1 Killing site(s)
Olga K., born in 1924: "I lived in Novyi Yarychiv. The entire town center was inhabited by the Jews. They were so numerous that there were three synagogues. I remember Malka and Hannah, two women who often came to our house to buy chickens. One day, even before the war, Hannah told us, "Something bad is going to happen to us soon. " And it was true.
Some time after the Germans arrived, the local Jews were confined to a ghetto. The Germans also brought Jews from the surrounding villages here. I don’t know how long the Jews stayed in the ghetto. I remember that in winter we heard explosions so loud that the houses shook. We didn’t know what was happening, but later we learned that the Germans used explosives to dig the pits.
Then there was a mass shooting. There had been a very good doctor here, Dr. Naiman, who had treated my father before the war. He had two sons. One of them managed to escape from the pit and came to our house at night. He was naked and covered in blood. He told us what had happened in the forest.
My mother was scared for us — the Germans killed entire families if they found out they were hiding a Jew. But we hid him anyway in the attic. My father found him some clothes, my mother prepared food for him, and we sent him to my mother’s home village, Polonychi, where my grandparents hid him in the attic. However, someone saw him crossing the road and denounced us to the Germans. The next day at dawn, Gestapo officers came to our house. They lined us up downstairs and told us that if we were hiding a Jew, we would all be killed. They searched the entire house and stabbed the attic straw with bayonets, but Dr. Naiman’s son had already left. They beated my father, who died two weeks later. This young Jewish man survived and came back to see us after the war." (Testimony N°YIU42U, interviewed in Novyi Yarychiv on July 23, 2004)
"At the very beginning of the German occupation of the village of Novyi Yarychiv, there were about 1,500 Jews living there. When the entire Jewish population was gathered into a ghetto, the total number rose to approximately 2,600, as Jewish families from other villages were brought in — notably from Tseperiv, Rudantsi, Borshchevychi, and others.
Three days after the German invasion, Gestapo trucks arrived at the marketplace, took 12 Jews on board, drove them to a forest not far from the village of [illegible], and shot them. The remaining Jews were gathered into the ghetto, where they were held under Gestapo guard.
Around January 10, 1942, the Gestapo organized the mass shooting of the Jews of Novyi Yarychiv. Between that day and the final days of the Aktion, up to 2,600 members of the Jewish population were killed by gunfire. On the first day of the Aktion, 1,700 people were shot and buried in a mass grave located in the forest near the Polish Folwark area, next to the village of Novyi Yarychiv. This grave no longer exists, as in 1943 the Germans removed the bodies — it is not known where they were taken.
In addition, several mass graves are located in the Jewish cemetery on Franka Street, where up to 1,000 people are buried. The local police participated in the shootings that took place in the Jewish cemetery […]" [Deposition of Ivan Ivanovich Berniatski, born in 1893, given to the State Extraordinary Soviet Commission (ChGK) on September 9, 1944; GARF 7021-67-82/Copy USHMM RG.22-002M; pp. 60–61.]
"Around January 14, 1942, in Novyi Yarychiv, groups of Gestapo officers arrived from Lviv and began taking Jews from the ghetto — an enclosed area designated for the residence of the Jewish population, surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by police units. After about a month, they came again and gathered the Jews in front of the police building.
That day, extreme cold prevailed; all those assembled, including children and the sick, were kept outside in the freezing air for about four hours. To prevent excessive noise, Gestapo men killed adults and children who cried or made too much noise along the road. It even happened that some children were killed with knives. On that same day, about 2,000 Jews were shot in a forest near Novyi Yarychiv.
In the following days, the Gestapo shot the remaining Jews in the Jewish cemetery, where mass graves had been dug.
The bodies from the mass grave in the forest and from several of those in the Jewish cemetery were later taken to Lviv. It was said that they had been burned there." [Deposition of Andrei Iossifovich Kostyniuk, born in 1906, given to the State Extraordinary Soviet Commission (ChGK) on September 10, 1944; GARF 7021-67-82/Copy USHMM RG.22-002M; pp. 62–63]
The grave [in the forest] was dug in the following manner: a section of the forest was blown up with explosives. Afterward, the Gestapo selected a group of Jews to clean out the pit, and then they were shot.
The shootings took place as follows: planks were laid along the edge of the pit; groups of people condemned to be executed were made to walk on these planks, and machine guns positioned at the ends of the pit opened fire. The stronger Jews were forced to arrange the bodies inside the pit. In total, 1,570 people were buried in this grave.
About 1,000 people were shot in the cemetery on Franka Street and buried in five pits. The bodies from two of these pits were later taken away. Only the smaller mass graves remain.
It is also known that a Gestapo officer interrogated a Jew named Shmider Aaron. He arrested him in his apartment, beat him severely, and mutilated his face. Then he placed a tin bucket on his head and took him, in that state, to the forest to be shot." [Deposition of Votik Ivanovich Patenok, born in 1896, given to the State Extraordinary Soviet Commission (ChGK) on September 10, 1944; GARF 7021-67-82/Copy USHMM RG.22-002M; pp. 64–65]
Novyi Yarychiv is located approximately 24 km (15 mi) east-northeast of Lviv. The first known mention of the town in written sources dates back to 1563. Situated in Eastern Galicia, Novyi Yarychiv came under the rule of various powers over the centuries, including the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland, and the Soviet Union.
A Jewish community had existed in Novyi Yarychiv for several centuries and, by the 19th and early 20th centuries, formed a significant part of the town’s social and cultural life. In 1910, the Jewish population numbered 1,608 people, accounting for 50.4% of the town’s total population. By 1921, this number had declined to 926, or 43.3% of the inhabitants.
The town had a synagogue, a Bet Midrash (study house), and a Jewish cemetery. Most Jews earned their livelihood through small-scale trade and handicrafts, while some worked as skilled professionals.
In 1922, with the assistance of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint), a Hebrew-language school was established. During the 1930s, children of different faiths attended the same Polish public school, receiving separate religious instruction. Jews also played an active role in the town’s political and social life, and part of the community was involved in the Zionist movement.
In September 1939, following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the subsequent division of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union, Novyi Yarychiv came under Soviet control. During this period, large numbers of Jewish refugees fled eastward from German-occupied Poland. Between 1939 and 1941, Novyi Yarychiv—together with nearby Staryi Yarychiv and the surrounding villages—received many displaced Jewish families, increasing the Jewish population of the area to over 2,000, about 1,500 of whom lived in Novyi Yarychiv itself.
Novyi Yarychiv was occupied by units of the German 17th Army on June 30, 1941. After a brief period of military administration, the town came under German civil control in August 1941. A post of the German Gendarmerie was established, along with a unit of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police.
In the first days of the German occupation, a pogrom broke out in the town, during which 14 Jews, accused of being Soviet activists, were murdered by local Ukrainians. Acts of violence, including beatings and the looting of Jewish property, were also carried out by locals, reportedly incited by the town’s Orthodox priest. Shortly afterward, the synagogue, along with its sacred objects, was set on fire and destroyed.
In July 1941, a Judenrat (Jewish Council) was established in the town, and anti-Jewish measures were soon introduced. Jewish residents were required to register and wear identifying badges. According to Maria S., born in 1928 and interviewed by Yahad, local Jews were forced to wear a white star. Many were also forced into labor, including road construction work on the route leading to Lviv. Throughout 1942, numerous Jews were transferred to labor camps in the vicinity, and a number of elderly individuals were deported to the Bełżec killing center.
In late November or early December 1942, a ghetto was established in the center of Novyi Yarychiv. It held between 2,300 and 2,600 Jews, including both local residents and Jews brought in from nearby villages such as Staryi Yarychiv, Barszczowicze, Rudańce, Kukizów, Pikutowicze, and Gliniany. The ghetto was guarded by armed German soldiers and local policemen. Maria S., who lived on Shukhevych (Shashkevych) Street opposite the ghetto, recalled that its inmates were occasionally allowed to leave under guard to attend the market. Conditions inside the ghetto steadily worsened, marked by increasing hunger, the spread of disease, and a severe shortage of winter clothing.
On January 15–16, 1943, the ghetto in Novyi Yarychiv was liquidated during an Aktion carried out by the Security Police and SD unit from Lviv, assisted by the German Gendarmerie and local policemen. The Jews were forced out of their homes, assembled into a column, and marched to a killing site in the nearby forest. Maria S., an eyewitness who lived nearby, described the column as a large procession that included many children and was heavily guarded by armed men. According to her testimony, those unable to walk were shot along the way, loaded onto a cart, and taken to the forest. Upon arrival, the victims were forced to undress before being shot and buried in a pit that had been prepared in advance. Olga K., born in 1924 and interviewed by Yahad, corroborated the CES’s information regarding the use of explosives to dig the mass graves in the forest: “We heard explosions so strong that the houses shook,” she recalled.
According to Soviet archival sources, at least 1,570 Jews were shot in the forest, while another group of nearly 1,000 Jews were killed the same day and in the following days at the Jewish cemetery of Novyi Yarychiv. At the end of 1943, Operation 1005 was carried out in the forest and at the Jewish cemetery to conceal the evidence of the crime.
Novyi Yarychiv was liberated in mid-1944. After liberation, around 20 Jews returned to the town. Today, the main site where 1,570 Jews were murdered is marked with a memorial. The Jewish cemetery no longer exists, and no memorial has been erected on the site.
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