• Memorial to the murdered Jews of Ratne
Since 2015 a memorial on the site of the mass shootings in Prokhid remembers the Jewish community of Ratne (Polish and Yiddish: Ratno) which was completely annihilated in the Holocaust. Most of them were murdered on August 26, 1942.
Image: Ratne, undated, Historical view of Ratne, Yizkor Book
Ratne, undated, Historical view of Ratne, Yizkor Book

Image: Prokhid, 2015, Memorial to the murdered Jews of Ratne, Anna Voitenko
Prokhid, 2015, Memorial to the murdered Jews of Ratne, Anna Voitenko
Ratne (Polish: Ratno) located in the historical region of Volhynia belonged to Poland until September 1939 and came under Soviet occupation as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop-Pact. First hints on Jewish inhabitants date back to the 16th century. About 1937 the Jewish community had approximately 2,140 members out of a total population of 4,000.
On June 28, 1941 the German Wehrmacht occupied Ratne. Between the retreat of the Soviets and the arrival of German security forces, locals plundered Jewish homes and businesses. The German civil administration installed a Ukrainian local administration and a Ukrainian police unit in Ratne which was subordinate to the German constabulary. Shortly after the German occupiers arrived, they shot 27 Jews and 30 Soviet prisoners of war. Aided by the Ukrainian auxiliary police, they introduced an array of anti-Jewish measures. More Jews were murdered during anti-Jewish riots on June 6, 1942. Shortly afterwards the Security Police (SiPo) shot 280 Jews under the pretext that they were supporters of the Soviet system.
In spring 1942 the Germans established a ghetto in Ratne. About 2,500 Jews had to live there. After a partisan raid on Ratne in June 1942, the Germans shot more than 110 Jews in »retaliation«. On August 26, 1942, units of the Gestapo outpost from Brest, aided by the German constabulary and Ukrainian auxiliary police, murdered the ghetto's entire population. Beforehand they recruited Ukrainian peasants from Prokhid to dig pits in order to bury the bodies of the murdered. Although several hundred Jews fled before they could be taken to Prokhid, most were eventually caught and murdered as well. In February 1943 the remaining Jews who had been left alive to conduct forced labour were also murdered.
Image: Ratne, undated, Historical view of Ratne, Yizkor Book
Ratne, undated, Historical view of Ratne, Yizkor Book

Image: Prokhid, 2015, Memorial to the murdered Jews of Ratne, Anna Voitenko
Prokhid, 2015, Memorial to the murdered Jews of Ratne, Anna Voitenko
During the »Aktion« of the liquidation of the ghetto in August 1942, German and Ukrainian units murdered between 1,300 and 1,500 Jews. Only 14 Jews from Ratne survived the war.
Image: Ratne, 1936, Mandolin group of a Jewish school, Yizkor Book
Ratne, 1936, Mandolin group of a Jewish school, Yizkor Book

Image: Prokhid, 2015, Information stele, Anna Voitenko
Prokhid, 2015, Information stele, Anna Voitenko
For decades there was no memorial to remember the Jews of Ratne who were murdered in Prokhid. In 1989 a memorial was erected on the site of the mass shootings. It was replaced by a new stele in 1995 on the initiative of survivors from Israel.
Since 2014 as part of the international project »Protecting Memory« supported by the German foreign office, the mass graves were sheltered and the site was reshaped on the initiative of the American Jewish Committee Berlin. In 2015 a memorial was built on the site. The architectural elements cover four Jewish mass graves. Grey-blue prisms with surfaces ranging in size from 220 to more than 1,000 square meters now protect the resting place of those who were murdered. The sides of these prisms protrude up to a meter from the ground.
There are even more mass graves in Prokhid. Further unmarked mass graves are located in Ratne, as well as a mass grave with members of the Roma people.
Image: Prokhid, 2015, Inscription of the memorial, Anna Voitenko
Prokhid, 2015, Inscription of the memorial, Anna Voitenko

Image: Prokhid, 2015, Marked mass graves in the forest, Anna Voitenko
Prokhid, 2015, Marked mass graves in the forest, Anna Voitenko
Name
Pamjatnik ubitym ewrejam Ratnoho
Address
М19, Volyns'ka oblast, Ukraine
44108 Ratne
Phone
+380 (044) 285-90-30
Fax
+380 (044) 285-90-30
Web
http://www.protecting-memory.org/de/memorial-sites/prokhid/
E-Mail
uhcenter@holocaust.kiev.ua
Open
The memorial is accessible at all times.