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Kamennyy Brod Holocaust

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Ukraine: Memorial Dedicated at Kammeny Brod, Ukraine

Ukraine: Holocaust Memorial Dedicated at Kammeny Brod, Ukraine

German units in Kamenny Brod during 1941

Research to place German units in Kamenny Brod to coincide with the massacres in August 1941
Kamenny Brod was in the area of operations for Army Group South. In looking for combat units
we start off with the 11th Army or parts of the Romanian units attached to ArmeeGruppeSud. In
August 1941, Operation Barbarossa was in full swing and who was where would have gotten
confusing. Add to that, the German army, like most modern armies, travels with a huge list of
support units and hangers-on.

By support units I mean units with non-combat functions,e.g., RAD (Reichsarbeitsdienst), OT
(Organazion Todt), RKU (Reichskommissariat Ukraine), and of course the SS-insatzgruppen.
Given the time and location further search for records of the SS-Einstazgruppen under the
command of a particularly loathsome individual named Friedrich Jeckeln

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Jeckeln

He was originally part of the 3rd SS Totenkopf. Say what you want about the Waffen SS being
soldiers, these guys were recruited from concentration camp guards and as early as the spring of
1940 were executing British soldiers who surrendered. We are trying to place German units in
Kamenny Brod to coincide with the massacres there we start with Jeckeln.
And this Axis history page with a link that concerns that region of the Ukraine:

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=3940

Note: We requested source information from German Embassy in Washington, but they did not respond.
(ISJM) Allan Dolgow has passed on news reported by Michael Savin, of the press service
of the Russian Jewish Congress, about the recent (May 24, 2009) inauguration of a new
memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in the village of Kammeny Brod, Ukraine, a
small town which once had three synagogues. During the German occupation the Jews of
the town were killed.

The president of the Russian Jewish Congress, Yurij Kanner, who was born and grew up
in Kammeny Brod, and he initiated of the creation of the memorial, which is also
dedicated to the memory of his many relatives killed in the village.

Representatives of the local administrations, activists of Jewish communities, and rabbis
of Berdichev, Gitomir (Zhitomir), Lvov and Chmelnitsk were present during this
ceremony.

It is not clear from the report where the new monument is located. The survey of Jewish
sites in Ukraine by the sponsored by the United States Commission for the Preservation
of America's Heritage Abroad reported in 1996 that there was a Jewish cemetery in the
town and at least two mass graves of Jews executed in 1941.

The first mass grave is located at 1.5 km to Northeast from Kamenny Brod, and was
unmarked in the pine forest. The second mass grave is located to the northeast, 500m
from a faience factory, reached by crossing Zovtnevaya Street. It was fenced (c. 1950?),
and at least in the 1990s it was kept moderately clean and the marker/monument was
kept in repair.

To view a slideshow of the dedication, please visit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U3Lovni8ug

From Yad Vashem

Thank you for your recent mail requesting information about the perpetrators of the
killing of Jews in Kamenny Brod during the summer of 1941. The killing of Jews (and
other "hostile elements") was not perpetrated by the Wehrmacht directly, but by SS and
police units which operated right behind the frontline (in cooperation with the regular
army that's true). According to certain reports, copies of which we received from the
Zentrale Stelle in Ludwidsburg, Germany, our file O.53/93, the 1.SS-Brigade was
operating in the Kamenny Brod area, with two regiments, SS-I.R.8 and SS-I.R.10. It is not
very clear which of those regiments entered Kamenny Brod in August 1941 and
committed the killing of Jews there.

Copyright © 2010 Allan B. Dolgow