1 Execution site(s)
lina B., born in : "First, they took an elderly Jewish man from Ladyzhyn, who was hiding in the village, and they took him to Gayssyn to shoot him. Then, they shot five young girls who were accused of helping the partisans. They burned down their houses. And they killed five more people after the partisans killed the starost of the village." (Witness n°1234U, interviewed in Basalychivka on June 2, 2011)
“ In 1941, when German and Romanian troops entered the territory of the village of Ladyzhin [modern day Ladyzhyn], the entire Jewish population, irrespective of age and sex, was arrested. After long hours of being tortured, all of the Jewish population was taken to the left bank of the Buh River, where they were forced to dig a pit into which the Jews were thrown after they were shot. In this way the German and Romanian occupiers shot to death 504 people of Jewish origin. In addition, six Ukrainians, accused of being activists, were also murdered in different places of Ladyzhin. Those responsible for the shootings are the German Kommandant whose names remain unknown.” [Act n°10 drawn up by Soviet State Extraordinary Commission, on April 17, 1945; GARF 7021-54-1233, p.34-35].
“The operation was directed against the Ukrainian population of Jewish origin. After 36 years I do not recall clearly how all the details of this operation carried out. A reinforced platoon was assigned to this operation. Three squads of the 1st Platoon took part. Platoon commander Herrmann and his deputy, Wywiol, were in charge. We were woken up by Wywiol at about 5:30 a.m. and at about 6:00 a.m. we were standing in front of our living quarters ready for assignment […] We drove from Gaysin to the locality we were assigned to, Ladyzhin [sic: today Ladyzhyn], in about 45 minutes. The operation lasted until early afternoon; it was probably about 2 p.m. In Ladyzhin everything was already prepared. I mean that we were met by an SD unit that had about 15 men and Ukrainian militia; they informed us that the shooting trench had already been dug. […]. Our truck stopped near the Jewish part of the locality. After we climbed out of the truck, the platoon commander, Hermann, contacted the SD and the militia, announced to us the order of the day, and gave orders to the squad commanders. After he ordered the division [of platoon members into squads], the process started; it was probably about 7:30 a.m. Earlier in my affidavit I said that Ladyzhin was a small place and, therefore, the houses had a rural character. I mean that they were single-story houses, surrounded in front and back by gardens, which had many possible places to hide. That was probably the reason why we were helped by the [local] militia, who were better acquainted than we were with the local conditions. We burst violently into the Jewish living quarters and demanded without recourse that they leave their living quarters as quickly as possible [and] assemble for transport […].” [From the trial against Arno Schumann, Kurt Melzer, and Rudolf Miksch, former members of the 304th Order Police Battalion, Berlin (East) 1977- 1978; BStU, ZA, HA IX /11, ZUV 53, Band 8, Bl. 31 ]
Ladyzhyn is located 95km (59mi) southeast of Vinnytsia. The first record about the Jewish community goes back to the 17th century, but it was destroyed during the Khmelnytsky uprising. By the mid-18th century, the Jews resettled in the village but were constantly subjected to assaults. However, in 1897, 3,212 Jewish people lived here, comprising 49% of the total population. The majority of Jews lived off small scale trade and handcraft. During the Civil War, the Jewish community suffered greatly from the assaults of different actors which left dozens of victims. In the 1930s, a Jewish kolkhoz, "A Gutes Lebn", was established. At that moment, small private businesses were forbidden, and the Jews had to turn towards agriculture or to form cooperatives. The community had its synagogue, a cemetery and a Jewish school. On the eve of the war, only 12% of the total population was Jewish.
Ladyzhyn was occupied by German forces on July 24, 1941. A few number of Jews managed to evacuate before their arrival. Those who remained were murdered on September 13, 1941, in the ravine located close to the village of Basalychivka, 10km north of Ladyzhyn, a village located on the German occupied territory. The execution was conducted by the 304th Order Police Battalion who arrived from a nearby town of Haysyn. They were helped by the SD and local police. On this day most of the Jews were first gathered at the central place near the church in Ladyzhyn and then marched towards the ravine. According to the testimonies gathered by Yahad, a trench was dug by the requisitioned local men or by the Jews themselves. Once there, the Jews were forced to strip and then shot in groups at the edge of the trench, facing the trench. Several shooters fired at their back with submachine guns. After the shooting, the trench was filled in by the requisitioned locals.
Two days later Ladyzhyn was taken over by the Romanians and became part of Transnistria . Shortly after, the Romanians established a labor camp to which 450 Jews from various locations in Trostyanets district were taken. In January 1942, the skilled workers and their families were sent to the Pechora camp. In the spring of 1942, the Jews from the Iampil district were brought to Ladyzhyn to work in the granite quarries.
In mid-1942, about 1,000 Jews (400 from Dorohoi and 600 from Chernivtsi), were deported to Ladyzhyn. Half of those Jews were handed over to the Germans who used them for different kinds of forced labor, such as road construction or wood cutting. Those unable to work were murdered by the Germans in the mid-August 1942. About 540 Jews remained in the Ladyzhyn camp at that time. Most of the deportees were later transferred from Ladyzhyn to German labor camps along Highway IV, where most of them perished. According to the historian Altman, 60 mentally ill Jews from Chernivtsi, who were confined separately, were shot on August 26, 1942, somewhere in Ladyzhyn. Unfortunately, Yahad could not identify the exact location. However, as a result of the investigation, Yahad-In Unum was able to locate the stone quarry where hundreds of Jews were detained and used for forced labor. Supposedly, about a hundred of them were murdered in a quarry, but we couldn’t not confirm it for sure because none of the witnesses we interviewed were an eyewitness to the events.
For more information about the killing in Hubnyk please refer to the following profile
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