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[Page 191]

The Destruction of Schodnica and the Surroundings:

Kropiwnik, Rybnik, Majdan, Urycz, Pereprostyna

Translation by Sara Mages and Esther Snyder

Edited by Valerie Schatzker

It happened on three dates. On 6 Tamuz (1 July) 1941 the Germans arrived in Schodnica and encouraged the Ukrainians to kill and exterminate the Jews. At noon on the same day, they killed Julius WEISER, his wife, and Yehoshua BITTNER. They seized the slaughterer Berish JEKEL, harnessed him to a cart, and dragged him to Lenin's monument. They loaded Lenin's monument on the cart and pulled Berish and the cart through the street shouting and deriding as if they were pulling the G-d of Israel. In the course of the next three days, until 9 Tamuz (4 July), the Ukrainian leaders Halek, Bobeshko, Stempisa, Baran and the priest organized a detailed plan of pogroms against the Jews of Schodnica and the surroundings. They took men, women and children out of their homes, and on the same Sabbath, 9 Tamuz (4 July), they murdered 198 people.

Yitzchak SCHMER Rabbi EICHENSTEIN and his sons
Manya HOFFMAN and her husband Shmuel The NUSSENBLATT family
Wolf and Hersh LORBERBAUM The family of Nutta BARTFELD
Lunek KLINGHOFFER The KANEL family
Uziel ROSENBERG and his son Shmuel Hersh and Lipa GARTENBERG
The slaughterer Berish JEKEL and his son Moshe Leyzer and Natan HOFFNER (Palzer)
Leib BIRNBAUM and his son Yitzchak Melech BACKENROTH son of Abraham
Yitzchak THORN Chaim WEINTRAUB
Shlomo BACKENROTH and his family The BARSAM family
The WEISMANN family Israel BACKENROTH and his family
The family of Yitzchak GARTNER The HAUSER family
The shamas Maurer and his family Abraham KOHL and his wife
The shamas GOLDFISCHER
The family of Moshe LANTNER
Jews from the surrounding area, among them: KLINGHOFFER
     Yechiel LANGER Mordechai LANGER and his son Josef
     Benish HOFFMAN Wolf STUHLBACH and his family
     Yerachmiel STUHLBACH The convert Pepki KUPFERBERG and her Christian husband
     The BASS family R’ Nachman PESACH
     Moshe LANDAU Runek NEUMARK
     Hersh Heissler Nachum METZGER
     Abraham DIAMANT Elia DIAMANT
     Chana EBENFELD and her daughter Bila Leib EBENFELD and his son Elisha
Baruch PESSEL and his family
A number of refugee families from Drohobycz Malka BITTNER
The son of Hersh RUBINSTEIN Abraham and Sholem BINDER
The son of A. BLEIBERG and another boy from Majdan, both were killed by the same bullet Shlomo KOHL, son of Abraham
The young Rabbi Berel and his brother Tzvi SHOCHET Moshe MARGULIES
Aaron HOROWITZ The family of Abraham SELINGER
The family of Lev ZALMAN The family of Meir SELINGER
Wolf BACKENROTH The brother of Rabbi Avigdor YAKOV
FEDERBUSCH and his family The family of Isaac ROTHBERG
Miriam GINSBERG and her daughter Friedl The HIRSHBERG family
Moshe EISENSTEIN and his family The two sons of Matos SCHNEIDER
Wolf SCHRECKINGER The family of Chaim BITTNER, his wife Rosa and their son Hirsh
Hersh WILF Shmuel POSTER
The NURGLICH family Aizner BLOCH
Hersh the son of Yosef GINSBERG Meir and Sholem BUKSMAN from Majdan
Chana STARK Naftali SELINGER
Shmuel SCHARF and his family Leyzer and Shlomo HOFFMAN


On the second day, they took women and children to dig pits so that they could throw the slain into them. For a number of days they looted everything, everything that they were able to carry. With that the first pogrom ended.

During the month of Elul (September) in 1941, they collected the Jews from the vicinity of Urycz and Pereprostyna, dug a pit and killed them with a machine gun. After these pogroms the rest

[Page 192]

of the people became afraid and a many escaped. Only 280 people remained and every day, many died from hunger, disease and grief.

In August 1942, they seized 60 people and took them to a train in Borysław. In the meantime, many died daily from hunger and other causes. On 22 October 1942, the survivors were ordered to leave Schodnica. The town was then Judenrein (cleansed of Jews). Rabbi Mendel SELINGER died in Drohobycz's great synagogue wrapped in a Tallith and a Kittel. Shulamit POSTER was the last to see him.

Residents of Schodnica murdered in Drohobycz:

Yossi AMES and his family, Shimon STRAUSSMAN, Wolf BIRNBAUM, Frieda WORONER, Shmuel and his family, Yosef SELINGER and his two sons, Yitzchak BIRNBAUM and his daughter Malka, Elia BIRNBAUM and his family, Malka WORONER and her two children, Rosa WORONER, Hersh's wife, and her two children, Leibel BACKENROTH, his wife and his son.

The soldiers desecrated synagogues, turned them into cowsheds, and cut many Torah scrolls to pieces. Four Torah scrolls remained with Babsha*, a number of Jews went to collect them, but they were not able to get them. This is how a Jewish town was destroyed, a place of the Torah and a place of righteousness. Beloved Jews and extraordinary men of action are gone. The calamity is enormous and there is no solace.

These lines will serve as a memorial to the scattered mass graves of the martyrs from Schodnica.

We honor their memory!

* the correct name and identity of this person is not known

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