2 Execution site(s)
Yakiv L., born in 1934: “Before the war there weren’t that many Jews in the village, there were just a few families. I remember Pinkas, the tinsmith, really well. He had four children: Adam and Sima who were in my school and two other daughters. There was also Motio, a carpenter. He had two daughters, Kaila and Blima. There was also Moshko, a tailor. Nearby, in Peremyshliany, there was a large Jewish community and a synagogue. Here the Jews prayed in their homes. When the Germans arrived, they immediately started attacking the Jews. One day I went to the Peremyshliany market. A German patrol stopped me… they wore a metal plate on their chest. They thought I was a Jew and forced me to take off my pants to verify that I was not. One spring day, I saw four German soldiers in green uniforms and four policemen in black uniforms driving the Jews away on carts. I saw Motio’s family sitting on a cart, the other one was empty. They passed right in front of my house. They were calm. They must have thought that they were being taken to the Peremyshliany ghetto. But when they turned near the church, they understood that they were going to be killed. They started screaming and crying. I was sick that day, so I couldn’t follow them, I stayed at home. So I didn’t see but I heard bursts of gunfire. They were driven near the cemetery and the brickyard where there was a grave. People said the Jews were shot one by one. There was a river flowing next to the site…later the water was red with blood.” (Witness n°3025U, interviewed in Korosno, on December 9, 2021)
Korosno (Korosne until 2021) is a village in the Lviv Region located 2 km from Peremyshliany, the district center, where there was a large Jewish community. It was part of Poland until the partition of 1772 when it was annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Regained by independent Poland in 1919, it belonged to the province of Ternopol. In 1939, the village was occupied by the Soviet Union. There were about 10 Jews in the village before the war. Dvorka, Hershko, Monashko, Gita, Motio, Pinkas and a few others. Some had stores, some had their own land, which they lived off. Hershko had a store in Peremyshliany.
Korosno as occupied by German army in early July 1941. According to the Soviet records, about 30 Jews were brought to Korosno from the town of Peremyshliany. The Jews were taken by truck towards the execution site, according to an eyewitness interviewed by Yahad-In Unum. The grave was dug near the Ukrainian cemetery by Jews and local people requestioned to do so. Once the pit had been dug, the Jews had to undress and stand on the edge of it. The Germans ordered all Ukrainians at the shooting scene, including the witness, to stand behind the hill, so that they could not see anything. The witness heard bursts of gunfire and screaming. After the shooting, the Ukrainians had to fill the pit in. About a month later, the witness also saw a Jew who was hiding in the fields being forced to dig a pit near a brickyard. The Germans did not allow him to watch the execution itself, but he heard the shots. According to witness n°3024, local Jews were also shot in Korosno. The witness saw them being taken away on carts towards the cemetery, then heard gunfire.
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