2 Killing site(s)
Olga Ie., born in 1924 : “We didn’t have any Jews here, except for the tailor and the blacksmith. Once day, the Germans came to take them. They must have taken them to the ghetto in Ostroh. Many jews lived there before the war. Then one day, I don’t remember when exactly, all the Jews from Ostroh were taken to the forest and shot. The forest is located near Netishyn.” (Witness n°84U, interviewed in Netishyn, on August 1st, 2004)
“On September 1 of the same year [1941], an SS division arrived in Ostrog early in the morning, forced the Jews out of their homes and took them to the sawmill on Manulovskiy Street, under the pretext of hard labor. There, they were loaded on trucks and taken along the Krivin road to a forest not far from the village of Netishyn. The shooting lasted until the evening, about 3,000 people were killed during this Aktion. - After this second Aktion, the remaining Jews were confined in a part of the city called a “ghetto”, surrounded by barbed wire, from which no one was allowed to leave without special permission. They were held there from May to October 1942.” [Deposition of a Jewish survivor Bentsion Katz, born in 1901, residing in Ostroh, on Dzerzhynskii Street 70 given to the State Extraordinary Commission (ChGK) in summer 1944; GARF 7021-71-64]
Netishyn is a small town located in the Sheptivka district, on the Horyn River, 120 km (76mi) north of Khmelnytskyi and 10 km (6mi) east of Ostroh. According to local witness interviewed by Yahad in 2004, Netishyn was home to Ukrainians and Poles, with the exception of a couple of Jewish artisans: a tailor and a blacksmith. Many Jews lived either in nearby Slavuta or Ostroh. In the 1920s and 1930s, about 8,000 Jews lived in Ostroh, making up 62% of the total population. In September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the town was taken over by the Soviets following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Netishyn was occupied by German forces in the first week of July 1941. 2,500 Jews were executed in the forest near the village of Netishyn on September 2, 1941. The Aktion was conducted by the 45th Police Battalion. That day, the Jewish men were gathered at the sawmill under the pretext of being taken to work. They were taken to the forest where pits had been dug in advance and shot to death. According to testimonies, a few Jews who lived in Netishyn before the war were displaced to the Ostroh ghetto in October 1942. A couple of days later they were executed along with other inmates.
For more information about the fate of Jewish community from Ostroh please visit corresponding profile
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