1 Execution site(s)
Iaroslava Ts., born in 1930: “At one moment a group of Jews was brought to the Polish manor. There were about a hundred of them, but I can’t tell you for sure, because I didn’t count. They were placed in three or four barracks that used to belong to the manor of the Polish noble. He escaped when the Soviets occupied the territory. The manor and its territory were not fenced-in. The Jews could go to the village easily, which they did to buy some food. They were brought here to work on the farm. So, they lived in the barracks and worked at the farm every day. At this time the local Jews stayed in their homes.” (Witness n°2352U, interviewed in Mukhavka, on March 16, 2018)
"The camp for Jews was built in 1941 and consisted of two wooden buildings. There were Jews from Tarnopol [Ternopil], Iagolnitsia, Zaleschiki [Zalischyky], Tluste [Tovste]. 130-140 Jews worked there as farmers, from dawn to dusk. They worked in my Filvarok (manor), and I told them what work they had to do. They were given 180g of bread daily, a plate of soup and coffee. In addition, they bought food from the population, as they couldn’t survive on what they were given. Most of the Jews in the camp were fit for physical labor, the children and the elderly [illegible]. The inmates were guarded by the Jews themselves. Jews were allowed to go into the village to get food, but only without being noticed by the Germans or the Ukrainian police. There was a camp commandant who was in charge of maintaining order in the camp, and he was Jewish." [Deposition of Mikhail Borovski, bornin 1899, Polish origin, head of the 19th kolkhoz, resident of the village of Mukhavka given to the State Soviet Extraordinary Commission (ChGK); GARF 7021-75- ?. / USHMM: RG 22.002M, reel 17]
Mukhavka is located 80 km (50mi) south of Ternopil, between the towns of Chortkiv and Tovste. There is not much information about the Jewish community in Mukhavka due to its relatively small size. According to local villagers, only four or five families lived there. Some families owned shops, others were artisans. A large Jewish community lived in Tovste, located 7 km (4mi) away. There was no synagogue, nor a cemetery. According to estimates, about 2,000 Jews out of a total population of 3,000 resided in Tovste on the eve of the war.
Mukhavka was occupied by German troops on July 7, 1941. For two months, the village was under Hungarian control. They had arrived three days after the Germans, but from September 1941 it was taken over by the German civil administration. According to the Soviet archives, a labor camp was created in the former Polish manor in the fall of 1941 and existed until 1943. A group of several hundred Jews, men, women, and children, were taken there, most probably from Tovste, to work on a farm. The camp was composed of three or four barracks, but it wasn’t fenced-in. They were free to move around the village, but were subjected to different kind of agricultural labor. At this moment, local Jews continued to live in their houses. The Jewish inmates from the camp were murdered along with local Jews during three main Aktions. The first murder operation took place in June 1943, during which a group of 130-140 Jews was rounded-up and sent to Svydovo. During this Aktion, several Jews were injured while trying to escape. The following month, in July 1943, a group of 30 Jews was shot. They were shot in the stables, on the streets and in the barracks where they were hiding or while attempting to escape. The third Aktion was conducted in November 1943. All the bodies from the three actions were buried at the manor grounds.
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