Przemyśl | Subcarpathian Voivodeship

Destruction of Jews in Przemyśl

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:

Jewish cemetery

Memorials:

Yes

Period of occupation:

1939-1944

Number of victims:

Over 3,000

Witness interview

YIU Witness N°415P, born in 1934: “I was born in Ukraine, but my family and I moved to Przemyśl when I was six years old. At that time, the town was already divided between the Germans and the Soviets. We ended up living on the German-occupied side. There was a ghetto in Przemyśl. I used to walk near it and could see inside, and once, I even went in. I had to be careful, because it was guarded by Germans. Anyone caught entering the ghetto illegally was hanged. One day, I saw two men hanging on the gallows. Their bodies remained there for several days. Between them, a dog had also been hanged. The Germans wanted to send a message, that Jews, and anyone who disobeyed their rules, were worth no more than a dog. A guard stationed by the bodies forced passersby to look at the corpses. Many mass shootings took place in Przemyśl during the German occupation, often on a vacant field near the Jewish cemetery. I witnessed one of these executions while on my way to visit my grandfather, who lived about 3 km farther on. Jews—both men and women—were brought to the site in three covered trucks. A long pit had already been prepared. The victims were taken off the trucks, led to the edge of the pit in groups, and shot with a machine gun. Each new group was forced to approach the pit, partially covering the bodies of those already killed, before being murdered in the same way.” (Witness N°YIU415P, interviewed in Przemyśl, on December 16, 2014)

Polish Archives

Historical note

Przemyśl is a city in southeastern Poland, located approximately 220 km (137 miles) east-southeast of Kraków. The first recorded mention of Jews in Przemyśl is also the earliest documented reference to a Jewish community in Poland, noting Jewish settlement as early as 1018. Over time, the Przemyśl kahal became one of the largest and most important Jewish communities in the former Ruthenian province.

The legal basis for Jewish settlement in Przemyśl was the privilege granted by King Casimir the Great in 1367, which applied to Jews in Ruthenia and Lesser Poland. As a German-speaking population, Jews were settled outside the city walls, in the northeastern part of Przemyśl. There, they established a large district with its own hospital, synagogue, bathhouse, kosher slaughterhouse, matzah bakery, and kahal house, where court sessions were held.

In 1900, the Jewish community numbered 17,321 members, making it the largest in the region corresponding to today’s Podkarpackie Province, and the fifth largest in all of Galicia. The community supported a wide range of institutions, including three religious schools, several philanthropic foundations, a hospital, and others.

By 1910, Jews made up about 30% of the city’s 54,000 residents, with 16,000 identifying as Jewish. By 1931, the population was composed of 49% Poles, 34% Jews, and 16% Ukrainians, making Jews the second-largest ethnic group in the city after Poles.

There were two Jewish cemeteries in Przemyśl: the old cemetery from the 16th century, and the new cemetery, established in 1822. The Jewish community and its associations maintained eight synagogues: the Old Synagogue (1590) on Żydowska Street in the city center; the synagogue in Zasanie; the Tempel Synagogue; the synagogue on Słowackiego Street (known as Scheinbach’s Synagogue); and others on Unii Brzeskiej, Serbińska (two locations), and Wałowa streets.

The Jewish population of Przemyśl was largely composed of traders and artisans. In 1939, the local Traders’ Association had over 500 members, and the Jewish Craftsmen’s Association had about 250. YIU’s witness Leszek W., born in 1930, recalled the city’s rabbi as a middle-aged man who lived with his wife and family in Leszek’s neighborhood. According to him, Jews had generally good relations with their Polish and Ukrainian neighbors. When Leszek was born, the rabbi gifted his parents a silver cutlery set and porcelain plates monogrammed with Leszek’s initials, in honor of their firstborn son.

On the eve of the Second World War, approximately 20,000 Jews lived in Przemyśl, with another 4,000 in the surrounding area.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

At the start of World War II, Przemyśl was divided by the San River: the left bank came under German control, and the right under Soviet occupation. On September 16, 1939, after German forces entered the city, the Einsatzgruppe zur besonderen Verwendung carried out the first killings of Jews. Jewish men, particularly community leaders, were rounded up and shot in pits outside the city. By the end of September, the Germans expelled the Jewish population from their zone, forcing them into Soviet-held territory. Around 70 Jews who remained were confined in two buildings and later killed by the Germans in June 1942 in the village of Kuńkowce.

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, all of Przemyśl fell under German occupation by June 28. On November 1, 1941, the city’s two districts were unified administratively. That summer, a Judenrat (Jewish Council) was established, and Jews were forced to relocate to the Garbarza district, which became the designated Jewish area. On July 16, 1942, the Przemyśl ghetto was officially established and progressively sealed. By the end of June 1942, around 5,000 Jews from surrounding towns—including Bircza, Krzywcza, and Dynów—had been resettled in the ghetto, while a number of Jews living in the vicinity were killed. It is estimated that by the summer of 1942, around 22,000 Jews had been relocated to the ghetto, and a total of approximately 24,000 passed through it during its existence.

Beginning in the spring of 1942, the Gestapo conducted numerous mass killings of Jews at the cemetery on Słowacki Street. In mid-June, the Judenrat was ordered to provide a list of 1,000 able-bodied young Jews, who were arrested and sent to the Janowska Street camp in Lwów. In July, several hundred elderly, sick, and disabled Jews were murdered by the Sipo in the forest near Grochowce.

The first deportation Aktion in Przemyśl began on July 25, 1942, when the ghetto was surrounded by Police Battalion 307. Two days later, 3,850 Jews were deported to the Bełżec extermination camp. That same day, Judenrat chairman Dr. Duldig and his deputy Rechter were murdered. Further deportations followed on July 31 and August 3, during which an additional 6,000 Jews were sent to Bełżec. During this period, Jewish converts to Christianity and Jewish hospital patients were murdered in the city. The second deportation Aktion, known as “Aktion Judenrein,” began on November 17, 1942, when the Gestapo and Schutzpolizei surrounded the ghetto and, the next day, deported another 4,000 Jews to Bełżec.

After this second wave of deportations, the ghetto was divided: “Ghetto A” held around 800 Jews deemed fit for labor, while “Ghetto B” housed approximately 4,000 “nonproductive” individuals. On September 2–3, 1943, the final liquidation of Ghetto B took place, and around 3,500 Jews were deported to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. On September 4, 1943, another 100 Jews were sent to the Szebnie labor camp. On September 11, 1943, 1,580 Jews who had come out of hiding were shot by the Sipo in an Aktion known as the “Turnhalle Aktion.” Between November 28, 1943, and February 2, 1944, approximately 1,000 Jews remaining in the former Ghetto A were either shot or transferred to labor camps or to Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

By February 1944, the ghetto was completely dismantled, and Przemyśl was declared judenrein. Most of the remaining Jews hiding in bunkers were later discovered and murdered. In April 1944, before withdrawing from the city, the Germans burned the corpses buried in the Jewish cemetery and in a mass grave on Mikołaja Street. The exhumation and incineration of the bodies—part of Operation 1005—was carried out by Soviet POWs, who were later also shot and burned by the Germans.

The Holocaust ended over a thousand years of Jewish presence in Przemyśl. Many Poles and Ukrainians who tried to help Jews were killed—often betrayed by neighbors, acquaintances, or family members. Postwar investigations documented the deaths of 568 local Christians for aiding Jews. In 1969, Karl Reisner, the Sipo commander responsible for mass shootings, including those in Grochowce, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a German court.

Jewishgen

Nearby villages

• Kuńkowce
• Grochowce

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