Jewish victims of Volhynia: Holocaust, survival and later violence

01

What this dossier counts

The phrase “Jewish victims of Volhynia” covers several phases of persecution that must not be collapsed into one event.

The largest part of the destruction was the Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. German security police, Einsatzgruppen, Order Police, civil authorities and other German formations created ghettos, imposed forced labor and organized mass shootings. Auxiliary police and locally recruited collaborators supplied manpower, guards, searches and knowledge of the terrain. A later and smaller, but historically distinct, category concerns Jews who escaped the 1942 liquidations and were killed while hiding in forests or villages, including documented attacks attributed to nationalist underground structures. The atlas therefore separates German command responsibility, auxiliary participation, local denunciation, rescue, partisan warfare and post-ghetto killings instead of assigning every death to one organization or one ethnic group. ^1,2,4,6

02

A region of Jewish towns and networks

The victims belonged to communities with centuries of religious, economic and cultural history.

Before the war, Volhynia was not merely a rural borderland. Równe, Łuck, Dubno, Włodzimierz Wołyński and many smaller towns contained synagogues, schools, charitable institutions, political organizations, workshops and dense family networks linking town and countryside. In several urban centers Jews formed a large share, and sometimes a majority, of the population. They spoke Yiddish, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and Hebrew in different settings and represented a broad spectrum of religious observance and political views. Reconstructing this social world matters because a list of killing sites can otherwise reduce the victims to numbers. The dossier therefore treats destroyed communities as historical actors and not only as demographic losses. Names of towns are shown in historical and present forms because one place may appear in Jewish memorial books, Polish documents, German reports and Ukrainian maps under different spellings. ^12,13,14,15

03

Borders changed before the killing began

The administrative label attached to a victim depends on the date and the source.

Interwar Volhynia belonged to the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939 the Soviet Union occupied the region and incorporated it into the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. Soviet rule dismantled many organizations, nationalized property, arrested perceived opponents and deported parts of the population. In June 1941 Germany attacked the Soviet Union, and the front moved across Volhynia within weeks. The same family could therefore be described in successive records as Polish citizens, Soviet residents and inhabitants of a German occupation district. These changes do not alter Jewish identity, but they influence archives, place names, statistical boundaries and the institutions responsible for records. The atlas fixes every event to a date, historical district and present location. It avoids transferring postwar borders backward or presenting all of today’s northwestern Ukraine as one unchanged administrative unit during the war. ^1,3,5

04

The first wave: mass shootings in 1941

The Holocaust in Volhynia began rapidly after German forces entered the region.

German occupation brought registration, public humiliation, confiscation, forced labor and murder. Einsatzgruppen detachments and other German police formations selected Jewish men first in many localities, then expanded shootings to women, children and the elderly. Victims were driven or transported to ravines, quarries, forests, sand pits and anti-tank ditches near their towns. German reports often reduced people to totals and euphemisms, while later testimonies reconstructed names, family relations and the local topography of killing. Spector estimates that around 60,000 Volhynian Jews were murdered during the first six months of occupation. This figure is a regional estimate, not a number to be mechanically distributed among every mapped point. A site record should state whether its count comes from a German report, postwar investigation, memorial book, survivor testimony or later synthesis. ^2,4,5

05

Who organized the destruction

Primary responsibility rests with the German state and its occupation apparatus.

The German state defined the victims, issued orders, created the occupation system and coordinated the transition from persecution to systematic murder. SS and police leaders, security police, Einsatzgruppen, Order Police, civil administrators, military authorities and German gendarmerie performed different but connected functions. Local collaboration was indispensable in many operations, yet it operated inside a German framework of command, coercion, recruitment and reward. Clear attribution requires naming both levels. Saying only “the Germans” can hide the role of auxiliary police, guards, informers and local administrators. Saying only “Ukrainians” or “local collaborators” reverses the hierarchy and obscures who designed the genocidal policy. Public records should therefore separate organizer, commanding formation, executing formation, auxiliaries and source confidence. Nationality inferred from a unit name should never replace evidence about a specific person or action. ^2,1,6

06

Auxiliary police and local collaboration

Local manpower extended the reach of a comparatively small German killing apparatus.

Auxiliary policemen guarded ghettos and work sites, escorted columns, searched houses and forests, caught escapees and sometimes took part directly in shootings. Recruitment patterns changed by town and period. Units could include Ukrainians, Poles, former Soviet personnel and others, while German officers retained command. Some members joined for ideology, others for wages, status, coercion, protection or access to confiscated property. These motives do not erase responsibility for concrete crimes, but they warn against treating every recruit as identical. Historians also document links between nationalist networks and sections of the auxiliary police, including personnel who later deserted German service and entered the UPA in 1943. This personnel continuity is relevant, but it does not make every police crime an UPA operation or every later UPA member responsible for every earlier German action. The portal records chronology and individual or unit evidence rather than collapsing institutions into one label. ^2,6,7

07

Ghettos were a stage of destruction

Confinement did not mean temporary protection from violence.

Across Volhynia, German authorities concentrated Jews from towns and surrounding villages into open or enclosed ghettos. Families were deprived of homes and livelihoods, crowded into inadequate housing and subjected to hunger, disease, forced labor, beatings and arbitrary executions. Ghettos made registration, exploitation and later deportation to shooting sites easier. Their boundaries and duration varied, and the word “ghetto” could describe very different physical arrangements. For mapping, a ghetto location is not automatically the place of death. One point may mark confinement, another forced labor, and another the mass grave several kilometers away. The dossier therefore distinguishes the community of origin, ghetto, labor site, assembly point, route and killing site. It also avoids describing Jewish councils or ghetto police as freely operating authorities, because they functioned under German coercion and threats against the entire population. ^8,5,3

08

The decisive liquidations of 1942

Most surviving communities were destroyed in coordinated actions during 1942.

After an interval in the largest shootings, German authorities resumed and intensified the destruction in 1942. Ghettos were surrounded, inhabitants assembled, valuables seized, people selected for temporary labor and the majority marched or transported to prepared pits. Operations often lasted one or several days, followed by hunts for escapees and the plunder of abandoned property. In Rafałówka, for example, Yad Vashem records that about 2,400 ghetto prisoners were shot in August 1942. Similar local histories occurred across the region, but dates, numbers and the sequence of selections differ. A single regional statement that “the Jews were killed in 1942” hides these local chronologies and the weeks or months during which survivors still moved between bunkers, farms and forests. The map should preserve exact dates when available and use date ranges when a liquidation unfolded in stages. ^4,5,10

09

Escape did not end the danger

Tens of thousands attempted to flee or hide, but only a small fraction survived.

Spector estimates that around 40,000 Jews fled or hid on the eve of the final extermination actions. Some escaped from columns or killing pits; others prepared bunkers inside ghettos, crossed fences at night or entered forests before a liquidation. Survival required food, water, clothing, medicine, information and a place where smoke, footprints or a barking dog would not reveal a shelter. A hiding group could be discovered by German patrols, auxiliary police, local informers, armed robbers or hostile underground forces. Winter, illness and hunger killed people even without a shooting. This category is especially difficult to map because a survivor’s route may include several temporary shelters and because the place where a person was last seen is not necessarily the place of death. Records should distinguish confirmed killing site, probable area, escape route and testimony-only location. ^4,5,7

10

Resistance, forests and partisan units

Joining an armed group was one possible route to survival, not an option available to everyone.

Jewish resistance included smuggling food, building shelters, destroying records, fleeing during liquidations, acquiring weapons and joining partisan formations. In Volhynia, many fugitives sought Soviet partisan units, but admission depended on weapons, age, health, connections and the attitudes of commanders. Women, children, elderly people and families were especially vulnerable to rejection. Some small Jewish groups survived independently for a time; others were absorbed into larger Soviet formations. Participation in a partisan unit changed a person’s legal and military situation but did not erase the experience of persecution as a Jew. The portal must not label every Jew found in a forest as a partisan, nor every partisan as a civilian victim. Where a biography moves from ghetto prisoner to fugitive, protected person, partisan and soldier, each phase should be recorded separately, as in the documented story of Aleksandr Shvartsblat. ^9,4,10

11

OUN, UPA and Jews who survived the ghettos

This phase requires separate evidence from the German extermination operations.

Scholarship and survivor testimony document anti-Jewish violence associated with OUN milieus, Ukrainian nationalist militias, members of auxiliary police and later UPA structures. In 1941, nationalist activists participated in or encouraged anti-Jewish violence in several areas of western Ukraine, while German institutions directed the genocidal campaign. In 1943 and 1944, UPA units and security structures killed some Jews who had survived ghettos and mass shootings and were hiding in the countryside or moving with partisan groups. Sources also describe temporary use of Jewish physicians, craftsmen or specialists by insurgent units, followed in some cases by murder when they were no longer considered useful. The evidence varies by locality and person. The atlas therefore rejects two opposite simplifications: that OUN and UPA had no role in anti-Jewish violence, and that they organized the entire Holocaust in Volhynia. Each claim must be tied to a dated action, named structure and source. ^6,7,5

12

Rescue by Ukrainian and other neighbours

The same region contained perpetrators, bystanders, profiteers and rescuers.

Rescue often depended on individual households willing to hide a stranger or former neighbor despite German punishment and local surveillance. The Oshurko family, Ukrainian Baptists living near Rafałówka, hid Aleksandr Shvartsblat for eight months after his escape from the ghetto liquidation. Yad Vashem later recognized Nikolai and Mariia Oshurko and their six children as Righteous Among the Nations. Such cases do not cancel collaboration or nationalist violence. They demonstrate that ethnic identity did not determine behavior and that moral choices remained possible under extreme danger. At the same time, a rescue title requires evidence and a defined procedure. The atlas may include sourced testimony about unnamed helpers, but it should distinguish it from a fully investigated and formally recognized case. Rescue, paid shelter, temporary food, warning and long-term concealment are also different forms of assistance and should not be merged into one undifferentiated category. ^10,11,3

13

Murder was followed by dispossession

The destruction of a community also involved homes, workshops, archives and sacred places.

German authorities systematically confiscated Jewish property, while local administrations, police, neighbors and newcomers could participate in inventory, seizure, sale or informal looting. After mass murder, houses acquired new occupants, workshops changed hands, synagogues were damaged or repurposed and cemeteries were neglected or dismantled. Postwar Soviet reconstruction often removed remaining traces without restoring Jewish communal ownership or public memory. This material dimension is essential for understanding why many victims disappeared not only biologically but also from the visible landscape. A map should therefore connect killing sites with former community centers, synagogues, cemeteries and ghettos where evidence exists, while avoiding the suggestion that every surviving building can be assigned to one murdered family. Property claims require a different evidentiary standard from historical location. The dossier records the mechanism of dispossession, but it does not invent ownership histories that sources cannot support. ^1,8,12,13

14

Why the numbers cannot simply be added

Regional estimates, town totals, ghetto populations and grave counts describe different things.

A prewar census counts residents at a particular date. A ghetto figure may include deportees from surrounding villages and exclude those already murdered or in hiding. A German execution report may omit later deaths, inflate success or use administrative boundaries different from a memorial book. A grave investigation records remains found in a specific place, not necessarily every victim of an operation. Survivor lists contain only those whose names could be recovered. Regional estimates can overlap with local counts and must never be added to them. The portal therefore assigns each number a type: prewar population, confined population, selected laborers, reported murdered, identified by name, minimum remains, estimated range or survivors. It also stores source date and confidence. When sources disagree, the public page shows the range and explains why rather than choosing the largest number for impact or the smallest number for false caution. ^4,5,8

15

Testimony is evidence, not a perfect camera

Survivor accounts recover details absent from perpetrator documents, but they require contextual reading.

Testimonies may preserve the name of a helper, the route from a ghetto, the language spoken by attackers, clothing, unit insignia, a commander’s nickname or the location of a grave. They can also contain uncertainty caused by darkness, trauma, childhood perspective, hearsay or decades between event and interview. These limits do not make testimony worthless. Perpetrator reports have their own distortions, including euphemism, self-justification and incomplete coverage. Strong reconstruction compares testimony with German documents, Soviet investigations, Polish underground reports, local records, memorial books, maps and other independent accounts. The portal marks whether a statement is directly witnessed, reported by another person or inferred by a historian. It does not automatically convert an ethnic description such as “Ukrainian policemen” into a precise unit identification unless another source supports that step. ^7,5,11

16

Names, Hebrew and the map

A multilingual page should reconnect local geography with the memory carried by survivors and descendants.

Many Volhynian communities were rebuilt after the war without a Jewish population. Former residents and descendants created memorial books, survivor associations and testimony collections in Israel, Poland, North America and elsewhere. Hebrew is therefore not a decorative translation. It gives descendants and institutions preserving Jewish memory access to the same geographical and source information as Polish, Ukrainian and English readers. The map should separate community, ghetto, forced-labor site, assembly place, shooting site, grave, escape route, shelter and memorial. Search aliases should include Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, German and Ukrainian forms. Geometry confidence must be independent from historical confidence: an event may be well documented but approximately located. Missing names are also data. An anonymous grave or an estimated total must not be presented as a completed list, and the editorial process should make absence visible without filling it with invented certainty. ^5,12,13,14,2

Timeline

1. 18 March 1921: Volhynia within interwar Poland

   The Treaty of Riga fixed the border that placed western Volhynia in Poland. ^5,12

2. September 1939: Soviet occupation

   The Soviet Union occupied Volhynia and incorporated it into the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. ^5,3

3. 22 June 1941: Germany attacks the Soviet Union

   The invasion opened the German occupation and the rapid escalation of anti-Jewish persecution. ^1,2

4. July 1941: First mass shootings

   German security and police formations began large-scale shootings across the region, assisted in many places by local forces. ^2,4

5. By the end of 1941: Around 60,000 murdered

   Spector estimates that roughly 60,000 Volhynian Jews were murdered during the first six months of occupation. ⁴

6. 1941-1942: Ghettos and forced labor

   German authorities concentrated surviving Jews, exploited labor and prepared communities for liquidation. ^8,5

7. Mid-1942: Regional liquidation campaign intensifies

   Coordinated actions destroyed most remaining ghettos and communities during the second half of 1942. ^4,5

8. August 1942: Rafałówka ghetto is liquidated

   About 2,400 prisoners were shot; Aleksandr Shvartsblat escaped and later found shelter with the Oshurko family. ¹⁰

9. 1942-1943: Flight, bunkers and forests

   Tens of thousands attempted to hide or flee; only a small fraction survived hunger, searches and violence. ⁴

10. Spring 1943: Auxiliary police desertions

    Thousands of Ukrainian auxiliary policemen deserted German service; some entered the nationalist insurgency. ⁶

11. 1943-1944: Jewish fugitives face nationalist violence

    Sources document killings of some Jewish survivors by UPA and security structures, distinct from German ghetto liquidations. ^6,7

12. June 1943: Shvartsblat joins Soviet partisans

    After eight months in hiding with the Oshurkos, he joined a partisan formation. ¹⁰

13. February 1944: Soviet forces return to parts of Volhynia

    The occupation ended in stages; surviving partisans and hidden Jews emerged into a transformed region. ^5,10

14. Postwar years: Testimonies and memorial books begin to preserve the destroyed world

    Survivors documented communities, killing sites, rescuers and names that were absent from perpetrator files. ^5,7

15. 1988: The Oshurko family is recognized

    Yad Vashem recognized Nikolai and Mariia Oshurko and their six children as Righteous Among the Nations. ^10,11

16. 1990: Spector's regional monograph is published

    The Holocaust of Volhynian Jews, 1941-1944 became a foundational synthesis of the region's destruction. ⁵

17. 2020: Survivor testimony re-enters the historiographical debate

    Rossoliński-Liebe examined how survivor evidence informs research on nationalist anti-Jewish violence. ⁷

18. 2021: A new synthesis of Ukrainian nationalists and the Holocaust

    John-Paul Himka's study triangulated survivor, German, Soviet, OUN and activist sources. ⁶

19. 27 July 2026: Editorial evidence cutoff

    The dossier records the evidence and institutional pages verified by this date. ^1,3

Edition and citation

A stable bibliographic reference for research, teaching and publication.

Editorial status

Published public dossier

Release

v3.14.4

Updated

July 28, 2026

Canonical address

https://upamemorials.org/en/dossier/jewish-victims-of-volhynia/

Recommended citation

UPA Memorials, “Jewish victims of Volhynia: Holocaust, survival and later violence”, public dossier, v3.14.4, July 28, 2026, https://upamemorials.org/en/dossier/jewish-victims-of-volhynia/

Source ledger

1. 1. The Holocaust and World War II in Ukraine, Institutional source, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, access checked July 27, 2026

   Institutional overview of Nazi persecution and mass murder in Ukraine, with maps, photographs and personal histories.

2. 2. Einsatzgruppen massacre sites in Ukraine and surrounding areas, Institutional source, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, access checked July 27, 2026

   Explains the German killing apparatus and the role of SS, police, military and auxiliary formations in mass shootings.

3. 3. Volhynia and Rovno: Historical Background, Institutional source, Yad Vashem, access checked July 27, 2026

   Regional background to Jewish life, German occupation, persecution and rescue in Volhynia and the Rovno area.

4. 4. The Jews of Volhynia and their reaction to extermination, Scholarly work, Yad Vashem Collections, access checked July 27, 2026

   Shmuel Spector's synthesis of the scale, chronology, flight, resistance and survival of Volhynian Jews.

5. 5. The Holocaust of Volhynian Jews, 1941-1944, Scholarly work, Yad Vashem and Federation of Volhynian Jews, access checked July 27, 2026

   Foundational regional monograph based on German, Soviet, Polish and Jewish sources and survivor testimony.

6. 6. Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust, Scholarly work, Yad Vashem Collections, access checked July 27, 2026

   John-Paul Himka's source-based study of OUN militias, auxiliary police, nationalist insurgency and anti-Jewish violence.

7. 7. Survivor Testimonies and the Coming to Terms with the Holocaust in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, Scholarly work, East European Politics and Societies, access checked July 27, 2026

   Study of survivor testimony and the historiography of anti-Jewish violence by Ukrainian nationalists.

8. 8. What Were Ghettos During the Holocaust?, Institutional source, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, access checked July 27, 2026

   Defines ghettos as instruments of segregation, exploitation, control and eventual murder.

9. 9. Armed Jewish Resistance: Partisans, Institutional source, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, access checked July 27, 2026

   Context for Jewish armed resistance and the obstacles faced by fugitives seeking partisan protection.

10. 10. Aleksandr Shvartsblat (Sarid), Institutional source, Yad Vashem, access checked July 27, 2026

    Documented case linking the Rafałówka ghetto liquidation, Ukrainian Baptist rescue, Soviet partisans and later military service.

11. 11. Righteous Among the Nations, Institutional source, Yad Vashem Collections, access checked July 27, 2026

    Explains the evidentiary procedure used to assess rescue claims and recognize non-Jewish rescuers.

12. 12. Rivne, Reference work, YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, access checked July 27, 2026

    Long-term history and demographic significance of the Jewish community of Równe/Rivne.

13. 13. Luts'k, Reference work, YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, access checked July 27, 2026

    Reference history of one of Volhynia's principal Jewish communities and cultural centers.

14. 14. Volodymyr Volyns'kyi, Reference work, YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, access checked July 27, 2026

    Reference history of the Jewish community of Włodzimierz Wołyński and its regional setting.

15. 15. Dubno, Reference work, YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, access checked July 27, 2026

    Reference history showing the depth and importance of Jewish life in Dubno before destruction.

16. 16. Holocaust, Reference work, Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, access checked July 27, 2026

    Regional demographic overview of the Holocaust in Ukraine, including the concentration of Jewish communities in Volhynia.