Mizocz Ghetto

The Mizoch (Mizocz) Ghetto (; Cyrillic: Мизоч; Yiddish: מיזאָטש) was a World War II ghetto set up in the town of Mizoch, then Eastern Poland, today Western Ukraine, by Nazi Germany for the forcible segregation and mistreatment of Jews. In October 1942, Ukrainian Auxiliary Police and German policemen enclosed the ghetto; an uprising erupted, and the remaining inhabitants were mass murdered. Their execution was photographed by the SS.

Background

Jews settled in Mizoch in the 18th century. In 1897, the total population of the town was 2,662 with 1,175 Jews owning factories for felt, oil and sugar production, as well as the flour mill and sawmills. Some Jews emigrated during World War I. According to the national census of 1921 in the Second Polish Republic there were 845 Jews in Mizocz, most of them identifying with Turzysk Hasidism. Their numbers grew as the Polish economy improved.Shmuel Spector, Geoffrey Wigoder
The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust
page 832. It was an urban community between world wars like many others in Kresy (eastern Poland), inhabited by Jews and Poles along with members of other minorities including Ukrainians. There was a military school in Mizocz for officer cadets of Battalion 11 of the Polish Army's First Brigade; the Karwicki Palace (built in 1790), Hotel Barmocha Fuksa, a Catholic and an Orthodox church, and a Synagogue. The nearest major city was Równo.

Mizoch is situated some east of Dubno.JewishGen
Jewish Communities in Volhynia
JewishGen Database, New York. Before the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, the town, Mizocz, was located in the Wołyń Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. Annexed by the USSR following the 1939 Soviet invasion of eastern Poland, Mizocz was occupied by the Wehrmacht in Operation Barbarossa, the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. Some 300 Jews escaped with the retreating Soviets.

Uprising and mass killings

On 12 October 1942 the closed-off ghetto of about 1,700 Jews was surrounded by Ukrainian Auxiliary Police and German policemen in preparation for the ghetto liquidation action. The Jews fought back in an uprising which may have lasted as long as two days. About half the residents were able to flee or hide during the confusion before the uprising was put down. On October 14, the inmates of the ghetto set many of the houses on fire; as a result, while many succeeded in escaping, about 200 people died in the flames inside the ghetto. On 14 and 15 October the captured survivors were transported in lorries to a secluded ravine and shot.Shmuel Spector, quoting the memoirs of Peretz Goldstein, ''The Jews of Volhynia and Their Reaction to Extermination''.

Photographs

The shootings were photographed.The USHMM collections (2012)
Photographs of the Mizocz shootings.
Zst. Photograph No.
#17878.#17877
, #17876, #17879). Retrieved 4 December 2017. The images, owned by ''SS-Unterscharführer'' Schäfer until 1945, became part of the Ludwigsburg investigation (ZSt. II 204 AR 1218/70). They were published, and have become well known. Frequently the photographs are erroneously said to depict other Holocaust shootings.

Two of the photographs show the "''Aktion''" in progress. The photographs give clear evidence of the execution practice common during the Holocaust by bullet in Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The victims were led to the killing place in groups of five or so individuals, and forced to lie down among the prior victims, to be shot in the back of the neck or head, with a single bullet. Historians have commented upon the brutality shown in the Mizocz mass murder photographs:

The archival description of the entire set of photographs by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) includes the following statements. Photograph #17876: "According to the Zentrale Stelle in Germany (Zst. II 204 AR 1218/70), these Jews were collected by the German Gendarmerie and Ukrainian Schutzmannschaft during the liquidation of the Mizocz ghetto, which held roughly 1,700 Jews." Photograph #17877: "Naked Jewish women, some of whom are holding infants, wait in a line before their execution by German Sipo and SD with the assistance of Ukrainian auxiliaries." Photograph #17878: "German police officer shoots Jewish women still alive after a mass execution (Zst. II 204 AR 1218/70)."
Photograph #17879: a "German policeman prepares to complete a mass execution by shooting two Jewish children."

Aftermath

Mizocz was later the site of the OUN-UPA massacre of about 100 Poles by Ukrainian nationalists in late August 1943. Some 60 percent of the homes were set on fire and burned. Among the victims was Ukrainian carpenter Mr Zachmacz and his entire family, murdered along with the Poles because he refused to enter the fray. His eight-year-old son survived hiding with the Poles.

Following World War II, Poland's borders were redrawn and Mizoch was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. The Jewish community was never restored. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the town became part of independent Ukraine.Sylwester Fertacz (2005)
"Krojenie mapy Polski: Bolesna granica" (Carving of Poland's map).
Magazyn Społeczno-Kulturalny ''Śląsk.'' Retrieved from the Internet Archive on 5 June 2016.

Notes

References and notes

Further reading

* Didi-Huberman, Georges, and Lillis, Shane B., ''Images in Spite of All: Four photographs from Auschwitz'', Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2008
* Struk, Janina, ''Photographing the Holocaust: Interpretations of the evidence'', London; New York : I.B. Tauris, 2004
* Spector, Shmuel, ''The Jews of Volhynia and Their Reaction to Extermination,'' Published in Yad Vashem Studies 15 (1983)
* Desbois, Patrick, ''The Holocaust by Bullets,'' New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008

External links

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MizoczMizocz Ghetto
an
Sugar Refinery in Mizocz
at Yad Vashem

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mizocz Ghetto
The Holocaust in Ukraine
Einsatzgruppen
Jewish resistance during the Holocaust
Holocaust historiography
Eastern Front (World War II)
Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany
Holocaust locations in Ukraine