Testimonies

Ruta Sakowska, a longtime employee of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw , sent this report in their book "The second stage is death - Nazi extermination policy against the Polish Jews, seen through the eyes of the victim" was published. Ruta Sakowska: "Die zweite Etappe ist der Tod - NS-Ausrottungspolitik gegen die polnischen Juden, gesehen mit den Augen der Opfer". http://hentrich.esnake.de/?main__page=4&main__lang=de&BookDetail_id=90

"On 10 March 1942, ten days before the massacre, called the Land Commissioner Judenrat in 120 men in the Rohatyn, in groups of 60 people outside the city, behind the station on a hill, dig trenches should km 1, allegedly for the purpose of . The air defense trenches had the following dimensions: length 12 m, width 9 m, depth 3 m. On 20 March, a very chilly day, went to the first group of 50 men from the city to work.

On 20 March, around 7:30 clock in the morning drove eight German truck on the market place. From them rose SS men and Ukrainian auxiliary police in blue and heavily armed. The whole ghetto was surrounded. by 8 early in time clock began the action. From all sides simultaneously drew members of the SS, police and Ukrainians in the ghetto is a blue, searched all the houses and drove the Jews who were present, without regard to age and gender, infants to age-old old man, out of. They drove the people, or half-naked and barefoot on the street. Who commands the slave-executed fast enough, they killed on the spot. The tragedy was still magnified by the fact that it was generally believed, it was only about the men who work for the camp were captured. Therefore, they were the first in the basements and attics to hide itself. The result was that mostly the women, children and old filled the ranks of the victims. The whole event went very fast pace, so it was difficult to give guidance on the situation created on, but eventually they all escape attempts ended with the death. The victims were driven to the market place, where it received the command to face down in the snow to the basket with. Dozens of people were killed with the piston. If someone bucket or a pot in his hand one, he was pressed to his head and as long as it struck with the butt until he died in terrible agony. If the narrow opening of a milk pot is not the victim's head was watching him with the butt of the skull was smashed, and when a part of the brain tissue was cut off with, the vessel head was on the so-'reduced' set. These and similar macabre scenes played themselves onto the square in Rohatyn.

The victim was with groups of cars in the direction of the previously dug trenches transported to, first, the children and then charged the adult. The children were the hair, the hands or legs, and used wooden blocks thrown up as.(None of the slave-demonstrated a tear in my eye, not stirred his conscience.) Weeping and lamentation, mingled with the shouts and vulgar curses the murderer and the shots from the rifles, filled the whole ghetto.

The cars stopped at a distance of about half a kilometer from the trenches. With carbines were all carried to the hill of death. Those who could not keep up or tried to escape by flight, were killed on the spot. On the hill chose the SS-men adult Jews from several to all the valuables and the better collecting of clothes. Many men and women were completely naked. Then they were ordered to be set up at the edge of the trench. They were killed with machine guns. There was almost no wounded, was shot with dumdum bullets. The children were thrown alive into the grave most. Many people threw themselves before the burst of gunfire into the grave. A lot of people were falling on the bodies they covered. Only a few managed to end after the massacre was, from the grave, the layer is frozen blood, climb out of, nerves shattered completely, with second and third degree frostbite. The Jewish workers, the day to work on this had been divided, corpses uniformly along and across the grave of the stack. By 18 clock was the last salvo fired at the workers. More than 2,000 innocent Jews died a martyr's death.

In Rohatyn were not much more than 1,000 Jewish residents. The surviving Jews went over the Sabbath day on 21 March out and collected randomly on the square, the streets and on the way to the hill past corpses and buried them in one at a common grave on the hill.

Sun was the extermination of the Jews carried out in Rohatyn. "

Another witness to the course of events in Rohatyn is found in the Black Book of Vasily Grossman and Ilya Ehrenburg , "The genocide of the Soviet Jews." Wassili Grossmann, Ilja Ehrenburg: "Der Genozid an den sowjetischen Juden". http://www.rowohlt.de/buch/Das_Schwarzbuch.1059169.html

"On March 20, 1942 drove the German and Ukrainian police again Jews in the marketplace together. Several dozen who had tried to flee, were killed. The same day, Jews were brought to the mines that were previously in the vicinity of the excavated station been, were and shot. A total of 2,000 Jews murdered. Ukrainian peasants robbed the victims their clothes and other belongings. This spring Bukatschowzy were Jews from Burshtyn, Kniginitsche and Rogatiner Ghetto placed. On September 2, 1942, a second " action is taken, "where you Jews to the Belzec death camp deported 1000th

In October and November 1942, Jews came to the Jewish communities and Chodorow Bolschowzy remaining in the ghetto Rogatiner. On 8 December 1942 1,500 people were deported to Belzec other, where the elderly and infirm were murdered body on the. In the first half of 1943, there have been repeated to such killings. The ghetto area was reduced. In May 1943 a group of young Jews went into the woods to a fight against the Germans and their Ukrainian collaborators to explore the possibilities. Most of the group came back in the ghetto, as they could get no weapons.

On 6 June 1943 the evacuation of the ghetto Rogatiner started. The SS and Ukrainian police put the houses in the ghetto on fire, all there holding drive out hidden Jews. The last Jews of the community were killed in mines in the cemetery. The hunt for survivors was itself still further to the liquidation of the ghetto. The Jews who were discovered hiding in Germany contributed by armed resistance. All the arrested Jews were murdered. On 24 July 1944 Rogatin the Soviet army liberated from. About 30 Jews had survived in hiding, most of them soon left the city. "