Holocaust in Countryside of Dnipropetrovska Oblast (by Testimony in the Yahad-In Unum Archive)

Abstract

The aim – an analysis of video evidence from the Yahad-In Unum archive, to reveal the features of the Holocaust in the countryside of the Dnipropetrovsk region.Methods: oral-historical, comparative.Main results. The population of the General district was predominantly Ukrainian but the places of residence of the Jewish population were allocated. One such place was The Stalindorf Jewish district. It was founded in 1930 and originally the center of the Jewish colony was the village Izluchyste. In 1931, the district was enlarged and the new district center became the settlement of Stalindorf. The composition of the consolidation area includes 23 of the village Council, 16 of whom were Jewish. In General, only on the territory of Dnipropetrovsk region according to the census of 1939 lived 129 439 Jews. Until mid-October 1941 this area were occupied by German troops. Initially, power in the region belonged to the German military administration, but later it was passed into the hands of civil administration. However, on the ground, the power remained in the hands of local residents, who were controlled by the Germans. The most sinister of all the power structures that were created by the Germans in the occupied territories were the SS, SD and local formations of German police. The witnesses interviewed by the Yahad-In Unum team talk about the "Holocaust mechanism" in their villages, the perpetrators of this crime, the lives of ghetto Jews and labor camps.Сoncise conclusions: after the occupation of the villages by the Nazis, local Jews or executed immediately, or concentration in a certain home and then shot, sometimes in villages created a ghetto. Exactly in this time, the extermination of the Jews began in the region. The Local Police were also involved in these actions. However, it should be noted that not all people who joined the Police of the region were related to the genocide of Jews. The most of people who were involved in the Holocaust held some command positions in the local Police. As a rule, these people only «organized» mass killings of the Jews, although sometimes they participated directly in the Holocaust. The direct executors, together with the Germans, were ordinary Police officers, who were mainly engaged in the gathering and guard of the Jews before the execution, the escorting of the Jews to the sites of execution, protection these sited, and sometimes personally murdered the Jews.Practical meaning. It is recommended for use by authors of articles in magazines, as well as for teaching relevant courses on the history of Ukraine during the Second World War.Originality: used evidence of Holocaust witnesses stored in the Yahad-In Unum archive.Scientific novelty: for the first time on the basis of video evidence from the Yahad-In Unum archive, features of the Holocaust in the countryside of Dnipropetrovsk region were revealed.Type of article: descriptive.