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4 Execution site(s)
Ivona, born in 1931, explains: "There was one entrance [in the ghetto] watched by gendarmes. On the street where I showed you the Margosh factory, there were two security huts. The guards there kept an eye on the Jews who worked in the factory. There was also another entrance on the other side of Belvedere Street with two guards. The Jews were not allowed to approach the schlagbaum(barrier). If they did, they could be shot dead.
YIU: Were the streets fenced in by a wooden or stone barrier?
Ivona: A wooden one. All windows on the ground floor [in the ghetto] were covered with wooden planks bearing the Star of David." (Eyewitness N°224, met in Ivano-Frankivsk, on August 25, 2005)
"My husband was in service [unit] of the Sicherheitspolizei [security police] headed by Krüger. His supervisor’s name was Brandt. My husband was an assistant "in the Jewish case" in Ivano-Frankivsk. I know it because he told me so. He said that he had some affairs in the ghetto and that he was called "the torturer of Stanislau" [Stanisławów].
In the same unit where my husband worked there was the SS chief named Wilhelm A. As far as I remember, he was in charge of political affairs. Once, A. showed us a photo he took of the execution site. In that photo, we could see a pit’s embankment and some naked people standing at the edge of it. They were standing with their backs turned to the SS. I saw my husband in this photo. He was standing with his gun, ready to shoot." [Deposition of Katharina S., a wife of SS soldier, Hof, 1.2.1962; B162-4991]
Ivano-Frankivsk, founded in 1654, is situated 113km (70 miles) southeast of Lviv. Before WWII, approximately 25,000 Jews were living in the city of over 73,000 inhabitants. As part of the Galicia region, the city was under Soviet occupation from September 1939 until the Hungarians occupied the area on July 02, 1941. Shortly after that, the Germans arrived.
In late July 1941, as the Germans came to power, they created a Jewish council and Jewish police force. The anti-Jewish measures were conducted by Gestapo and SS soldiers. The first Aktion was carried out on August 03, 1941, against over 500 Jewish craftsmen and intelligentsia executed in the Black Forest after being tortured while being held. This execution site is located close to the village of Pavlivka today. The largest anti-Jewish Aktion, known as "Bloody Sunday," took place on October 12, 1941. During this Aktion, the Security Police, with German Order Police’s assistance, murdered between 8,000 and 12,000 Jews in the Jewish cemetery.
Soon after, a closed ghetto was established where an estimated 20,000 Jews remained. On March 31, 1942, more than half of ghetto residents not fit for work were deported to the Belzec Killing Center. During this operation, conducted by the Gestapo and Ukrainian police, many Jews were shot before being deported. From March until September 1942, isolated shootings of ill Jews took place in the ghetto. Many more would also die in the ghetto due to hunger, disease, and horrific living conditions. On September 12, 1942, additional deportations took place in which an estimated 3,000-4,000 Jews were again sent to Belzec. The final liquidation of the ghetto was carried out on February 22-23, 1943. On June 25, 1943, the last remaining Jews were executed.
According to sources, approximately 1,500 Jews, native to Ivano-Frankivsk, managed to survive the war.
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