin in the safety of this place, and in honor of the commandant, Grzymek. Sweets were distributed to the children. On August 25, 1943, the liquidation began. The new camp and the still unemptied Hobag barracks, tannery, barrel factories, and furniture factory were surrounded. All the Jews were taken, in cars or on foot, to the [Jewish] cemetery, where graves had been dug in advance. They were forced to stand at the edge of the graves in groups of four, whereupon they were shot from behind. There were two large graves. Apart from the Germans, Ukrainians and Uzbeks [i.e. Soviet POWs] also took part in the shooting, using automatic weapons. All the surviving Jews of Bolechów, some 1,500 people, died in this operation. Dr. David Landes was spared at the last moment, when he was already undressed, since he was needed for the medical services in the city. He was seen in the city for some days afterward, and then he vanished, hiding in a bunker. Around 2 PM, to the sounds of singing and music, the Ukrainian policemen, the German Gestapo officers, and the Uzbek deserters returned from the cemetery in ranks. The city had been cleared of Jews.…

…Early in the morning of March 5, [1943], the camps of the barrel factory were surrounded by a reinforced squad of SS men and Ukrainian policemen. Everyone [in the camp] believed that the hour of the final liquidation [of the camp] had come. A little later, it turned out that the intention [of the Germans] was to imprison only the people who had been brought from the ghetto in [the town of] Stryj. The Jewish police arrived, driving the poor wretches out of their homes and promising them that they would be taken to Obóz Janowski [i.e., the Janowski labor camp] in [the city of] Lwów. The group was taken to the [town] magistrate's building. They were held there until the afternoon (while the grave was being dug). The group was then escorted to the Jewish cemetery under a strong guard, which included some Jewish policemen. Upon arriving at the cemetery, everyone was ordered to strip naked, and, [after] waiting for the grave to be dug, everyone was executed. Several people tried to run away, but failed. Suddenly, the Jewish policemen, who were about to leave the cemetery, were encircled by Germans and Ukrainians. Before being executed, they were also stripped naked, but the entire procedure, including the approach to the edge of the mass grave…, was carried out like a military procession – [including] the saluting, the jumping to attention, etc. – until the very last second. We were told that the Jewish police chief, the lawyer Pressler, who was the son in-law of Dr. Schindler, had slapped the cheeks of the Nazi supervisor. One should note that, early that [same] morning, several Jewish policemen had managed to escape, having sensed the danger. The next day, Dr. Schindler committed suicide.… …Most of the people [from the] "garbage collection service" were arrested by the Ukrainian [auxiliary] police and executed by shooting at the Jewish cemetery by a notorious [Ukrainian] policeman [named] Matovitsky. This tragedy took place on March 12, 1943, and the number of victims was twenty-eight. Only the head of the "factory", Yehoshua Freilich, was released and allowed to resume his previous work.… …On August 25, 1943, the new [labor] camp was surrounded by a large force consisting primarily of [Andrei] Vlasov's troops [sic], and some 1,200 inmates [of the camp] were taken to the Jewish cemetery and executed by shooting (these included several hundred Jews from Skole, who had been brought to the camps [of Bolechów] sometime beforehand). This time, [the killers] used a new murder technique, which had been implemented by the Germans in many places. The victim would be led to the edge of the pit and shot in the back of the nape, with the bullet being fired from below at very close range; at the same time, the murderer would kick the victim, [causing them] to fall into the mass grave. During the previous murder operations, the people [Jews] would be forced into the mass grave and ordered to lie down on top of the previous victims; they would then be shot [in turn,] and so on. However, [this time] the victims were shot mainly with machine guns and rifles from a certain distance, as they stood near the mass graves. Thus, many [Jews] were buried while being only lightly wounded, and some were buried without sustaining any injury. As a result, rumors began to circulate among the local Jews and non-Jews, about the moans of [the victims] emanating from the mass graves, and about the soil that was heaving over them. But it seems that the primary purpose of this new technique [of murder] was to save ammunition…. As far as we know, no one was able to escape during this final murder operation.… The mass graves were covered with a layer of lime for disinfection, and Bolechów thus became "Judenrein" [free of Jews].…