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Oral history interview with Yahad-In Unum interviewee 729U

Oral History | Accession Number: 2009.24.179 | RG Number: RG-50.589.0179

The interviewee, a Ukrainian man born in 1929, discusses events in Horodok (Gorodok), L'vivs'ka oblast', Ukraine; the pre-war presence of Jews; the Soviet takeover in 1939; the outbreak of war and the hurried evacuation of Soviet officials; the arrival of German forces; the prevalence of German-speakers among the new local administration and "amoral" persons among the Ukrainian police; an early "aktion" in which younger Jewish men were gathered in the central square and taken by truck and reportedly shot; the establishment of a ghetto on the site of the current bus station; details on the ghetto; seeing Jews being marched to work outside of the ghetto, guarded by Jewish police, who were "sometimes worse than Germans;" words of a Polish song, which marching Jews often sang; following with other children a column of Jews being led from the ghetto to the shooting site in 1942; details on the column of Jews and on the "drunk" Germans guarding them; seeing one Jew fleeing the column and hiding in the reeds; hearing shooting that lasted all day; the drunken condition of German troops, who had been trucked in for the shooting, and the presence of some Russians in German uniforms; the later killing of Jews herded into a sugar refinery, which then was set on fire; the names of some Jews who survived by either hiding or evacuating before the Germans’ arrival; the local police units, including "criminal" police which locals often called "Polish" police; the underground movement in Horodok, which after the war was directed against Soviet authority; and his view that under the Soviets and during the war, Ukrainian victims outnumbered Jewish victims.

Image
Date
interview:  2009 January 06
Geography
creation: Horodok (L'vivs'ka oblast', Ukraine)
Language
Ukrainian
French
Extent
2 compact discs.
Credit Line
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Yahad-in Unum
 
Record last modified: 2023-11-16 09:07:09
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn38765