1 Execution site(s)
Kateryna Sch., born in 1932: “One night all the Jews were killed in their homes. I didn’t see what happened exactly, nor did I hear anything, but the following day while grazing cows I saw the carts transporting bodies and some belongings. The carts were driven by local people who had been requisitioned by the local administration. You know, it was war, and you didn’t have much choice. If you were told to do something, you had to do it. The bodies were buried in a pit dug in the forest, at a place called Kravtsiv Obich. I heard that one woman was still alive when she was taken to the pit. The Germans finished her off and thew the body into the pit.” (Testimony n°2993U, interviewed in Trukhaniv, on March 25, 2019)
Truhaniv is situated about 30 km (19mi) southwest of Stryi and about 100 km south of Lviv. As part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire province of Galicia, the town was under Polish administration until September 1939. According to local witnesses, five Jewish families lived in Truhaniv before the war. Some Jews were farmers, others had a tavern and a lumberyard. Some Jews lived off trade of timber and wood processing. There was no synagogue or cemetery in Truhaniv. In September 1939, the village was taken over by the Soviet Union.
After the Soviet occupation in September 1939, the village was first occupied by the Hungarian army in July 1941. In August 1941, the Germans took over and managed the town until July 1944. There is little archival information about the Holocaust in Trukhaniv. According to historian Marie Moutier-Bitan, about 35 Jews were killed there in the summer of 1941. According to local witnesses interviewed by Yahad, all local Jews, five or six families, were murdered during the night shortly after the occupation. They were killed in their homes. It was not possible to establish who conducted the murder, but one of the witnesses believes they were local bandits. The following morning, all the bodies were transported to a place called Kravtsiv Obich, where they were buried. Today, there is no memorial at this site.
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