Online Store Contact us About us
yad vashem logo

Murder story of Buczacz Jews in the Lesniczowska Forest

Murder Site
Lesniczowska Forest
Poland
Two weeks after the Germans occupied Buczacz, in mid-July 1941, Ukrainian policemen collected 40 Jews and non-Jews in the city's prison. The assembled people were then taken by the Ukrainians and two German Gestapo officials to the Lezniczowska Forest, some three kilometers from Buczacz. They ordered the Jews to undress, robbed them of all their possesions, abused them, and then killed them with handgrenades and machine-guns.
Related Resources
Markus Kleiner, who was born in Buczacz, testified at the trial of the former head of the Ukrainian auxiliary police in Buczacz, Kaznowski, held in Munich on April 10, 1951:
...Two weeks after the Nazis entered the city, Kaznowski, head of the city's police, collected about 40 people (Jews, Poles, and members of other nationalities) in the city prison and, in the presence of two Gestapo officers, took them to the nearby Leszniczowska Forest and killed them all with hand grenades and machine-guns. Before the massacre all the victims had their hair cut off and their shoes and other belongings they had with them taken away; shorn and barefooted, they were taken by force to the murder site in the Lesznicowka Forest(two kilometers from Buczacz). The head of the Ukrainian police Kaznowski had a leading role in this massacre, that was carried out under the supervision of two Gestapo officers. This mass murder took place in July 1941.
YVA M.21 / 861
Lesniczowska Forest
forest
Murder Site
Poland
49.063;25.393