In the major city of Lutsk (Polish: Łuck) in the northwest of Ukraine a memorial stone remembers since 1990 the approximately 28,000 Jews murdered by the Nazis after their invasion in 1941.

Lutsk, 1924, The Great Synagogue from the 17th century, YIVO Institute


Lutsk, 2007, The former Synagogue today, aisipos

Lutsk (Polish: Łuck) was the capital of the historic region of Volhynia and was part of the Russian Empire before World War I, thereafter it belonged to Poland until 1939. In 1939 the town had a population of about 39,000. 19,000 of them were Jews, the other half Ukrainians and Poles. The same year Lutsk was occupied by the Soviet Union as provided in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Many Poles were persecuted and arrested by the Soviet occupiers, Jewish institutions were closed.
When the German Wehrmacht marched into Lutsk on June 25, 1941 they were accompanied by an advance unit of the SS-Sonderkommando (SS special commando) 4a. Members of the SS immediately shot about 300 Jewish men whom they accused of arson. The advance unit discovered the bodies of up to 1,000 people, many of them Ukrainians, in the municipal prison, who had murdered by the Soviet secret service NKVD. Soon after, the rest of the Sonderkommando 4a arrived in Lutsk. Field Marshall Walter von Reichenau ordered an investigation by the Wehrmacht and the Sonderkommando 4a. Reichenau was presumably involved in the planning of the »retaliation measures«. On July 2, 1941 Ukrainian militia rounded up 1,160 Jewish men aged 16 to 60, who were then shot by members of the SS and volunteers of the Wehrmacht at the famous Lutsk castle.
From autumn 1942 about 500 Jews had to conduct forced labour in a camp, the other approximately 17,000 Jews had to move to a ghetto in December 1941. Between August 20 and 23, 1942 members of a special unit of the SS took all the Jews from the ghetto to prepared pits outside of town and shot them. The last Jews from Lutsk were murdered in September 1942 by members of the SS.

Lutsk, 1924, The Great Synagogue from the 17th century, YIVO Institute


Lutsk, 2007, The former Synagogue today, aisipos

Members of the SS-Einsatzgruppe C (mobile killing unit) shot approximately 1,500 Jewish men in summer 1941. All Jewish men, women and children who survived the ghetto – up to 20,000 people – were shot by the SS in summer and autumn 1942.

Lutsk, 1942, Street after the liquidation of the ghetto, Yad Vashem


Lutsk, 2007, Gravestone from the destroyed Jewish cemetery at the Holocaust memorial, aisipos

After the war only 150 Jews returned to Lutsk. A small Jewish community emerged. However, from the 70s onwards most of the Jews from Lutsk immigrated to Israel. At the site of the mass shootings south of town a memorial was erected in 1990. It is lined by headstones of the Jewish cemetery destroyed long ago. Another reminiscence to the once flourishing Jewish life in Lutsk is the Great Synagogue, built in the 17th century in Renaissance style. It was not only used for religious purposes but also served as a community centre and a fortress. Parts of the building were severely damaged in the war, today it serves as a club house of a sports club. In 1995 a small memorial plaque was mounted on the outside wall of the former synagogue. The inscription in Hebrew and Ukrainian not only points out the importance of the synagogue as a monument but also remembers the »tens of thousands of Jews from the Lustk ghetto murdered by the Fascists in 1942«.

Lutsk, 2007, Holocaust memorial at the site of the mass shootings of 1942, aisipos


Lutsk, 2005, Memorial plaque on the wall of the Great Synagogue, Stiftung Denkmal

Name

Pamjatniki schertwam holokostu u Luzku

Address

Memorial: ul. Ahronomichna / Synagogue: bul. Danyla Halytskoho 33
43016 Lutsk

Open

The memorials are accessible at all times.