These articles will be published in volume V of the Encyclopedia,

The USHMM Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945,
vol. V Extermination, Transit, and Forced Labor Camps for Jews,
vol. ed. Martin Dean, series ed., Geoffrey Megargee
 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press
 in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, forthcoming)

Proskurow (aka Khmel’nyts’kyi) (ZALfJ)

Pre-1941: Proskurov, center of Kamenets-Podol’skii oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941-1944: Proskurow, Rayon and Gebiet center, Generalkommissariat Wolhynien-Podolien, Reichskommissariat Ukraine; post-1991: Khmel’nyts’kyi, raion and oblast’ center, Ukraine

            Khmel’nyts’kyi is located 88 kilometers (55 miles) north-northeast of Kam’ianets-Podil’s’kyi. In 1954 the town was renamed from Proskurov to Khmel’nitskiy (now Khmel’nyts’kyi).

The German authorities established a forced labor camp for Jews (ZALfJ) in Proskurow in May 1942. The Jewish prisoners were employed in road building and repair and also at the freight railroad station. The road work was directed by the civilians employed by the German construction companies of Jehle, Grimminger, and Stork, subordinated to the Organisation Todt (OT).

The camp was established in Middle School No. 6 on Aleksandrovskaia Street, surrounded by barbed wire, and for this reason it was known as the “School Camp.” It was supervised by a German known as Herr Kröll. The camp started by housing Jews from the village of Winkowzy (Vin’kivtsy) and then Jews from other populated areas. At the beginning of November 1942, Jews were transferred to the camp from the liquidation of ZALfJ Matzkowzy.[1]

Etya Tselavich, who was among those transferred from Matzkowzy, has described conditions in the Proskurow “School Camp”: “When it became very cold in the autumn of 1942, our camp was moved to Proskurov and placed in School No. 6. There were a lot of people in the camp... The school was jammed with people. They slept tightly packed and couldn’t even turn at night. It was very dirty and lice tortured them, but they were helpless to change their conditions. The most difficult thing was to go to work and return. Though the work was very hard, at least we grew warm. The distance to work and back was several kilometers, and our boots and clothes were shabby. We walked in mud mixed with snow. We caught cold, although we were not supposed to become ill. In the morning when we started for work, everybody in the camp coughed severely.”[2]

The Jews existed mainly at the mercy of local peasants, who frequently smuggled them food. Inside the camp and on the highway, Ukrainian and Lithuanian policemen (Schutzmänner) guarded the Jews. Veniamin Grinberg was a prisoner in the “School Camp” and recalls that he did not get paid for his work. He managed to escape from the camp in November 1942. In reprisal, ten Jews were usually shot for anyone who escaped.[3]

German policemen of the 1st Platoon, 1st Company of the Polizeisicherungsabteilung Durchgangstrasse (DG) IV (Police Security Detachment for Main Highway IV) supervised the Ukrainian and Lithuanian police who guarded the camp. In charge of this unit in Proskurow was Polizeimeister Philipp Grossman. The German policemen also organized the shooting of prisoners who became sick.[4]

Etya Tselavich recalled that: “large groups of people were taken from the camp supposedly for a special kind of work, but they never returned. A day or two later their places were occupied by Jews from other parts. The most famished were selected for that particular ‘work,’ and we all understood that they were then killed.”[5]

The camp was liquidated in early December 1942, when most of the remaining prisoners were shot.[6] Around this time the Jews from the Proskurov ghetto and from the camp in Lesnewo were also murdered, several thousand people altogether.

Etya Tsalevich was among those transferred from the “School Camp” to the nearby camp in Lesnewo, in preparation for the mass shooting. She recalled: “On Saturday a party of about 100 people was taken out of the camp [School No. 6] and driven to Leznevo. By now we knew well that our deaths were imminent. In Leznevo we were put in a large cold shed near the prepared pits. It was already evening. No shootings were carried out on Sundays, the policemen-executioners rested and perhaps prayed to G-d. Thus we could live another day until Monday.  Early on Monday morning the trucks with new people arrived. These were the remaining Jews of Proskurov ghetto. They came as entire families with children. They were still well dressed and carried suitcases, bags, and bundles with belongings. They were told that they would be resettled to another place, but were brought to the pits.”[7]

According to the German civilian Wilhelm Müller, who worked for the company of Albin Jehle in Proskurow, around 30 Jews remained in the “School Camp” in mid-December 1942, after the liquidation of the ghetto at the beginning of the month. By early November, men from the OT had taken over responsibility for guarding the camp, after the men of the Police Security Detachment DG IV had been transferred further east in the fall of 1942. The OT-men only guarded the camp for a few weeks, as by the end of the December all the remaining Jews in the camp had been shot, including Willi Schuster and his father, who had been spared from the first Aktion thanks to Müller’s intervention with his superiors Jehle and Lorenz in the OT.[8]

Sources:

Relevant information on ZALfJ Proskurow can be found in Diana Voskoboynik, “The History of Jews in Proskurov, Ukraine,” (unpublished M.A. thesis, Department of History, Union College, 2001). The testimony of Etya Tselavich, given in November 1974 and held at Yad Vashem, is available in English trans. at http://www.felshtin.org/people/etyaremembers.pdf.

Primary documentation about ZALfJ Proskurow can be found in these archives: BA-L (B 162/3511, B 162/6167; and B 162/7836-7838); GARF (7021-64-813); VHF (# 32517 and 29775); and YVA.

Alexander Kruglov and Martin Dean

trans. Keith Bush

Lesnewo (ZALfJ)

Pre-1941: Leznevo, Proskurov raion, Kamenets-Podol’skii oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941-1944: Lesnewo (aka Lesniewo), Rayon and Gebiet Proskurow, Generalkommissariat Wolhynien-Podolien, Reichskommissariat Ukraine; post-1991: Mikroraion Lezneve, suburb of Khmel’nitskiy town, Khmel’nitskiy raion and oblast’, Ukraine

            During World War II, Lesnewo (Leznevo) was located about 5 kilometers (3 miles) northeast of the town of Proskurov (renamed Khmel’nitskiy in 1954). From 1963, the village of Leznevo formed part of the town of Khmel’nitskiy.

The German authorities established a forced labor camp for Jews (ZALfJ) in Lesnewo in May 1942. The camp was based on a former kolkhoz and the Jews slept in a stable surrounded by barbed wire. From the start, the camp housed around 30 Jews from Proskurow and also about two or three hundred Jews from other places in the region, including at least 100 Jews from Zinkow (Zin’kiv). Male and female Jews were housed in the camp. The work was directed by a consortium of German construction firms, including the Jehle, Grimminger, and Stork companies, who had been contracted by the Organisation Todt (OT).[1]

The Jewish forced laborers performed road construction and repairs, in addition to working in a quarry and transporting sand. According to survivor, Hana Vaiskop, each day 150 carts had to be loaded with sand during a standard 12-hour workday. Inmates who became too exhausted or sick to work were shot. Vaiskop names Felix Broghammer as the camp commandant and notes that one of his assistants was a man named Schmutzler.[2]

In July 1942, approximately 30 Jewish carpenters and metalworkers, including Iosif Groysman, were transferred from Lesnewo to work in a nearby garage. Here they were supervised by a German engineer, who treated them humanely. Small groups of inmates from ZALfJ Lesnewo were allowed to visit the Proskurov ghetto on Sundays. They always returned to the camp, out of fear of reprisals against the others. Nevertheless, a few Jews did escape from ZALfJ Lesnewo. Ilya Abramovich arranged for the escape of his brother Matvey and later fled himself.[3]

German postwar investigations confirm that Felix Broghammer was the police officer in charge of the post in Lesnewo. He was part of the 2nd Group of the 1st Company of the Polizeisicherungsabteilung Durchgangsstrasse IV, which was based in Proskurov under the command of Polizeimeister Philipp Grossman, who answered in turn to Oberleutnant Scherer. According to Broghammer, ZALfJ Lesnewo was guarded by 6 or 7 Lithuanians, who likely belonged to the 7th Lithuanian police (Schutzmannschaft) battalion. Other sources mention also Ukrainian police acting as guards. Broghammer describes an incident, in which a group of Jewish workers with typhus, who had been sent from ZALfJ Lesnewo to the hospital for Jews in Proskurov, were picked up by truck and then shot by Lithuanian policemen near Lesnewo, on the orders of his superiors Grossman and Scherer. On another occasion, a group of around 80 sick Jews were shot near the camp by Oberleutnant Scherer.[4]   

The camp was liquidated at the end of November or in early December 1942, at the time of the final liquidation of the Proskurov ghetto. The Jews were driven out of the ghetto to pits prepared close to Lesnewo and were shot there. The remaining prisoners in the Lesnewo camp shared the same fate at this time or shortly afterwards.[5]

Sources:

Information on ZALfJ Lesnewo can be found in the unpublished M.A. thesis of Diana Voskoboynik, “The History of Jews in Proskurov, Ukraine.” The camp is mentioned also in Andrej Angrick, “Annihilation and Labor: Jews and Thoroughfare IV in Central Ukraine,” in Ray Brandon and Wendy Lower, eds., The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization (Bloomington: Indiana UP and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2008), pp. 190-223, on p. 206; and Ilya Altman, ed., Kholokost na territorii SSSR: Entsiklopediia (Moscow: ROSSPĖN, 2009), p. 514.

            Relevant documentation can be found in these archives: BA-L (B 162/6168, pp. 2918-2948; B 162/7836-7838); GARF (7021-64-813); VHF (# 8453); YiU (590U); and YVA (O-3/5961 and 6400).

Alexander Kruglov and Martin Dean

trans. Keith Bush