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1 Execution site(s)
Maria O., born in 1929, was asked: “YIU: What happened here during the war?
The Jews hid here. I don’t know how the Germans found out but one day they arrived and raided the forest. They found and killed the Jews.
YIU: Did you hear the gunshots? T: Yes.
YIU: When the Jews were hiding in the forest did they come to your house asking for food?
W: Yes, they did. First, they came at night, but later only during the day.
YIU: Did they stay overnight at your home?
W: No. They took the food and returned back to the forest.
W: They stayed over the summer and winter hiding in the forest. They were hiding for a long time in the forest.
YIU: And after that nobody came to ask for food anymore, is that correct?
W: Nobody.” (Testimony n°1374, interviewed in Klyn, on December 7th, 2011)
Klyn is located about 60km south west of Rivne. According to the local villagers there were no Jews living in the village. There were only Poles and Ukrainians. The biggest Jewish community lived in the town of Mlyniv, located 10 km away. The earliest known record about it dates back to the late 16th - early 17th century. In 1897, 209 Jews lived in the town and by 1897 its population rose up to 672 comprising 60% of the total population. On the eve of the war it is estimated that about 1,500 Jews, including 730 local Jews and refugees from Western Poland, lived in Mlyniv.
The village was occupied by Germans in the early July 1941. As there were no Jews in the village before the war, there are no archives or historical sources about this place. Thanks to the Yahad research field work we could identify the approximate location of the isolated execution of several Jews native from Mlyniv. We believe that a group of Jews escaped from Mlyniv and stayed in hiding in the forest close to Klyn. After a while they were found and shot by Germans on the spot. Unfortunately, it was impossible to establish the exact date of the execution, but according to the witness the group of Jews stayed in hiding over the summer and winter. It is possible that the Jews escaped from Mlyniv at the moment of the creation of the ghetto in May 1942. If it is so they might have been killed in spring 1943. The execution site in located in the forest with no memorial.
Do you have additional information regarding a village that you would like to share with Yahad ?
Please contact us at contact@yahadinunum.org
or by calling Yahad – In Unum at +33 (0) 1 53 20 13 17
Read Yahad-In Unum’s report of the research trip in this area