Kamianets-Podilskyi is an old fortress city located on the banks of the Smotrych river. There are several memorials commemorating the Jews of Kamianets-Podilskyi who were murdered in the summer of 1941.

Kamianets-Podilskyi, August 27 or 28, 1941, Jews are taken to their execution outside of the city, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Gyula Spitz


Kamianets-Podilskyi, 2008, Memorial for the Jewish children murdered in August 1941, Yahad – In Unum, Guillaume Ribot

Around 12,000 Jews lived in Kamianets-Podilskyi before the Second World War. In the summer of 1941, German and Hungarian troops occupied the city. At the same time, Hungary began deporting Jews from Carpatho-Ukraine to territories of occupied Ukraine. Due to this, the number of Jews in Kamianets-Podilskyi rose to 26,000. On August 26, 1941, the Jews of Kamianets-Podilskyi were taken outside the town on the initiave of the SS- and police director in charge of the area, Friedrich Jeckeln. Members of German Police Batallion 320 and several other units, which had formed a »Sonderaktionsstab« (special operations unit), were waiting for the Jews at a pit nearby. There they shot all the Jews of Kamianets-Podilskyi in the back of the neck. The murder operation lasted two more days. In all, the SS men murdered 23,000 Jewish children, women and men.

The circumstances and numbers of victims of the mass murder operation of Kamianets-Podilskyi were unprecedented. It marks the transition to a systematic murder of European Jews.

Kamianets-Podilskyi, August 27 or 28, 1941, Jews are taken to their execution outside of the city, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Gyula Spitz


Kamianets-Podilskyi, 2008, Memorial for the Jewish children murdered in August 1941, Yahad – In Unum, Guillaume Ribot

Around 12,000 of the Jews murdered between August 26 and 28 came from Kamianets-Podilskyi. Approximately 10,000 Jews were deported from Hungary to occupied Ukraine, from Kolomyia they had to walk to Kamianets-Podilskyi. In all, the SS murdered at least 23,000 Jews in the vicinity of Kamianets-Podilskyi.

Kamianets-Podilskyi, August 27 or 28, 1941, Jews shortly before being shot, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Gyula Spitz


Kamianets-Podilskyi, 2008, Site of a mass shooting, Yahad – In Unum, Guillaume Ribot

Several monuments commemorate the town's murdered Jews in Kamianets-Podilskyi and sites of mass shootings. A memorial stone on the Jewish Cemetery dedicated to the murdered children bears an inscription in Hebrew which reads: »Let generations remember our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, the best sons and daughters of our people - who were murdered on the fifth day of Elul (August 28) in the year 1941 by the German fascists.«

Kamianets-Podilskyi, 2004, Memorial for the murdered Jews, Ilja Kabanchik


Kamianets-Podilskyi, 2011, Inscription on the memorial, Daniel Fuhrhop

Name

Pamjatnik ewrejam ubitih u Kamjanzi-Podilskomu

Address

vul. Druzhby Narodiv
32301 Kam'janez'-Podil's'kyj

Open

The memorials are accessible at all times.