Sambor Ghetto

Background

Following the rebirth of sovereign Poland in 1918, both Sambor and Stary Sambor became seats of separate gminas. In April 1932 the counties were joined as one administrative area. The Jewish population grew steadily. Brand new schools including Jewish gymnasium and Bais Yaakov for girls were established, as well as new industrial plants, unions, Jewish relief organizations, and several Zionist parties such as World Agudath Israel. Jews engaged in trade, crafts, carter, agriculture, and professional activities. Jewish cultural institutions included a large library and a sports club. On 8–11 September 1939 Sambor was overrun by the 1st Mountain Division of the Wehrmacht during the Polish Battle of Lwów. It was transferred to the Soviets in accordance with the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty signed with Joseph Stalin on 28 September 1939.

The Red Army rolled into town on 20 September 1939 and fraternised with German soldiers for a week. After the Germans left, the wealthy and middle class Polish Jews were arrested by the NKVD and sentenced for deportation to Siberia along with the Polish intelligentsia. Some pro-Soviet Jews were given government jobs. The economy was nationalized; hundreds of citizens were executed out of sight by the secret police as "enemies of the people". Sambor became part of the brand new Drohobych Oblast on 4 December 1939.

Two years after their joint invasion of Poland, the German army attacked the Soviet forces in occupied territories by launching Operation Barbarossa of 22 June 1941. During the hasty evacuation of the political prison in Sambor the NKVD shot in cold blood 600 prisoners; 80 corpses were left unburied due to the lack of time. Sambor was taken over by the Wehrmacht on 29 June. The city became one of a dozen administrative units of Distrikt Galizien, the fifth district of the General Government with the capital in Lemberg.

Along with the German troops arrived the Ukrainian task forces (pokhidny hrupy), thoroughly indoctrinated at the German training bases in the General Government. The OUN followers (Anwärters included) mobilized Ukrainian militants in some 30 locations at once, including in Sambor; and in accordance with the Nazi theory of Judeo-Bolshevism launched retaliatory pogroms against the Polish Jews. The deadliest of them, overseen by SS-Brigadeführer Otto Rasch, took place in Lwów (74 kilometres distance) beginning 30 June 1941. On 1 July 1941 the Ukrainian nationalists killed approximately 50–100 Polish Jews in Sambor, but similar pogroms affected other Polish provincial capitals as far as Tarnopol, Stanisławów and Łuck.

The Ghetto

The German authorities forced all adult Jews to wear the Star of David. In July 1941, the Jewish Judenrat was formed in Sambor on German orders, with Dr. Shimshon (Samson) Schneidscher as its Chairman. In the following months, Jews were being deported to the open-type ghetto in Sambor from the entire county. On 17 July, Heinrich Himmler decreed the formation of the Schutzmannschaften from among the local Ukrainians, owing to good relations with the local Ukrainian Hilfsverwaltung. By 7 August 1941 in most areas conquered by the Wehrmacht, the units of the Ukrainian People's Militia have already participated in a series of so-called "self-purification" actions, closely followed by the killings carried out by the Einsatzgruppe C. The OUN-B militia spearheaded a day-long pogrom in Stary Sambor. Thirty-two prominent Jews were dragged by the nationalists to the cemetery and bludgeoned. Surviving eyewitnesses, Mrs. Levitski and Mr. Eidman, reported cases of dismemberment and decapitation of the victims. Afterwards, a Jewish Ghetto Police was set up, headed by Hermann Stahl. Jews were ordered to hand–over their furs, radios, silver and gold.

Among the people trapped in the Sambor Ghetto were thousands of refugees who arrived there in an attempt to escape the German occupation of western Poland, and possibly cross the border to Romania, and Hungary. Confined to the Blich neighbourhood of Sambor – the ghetto was officially sealed from the outside on 12 January 1942, Jews from different parts of the city along with inhabitants of neighbouring communities, including Stary Sambor, were transferred to the Ghetto by March 1942. A curfew was imposed, subject to on-sight shooting.

Deportations to death camps

The fate of ghettoised Jews across occupied Poland was sealed at Wannsee, where the most deadly phase of the Final Solution was set in motion. In July 1942, the first killing centre of Operation Reinhard built by the SS at Bełżec (just over 100 kilometres away) began its second phase of extermination, with brand new gas chambers built of brick and mortar. Sambor Jews were rounded up in stages. A terror operation was conducted in the ghetto on 2–4 August 1942 ahead of the first deportation action. The 'resettlement' rail transports to Bełżec left Sambor on 4–6 August 1942 under heavy guard, with 6,000 men, women, and children crammed into Holocaust trains without food or water. About 600 Jews were sent to Janowska concentration camp nearby. The second set of trains with 3,000–4,000 Jews departed on 17–18 and 22 October 1942. On 17 November 1942 the already depopulated ghetto was filled with expellees from Turka and Ilnik. Some Jews escaped to the forest. The town of Turka was declared Judenfrei on 1 December 1942. Irrespective of deportations, mass shootings of Jews were also carried out. In January 1943 the Germans along with the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police rounded up 1,500 Jews deemed 'incapable of working'. They were trucked to the woods near Radlowicz (Radłowicze, Radlovitze; now Ralivka) and shot one by one. Among those still alive in the ghetto death by starvation and typhus raged.

After the long winter, new terror operations in the ghetto took place in March, or April 1943. The Gestapo utilized Wehrmacht units transiting through Sambor to round up Jews. All houses, cellars and even chimneys were searched. The 1,500 captives were split in groups of 100 each. They were escorted to the cemetery, where the strong Jewish men were forced to dig their own mass graves. The liquidation of the ghetto was approaching. In June, deputy to the Judenrat chairman, Dr. Zausner, gave a speech full of hope because the Gestapo office in Drohobicz agreed to save a group of labourers in exchange for a huge ransom. Nevertheless, on the night of 8 June 1943 the Ukrainian Hilfspolizei set the ghetto houses on fire. In the morning, all Jewish slave labour were escorted to prison, loaded onto lorries and trucked to the killing fields at Radłowicze. The ghetto was no more; the city was declared "Judenrein". The Soviet Red Army rolled into Sambor a year later amid heavy fighting with the retreating Germans, around 7 August 1944.

Holocaust rescue

There were numerous escape and rescue attempts before the ghetto liquidation. Many Jews survived the Holocaust by hiding with the Poles, others fled to the forest. Guta Gripel Korngold with her husband Henryk Schwarz and two-year-old daughter Ruth née Schwarz survived thanks to help from Alojzy Plewa, a Polish Righteous from Sambor who never asked for anything in return. In late 1942 he brought them money and clothing to the ghetto from his Jewish friends in Silesia and on the way back smuggled their child (pictured) across the ghetto gate. His brother Feliks and both parents took care of the girl until the occupation ended. They gave her a Polish-sounding name Antośka for her safety, while the Schwarz' couple with Ehiel hid with other rescuers. In the meantime, Alojzy Plewa extended assistance to other Jews, including Jan and Anna Dziula. After the war, the Schwarz family settled in Israel. Plewa was recognized as the Righteous by Yad Vashem in November 1978. A sizeable group of Jewish children, secretly taken out of the ghetto in 1943, stayed at the Polish orphanage in Sambor, run by the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary under the care of Mother Superior Celina Kędzierska, recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations in 2015.

Amalia Mudrycki, a Jewish woman hiding on the Aryan side of Sambor, approached Jan and Mieczysław Oczyński – father and son living next door – with the plea to rescue her closest friends from the Drohobycz Ghetto. Jan was a railway engineer, Mieczysław was a violinist fresh from the conservatory. They took in Dr. Maksymilian Getlinger with his wife Leontyna and their son-in-law Dr. Alfred Herzig, as well as their friend Rachela. Also, Mieczysław went to Drohobycz with an address from Amalia and smuggled from the ghetto a 10-year-old boy, Adam. Feeding them all became a challenge, but the living conditions were exceptionally good. Mieczysław worked in the fields of his uncle Mr. Ochowicz to earn the extra food they needed. While there, he met the Jewish sisters in hiding, Basia and Ewa Schreiber. Basia was seriously ill. Mieczysław took her to Sambor and put her under the care of Dr. Herzig hiding in his own home. Meanwhile, the circumstances forced Amalia Mudrycki to also accept Oczyńskis' hospitality. All Jews survived, and with time left their homeland for Israel and Brazil. The Getlingers stayed in contact with the two Oczyńskis for many years. Jan and his son Mieczysław Oczyński were recognized as Righteous by Yad Vashem in September 1983. However, not all rescue attempts were equally successful. In 1943 the Nazi police executed at least 27 people in Sambor for attempting to hide Jews.

A decree issued on October 15, 1941 by Hans Frank, Governor of the Generalgouvernement of German-occupied Poland, specified the death sentence for any Jews who moved outside their ghettos without authorization. The same death sentence applied to Christian Poles who knowingly helped Jews to hide or to move out of the ghetto.

Following World War II, at the insistence of Joseph Stalin during Tehran Conference of 1943, Poland's borders were redrawn and Sambor (then again, Sambir) was incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. Polish population was forcibly resettled back to new Poland before the end of 1946. "During the Soviet era – wrote Nadja Weck, the Sambor – Jewish cemetery lost its original function and was levelled. Plans were made to construct a sports field on the site." Since 1991, Sambir (Самбір) is part of sovereign Ukraine. In 2000, an attempt to preserve the site of the mass shootings of Jews, for a Holocaust memorial park, was effectively stopped.