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The list of Jewish names taken
from the Proskurov newspaper of Nazi occupation
period
“The Ukrainian Voice”
Yaroslav Mikhaylovsky,
Khmelnitskiy, Ukraine
During the period of Nazi occupation of Ukraine, in the
city of Proskurov (nowadays Khmelnitskiy), as in many
other occupied towns, there was regularly published,
beginning Sept. 30, 1941, the pro-Nazi newspaper in
Ukrainian language, which had a title “The Ukrainian
Voice” (“UV”). That was the organ of the local Municipal
Board, i. e. Proskurov Uprava (УПРАВА м. ПРОСКУРОВА). It
was run by the group of Ukrainian collaborationists.
Majority of the editorship and authors were members of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), namely, of
its legalized, in the Hitler Germany, branch leading by A.
Mel'nik (OУН (м), or OУН (мельниківці), in
Ukrainian). All 223 issues of the “UV” (issued up to
12.12 1943) are available on-line. Every issue of that
newspaper contained four pages. On the last, fourth, page
there was a subdivision of announcements “Lost or stolen
documents, which are not valid” (Link).
Such kind of subdivisions is typical for many contemporary
newspapers, as well. Nothing was strange and unusual in
those announcements of WWII time except of the fact that
many Jewish names might be found in them. It’s easy to
guess that poor Jewish victims eagerly wished to get rid
of their identification papers from which their Jewish
origin became unequivocally clear. Unfortunately, it
didn’t help. Nazi officials discovered who is who with the
help of the plenty Ukrainian volunteers and policemen.
There were a lot of the Jews’ haters and voluntary Nazis’
assistants among non-Jewish residents of Proskurov. So,
the Germans forced those Jews, who had annihilated their
documents, to put the announcements about their loss to
the fourth page of the local newspaper and later to renew
their identity papers. First Jewish names appeared in the
“UV” issues even before December 3, 1941 when Proskurov
Uprava published there the announcement on compulsory
resettling of all local Jews to two Ghettos. A bit later,
to one of those Ghettos only Jewish craftsmen were
directed, and the rest of Proskurov Jews were resettled in
the other one. Immediately after that, the Nazi officials
undertook mass checking of the Ghetto residents’ identity
papers. Those who couldn’t present their passports or the
other identity papers, under pretext that they had been
lost, were forced to get the new ones. As a result of this
checking, especially huge amount of Jewish names began to
appear in the texts of the “UV” announcements. The
process of revealing Jewish names in the “UV” stopped only
after the last Proskurov victims of the Holocaust were
brutally murdered. It happened on November 30, 1942.
Sadly, all people whose names can be read below were
barbarously exterminated…
We have been able to find out about 200 Jewish names in
those announcements. They are presented in the alphabetic
order in the following list. Next to the each name we put
the publishing date of the “UV” issue in which this
particular name was mentioned. This date at least showed
that that certain person was still alive then. Some
persons were mentioned twice in connection with two “lost”
documents. That’s why two different dates were put next to
their names. Besides, through these dates, scans of needed
newspapers can be found. The researcher should be careful:
Ukrainian transliteration of Jewish first and last names
is sometimes incorrect, giving highly distorted versions
of them.
Translation by Eugenia Sheinman
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