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Ghetto in Novograd-Volynskiy, Ukraine

Novograd-Volynskiy is a city in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine, in which, according to 1939 data, lived 6.8 thousand Jews, accounting for 28.8% of the local population.

Due to the rapid advance of the German forces, the evacuation was not organized properly. The last evacuation train left at the beginning of July 1941. Some residents tried to leave the city along the Brest-Litovsk highway, but the Nazis landed troops and forced the residents to return.

Novograd-Volynskiy was occupied on July 8, 1941. The Nazis started with restrictive measures. The order of the field commandant has been preserved, according to which Jews from the age of 14 had to wear insignia, and enterprises that belonged to Jews or were run by Jews were required to hang a signboard "Zhydovskoye enterprise" over the entrance and work on Saturdays.

The invaders drove local Jews into a ghetto in the poor Jewish quarter "Nieder". The evidence of B. Gindelman, who worked as a driver for the Germans and visited Novograd-Volynskiy at the end of July 1941, has been preserved. He said that he had witnessed the bullying of the invaders. In front of his eyes, a cart, pulled by a Jewish woman, was driving through the city, and a German was sitting on it and whipping the victim with a whip.

The first extermination aktion took place on July 28-30, 1941. The Nazis shot about 800 people. A month later, on August 22, 1941, another aktion took place, during which the invaders killed more than 160 people "communists, Jews, saboteurs and robbers."

At the end of August 1941, approximately 700-800 more Jews were shot.

The invaders brought Jews from neighboring villages to the city. Therefore, during the largest aktion in late September - early August 1941, the Nazis killed approximately 1.5-1.6 thousand Jews.

It is also known about the extermination aktion, which took place in the city prison on September 12, 1941. There, the Nazis killed 319 Jews.

According to eyewitnesses, the Nazis set up a camp at the flax station of a local factory. Here, the barracks were fenced with barbed wire and the surviving Jews from the city were placed, those who had been brought from other settlements. Until the winter of 1942-1943, the camp prisoners were used as loaders at the local railway station.

Several mass graves were later discovered:

• The grave of children and women in the area of ​​Levanevskaya Street behind the House of Officers

• In the area of ​​the prison on Volya Street.

• In the garden behind the House of Invalids on Chekhova Street.

• On the territory of the machine-tractor station on Chekhova Street.

In total, about 3.5 thousand Jews of Novograd-Volynskiy became victims of the Nazis.