Memorial to the murdered Jews of Busk

Меморіал жертвам Голокосту на єврейському кладовищі у Буську

In the small town of Busk a memorial on one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in the Ukraine remembers the town's murdered Jews.

History

Busk, located in the historic region of Galicia, not far from Lviv (Polish: Lwów, Russian: Lvov), belonged prior to the First World War to Austria-Hungary, before it became Polish in 1920 and in the wake of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact it fell to the Soviet Union. The place was first mentioned in 1097, Jews lived there from the 16th century. In the beginning of the 20th century many of the Busk Jews emigrated to the USA. In 1931 the Jewish community counted approximately 2,600 members out of a total population of 8,000.
The Wehrmacht occupied the city on June 30, 1941. At that time 1,800 Jews were still in town. The occupiers forced them to form a Jewish Council and they had to conduct forced labour. The occupiers deployed an Ukrainian police force which soon after actively participated in the persecution and murder of the Jews.
In autumn of 1941 there were anti-Semitic excesses in town. Afterwards units of the SS murdered 30 Jews and a rabbi under the pretext that they had been supporters of the Soviet system. On August 21, 1942 German and Ukrainian police units shot more Jews from Busk in the village of Zabuzhe near the town of Kamianka-Strumilova (today: Kamianka-Buzka) about 25 kilometres away. On December 1, 1942 the Germans established a closed-off ghetto. One month later they murdered all patients of the ghetto hospital.
In May 1943 the ghetto was violently liquidated. Units of the SS shot about 1,200 Jews, particularly women and children and buried their corpses at the town's Jewish cemetery. 300 Jewish men were abducted to the forced labour camp of Janovska in Lviv 36 kilometres away. The Jewish community of Busk was annihilated.

Busk, undated, Son beside the grave of his father murdered during the war, Yizkor Book

Busk, undated, View of the Busk ghetto, Yizkor Book

Victims

Middle of September 1941 units of the SS murdered about 30 Jews who belonged to the elite of the Jewish community together with their rabbi. According to eyewitness-accounts Ukrainian inhabitants of Busk had compiled the list. In September 1942 German and Ukrainian police units shot up to 800 Jews in the village of Zabuzh about 25 kilometres away. In the beginning of 1942 all patients of the hospital in the ghetto were murdered. In May 1943 German units aided by Ukrainian police liquidated the ghetto, murdering 1,200 Jews, almost exclusively women and children, at the Jewish cemetery. On June 7, 1943 the Kreishauptmann (district commissioner) Nehring declared his administrative area to be »judenfrei« (frei of Jews). Responsible for the murder of the Busk' Jews was SS-Gruppenführer Fritz Katzmann (1906–1957).

Ukraine, the second-largest Republic in the European part of the former Soviet Union, was at the centre of the Second World War and the Holocaust. It is estimated that five to six million Ukrainians died during the war, including around 630,000 Jews. In mid-September 1939, following the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in accordance with the Hitler-Stalin Pact – a secret German-Soviet agreement –, the south-east of Poland became part of the Soviet Ukraine. The oppression of the local population was now an everyday occurrence. In summer 1941, the German attack on the Soviet Union initially affected these very regions. Right from the start of the invasion the Jewish population was accused of supporting the Soviet powers and became the target of brutal attacks. These attacks were often the work of nationalist Ukrainians, who initially welcomed the advance of the Wehrmacht. German SS Einsatzgruppen and allied Rumanian units soon began to carry out mass shootings of Jews. The Babyn Yar ravine near Kiev, where German units and Ukrainian militia murdered over 33,700 Jews over two days in September 1941, has since become a global symbol of the genocide of Jews. The non-Jewish population was also a target for persecution. National Socialist racist ideology classed Ukrainians, as all »Slavs«, as »subhuman«. The occupiers looted the country, deported way over one million civilians to carry out forced labour and publicly executed hostages. By 1943 a partisan war against the Wehrmacht was raging along with the campaign of the nationalist »Ukrayinska Povstanska Armiya« (Ukrainian Rebel Army or UPA) against the Soviets and the Polish population in western Ukraine. The number of Poles to die in the process lies way over 100,000. From 1944 the Ukraine was again part of the Soviet Union and also encompassed former territories in eastern Poland. The UPA continued its campaign until the mid-1950s. The Soviet authorities deported around 300,000 Ukrainians to Siberia to counter the resistance. The Ukrainian culture of memory was aligned with the symbolic forms of remembrance found in the Soviet Union. Monumental sites of memory were constructed to celebrate the »victory« in the Great Patriotic War. It is only recently that victims have been remembered alongside the venerated heroes. In addition, a culture of memory centred on the campaign of the UPA has emerged in western Ukraine, with the UPA’s legacy being interpreted as a struggle for independence. Confrontation with anti-semitism and the collaboration with the German occupiers has only begun around 2000. With just a few exceptions, the mass shootings of Jews were ignored until the 1980s. It was not until 1991 that the government of independent Ukraine acknowledged Babyn Yar as a »symbol of Jewish martyrdom«. Long after gaining independence, Ukraine was still on the search for its national identity. The documentation of Soviet crimes – for example the state’s responsibility for the Great Famine (Holodomor) in 1922-23 that led to millions of deaths – has more significance in the establishment of a Ukrainian identity than learning about the Holocaust. Nevertheless, new memorial sites for the murdered Jews were established throughout the country, such as Drobitskiy Yar in Kharkiv or the Holocaust Museum in Odessa. On many mass grave sites new memorials were created, partially with German support. In Kiev, a new grand memorial site with global relevance was planned at Babyn Yar. These plans were put on hold with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. What impact the current defensive war will have on Holocaust remembrance in the future remains to be seen.

Remembrance

The person mainly responsible for the murder of the Jews of Busk was SS-Gruppenführer (major general of the SS) Fritz Katzmann (1906–1957). He was never held accountable for his war crimes.
After the war communities of survivors from Busk formed in New York and Israel. In the town itself little remembers the once thriving Jewish community. There are no Jews living there today. The former synagogue was alienated. Today one part of the synagogue is used as a residential house, the other part serves as an evangelical prayer house. The Jewish cemetery founded in 1521 is one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in the Ukraine. It is located east of town on the banks of the river Slotvina. The area has over the years become overgrown, many of the gravestones have fallen over and are broken. For decades nothing remembered the victims of the mass shootings in May 1943. The site of the mass grave beside the Jewish cemetery remained unmarked, the land was used as a pasture.
Only in 2004 a memorial was erected at the cemetery on the initiative of a Jewish organisation. The following year the organisation Yahad-In Unum initiated the opening of the 15 mass graves at the Jewish cemetery for forensic examinations. The results of the investigation were presented 2007 in the memorial site »Mémorial de la Shoah« in Paris.

Busk, undated, Historic view of the market place, public domain

Busk, 2015, Jewish cemetery, Christian Herrmann

Open

The memorial is accessible at all times.

Contact

vulitsa Tarasa Shevchenka
80501 Busk

Busk, 2015, Site of mass shooting at the Jewish cemetery, Christian Herrmann

Busk, undated, Star of David on the door of the former synagogue, Obyedinennaya evreyskaya obchtchina ukrainy, Yevgenniy Shnayder

Busk, undated, Gravestone on the Jewish cemetery, Obyedinennaya evreyskaya obchtchina ukrainy, Yevgenniy Shnayder

Busk, 2015, Memorial to the murdered Jews at the Jewish cemetery, Christian Herrmann

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