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Shtetls > Krasnostav > Holocaust

Krasnostav holocaust

Records from  Archive of Yad Vashem.
Senigov Forest
During the first days of August 1941, apparently members of the Gendarmerie (rural police) and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen arrived in the town by covered truck. They drove about 50 Jewish men out of their homes and collected them on Market Square. After keeping them there for some time and then releasing several of them, the Gendarmerie men and Ukrainian policemen loaded some of the Jews onto a truck (apparently others were taken on foot) and took them to a pit in the Senigov Forest eight kilometers south of town, where they were shot to death.
Guta Forest
In the early morning of August 28 or 29, 1941 a murder squad apparently from the Gendarmerie (rural order police) arrived in Krasnostav either from the town of Dubrovka (Zhitomir District) or from the nearby town of Berezdov. Assisted by Ukrainian auxiliary police, the Gendarmerie drove most of the Jews, mainly women, children, and old people, out of their houses and assembled them at the clubhouse at Market Square. After being kept there for several hours, the Jews were loaded onto trucks and, under guard by members of the Gendarmerie and Ukrainian policemen, were taken to the forest near the village of Guta. On their arrival at the murder site the Jews were taken in groups to a pit that had been dug by residents of Guta village. According to a ChGK document, the majority of women and children were thrown alive into the pit, while most of the men were shot to death with rifles and machine-guns. According to the same document, 735 Jews -- consisting of 135 men, 320 women, and 280 children -- were shot to death.
The following report of the Special Governmental Commission from June 14, 1944 contains a description of the mass murder of the Jews in Krasnostav
The mass grave is located in the forest about 3 kilometers from the town of Krasnostav…. During the opening of the mass grave it was found that the bodies had decomposed and were lying in disarray. Medical examination established that the majority of the women and children were thrown into the pit alive since no external wounds or bone injuries were found. In most of the cases of the men's bodies wounds were found in the back of the head and the chest. The commission decided that the German monsters should be severely punished for
these [horrible] deeds by the German-Fascist executioners committed against the defenseless [Jewish] civilians.
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Guta Forest. Around 1975
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Guta Forest. 2015
 Apparently in the early 1950s, with money collected from the Jews of Krasnostav, a monument was erected in the Guta Forest. The local authorities gave permission for the monument but did not allow any indication of the Jewish identity of the victims.

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