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Murder Story of Kowel Jews at the Jewish Cemetery in Kowel

Murder Site
Kowel
Poland
Great Synagogue of Kowel shortly after the liberation of the city by the Red Army
Great Synagogue of Kowel shortly after the liberation of the city by the Red Army
YVA, Photo Collection, 4577/548
According to one testimony, on the second day of the first murder operation in Bachów (on June 3, 1942) a group of several hundred Jews was taken under guard to the Jewish cemetery in the city. Upon their arrival at the site the Jews were ordered by Ukrainian auxiliary policemen to strip naked and then, in groups of 5, they were taken to a pit where they were shot to death by a German unit. According to the same testimony, the Gebietskommissar of Kowel Erich Kassner, the head of the Kowel regional Order Police (Gendarmerie) Philipp Rapp, the head of the Kowel urban police (Schutzpolizei) Fritz Manthei, and the head of the Ukrainian auxiliary police of the Kowel District Shabatura personally shot Jews to death with their pistols. Ukrainian auxiliary policemen guarded the victims during this murder operation.

During the second murder operation of Kowel's Jews, which began on August 19, about several hundred Jews who had been caught in hiding in the course of the following period were held for several days in the Great Synagogue of Kowel, with no food or water and in very poor sanitary conditions. The Jews were constantly searched for valuables. During this period, according to several testimonies, Ukrainian auxiliary policemen would take out groups of young Jewish girls and rape them before returning them to the synagogue. During the days of their captivity in the synagogue many people managed to write last testimonies, wills, and requests for vengeance or pleas for life on the walls of the synagogue – these inscriptions were in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish. These writings, found after the war, were copied before they were painted over. When a sufficient number of people were gathered in the synagogue, they were led in groups, by truck to the Jewish cemetery. Upon their arrival, usually in the evening, the Jews, mainly women and children, were forced to strip naked and to step onto boards laid across the pit with their faces towards it. Then they were shot to death with machine-guns by a group of Security Police and SD men from Łuck, with the active participation of members of the Gendarmerie. Kassner, Rapp, and Manthei were personally in charge of this murder operation as well. Afterwards, Ukrainian auxiliary policemen who guarded the site during the execution loaded the belonging of the victims onto trucks and sold them to the local population in Kowel.

Related Resources
From the testimony of Jehoszua Pocztar, (given in Israel in 1963 during the judicial proceedings against Erich Kassner, the Gebietskommissar of Kowel) who was born in 1892 in Kowel and was living there during its German occupation
[After the murder of the Jews from the ghetto in the new city] there remained several hundred [Jews] who had hid in attics and [underground] bunkers; they too were later [caught and] taken and incarcerated by [Fritz] Manthei [the head of the German urban police] and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen in the Great Synagogue, that was located in the ghetto in the old city; from there they were taken to the [Jewish] cemetery, where they were shot to death. …
YVA O.4 / 406
From the testimony of Bentzion Sher, who was born in 1891 in Kowel and was living there during its German occupation
... at 5 p.m. 6 trucks arrived at the synagogue. [Fritz] Manthei went inside, accompanied by [Ukrainian auxiliary] policemen and ordered us to stand up and to get onto the trucks. Everyone knew that this was our end, … so, instinctively, the unfortunates turned towards the walls of the synagogue, wrote down their first and last names there, and that on suc and such a day they were sacrificing themselves for "Kiddush Hashem" [the sanctification of God's name through martyrdom] and that if someone would remain alive – he should avenge their blood that had been shed. I approached the wall to write down my first and last name. … I wrote: "On this day we are going [to be killed] for "Kiddush Hashem." If there will be any survivor of the Jews of Kowel- he should remember us and avenge our shed blood." I should point out that Manthei didn't disturb us when we were writing, but when we delayed, the patience of the Ukrainian policemen ran out and, with the buts of their rifles, they began to push us away from the walls: "That's enough, damned Jews, the trucks are waiting" – they shouted. … Each truck was accompanied by an armed guard of 16 [Ukrainian] policemen. The trucks turned towards Turisk Street. [O]n the way I saw people jumping off the trucks. If someone jumped out, the policemen shot him.... The trucks stopped near the [Jewish] cemetery, that was surrounded by many policemen. The victims were taken inside and collected near the room for the ritual washing of the dead. They were ordered to strip naked and to throw their clothes inside the room. Everyone had to strip naked together – men, women, even little children, and nursing 6 months babies [who were stripped by the adults]. When the people from the first truck had stripped naked – they were forced into the pit; entire families went to the slaughter, inclding brides with their grooms. The children were tightly holding onto their parents. A 10 year-old boy clung tightly to his father's thigh; the little children and nursing babies were carried in the arms of their mothers. The murder procedure was as follows: two boards were stretched over the pit. The unfortunates were ordered to mount them with their faces toward the pit. Three murderers were standing behind them, wearing white clothes, their faces hidden, their hands covered with white gloves, [and] holding automatic weapons. They aimed their barrels at the victim's brain so that the bullet would not miss the mark, but still the death-bullet [often] hit the heart, the ear, or other parts [of the body, thus only injuring the victim]. When the parents had fallen into the pit, their children were thown in after them, and they often died from suffocation. When the people from the first truck had been killed, those from the second truck were ordered to strip naked and approach the pit, and then they [too] were murdered. This atrocity continued until the last victim [was dead].… I approached the pit that was filled to the top with the dead. While standing on a board, I saw Israel Ishiner, who had been hit by a bullet in the heart and was circling around the pile of dead for the whole length of the pit. Th sight of this horror made me dizzy. I fainted and fell into the pit. The last of the victims were eliminated, but the pit was not covered with earth, since [the bodies] rose higher than the surface. I lay unconscious until 11:30 p.m. Suddenly I felt that I was still alive, but I didn't know whether or not I was injured. I tried to move, but the dead were on top of me, pressing and suffocating me. Only my head was above the dead. With my last bit of strength I extricated one arm and afterwards – the other. The blood of the dead victims was still hot, and it was streaming over my arms. With one hand I dried the blood. I thought that I was injured but, by some miracle, my hand had not been wounded. I wanted to free my head – but in vain. The hair of a[dead] woman who was lying on top of me had become entangled with my hair. A strong wind was blowing during these night hours, causing the blood to solidify… that why I had to separate my head from hers. I begun to tear at her hair and, with great effort, I succeeded in freeing my head. I pressed my hand against the dead bodies and with unhuman force I succeeded in freeing my whole body and raising myself. My body was stained with blood from our dear dead ones. I stood near the pit and saw them [the bodies] heaving, up and down. The moaning of the people who were about to be suffocated to death was awful. Six hours after the murder operation some victims were still fighting death.…
Eliezer Leoni-Tsuperfin,ed.: Kowel: Book of Testimony and Remembrance for Our Community ThatwWas Destroyed by a Murderer, (Irgun yos'e Kovel b'yisrael, Tel Aviv, 1957), pp. 427-430 (Hebrew).
Kowel
Jewish cemetery
Murder Site
Poland
51.215;24.721
Great Synagogue of Kowel shortly after the liberation of the city by the Red Army
YVA, Photo Collection, 4577/548