This article analyzes events in the East Galician town of Buczacz during World War II on the basis of wartime and postwar accounts by the Jewish, Ukrainian, and Polish inhabitants of the town. The article argues that such testimonies should be treated as historical documents and that they are valuable in reconstructing the events of genocide and communal massacre during the German occupation of Eastern Europe both because they provide different insights into these events from those available in official documentation and because they “save” from oblivion events that cannot be found at all in other documents.
For a forceful statement on the need for an objective and value-free use of documents, see David Engel, Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1943-1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 1-14; at several scholarly meetings, Engel has expressed strong reservations about the use of testimonies.
2.
For interesting comments on sources along these lines, see Dieter Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941-1944: Organisation und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1996), 17-21, who also writes, "Research of Jewish history under German occupation in East Galicia would have demanded knowledge of Yiddish and Hebrew, which I lack. This limitation is painful, but unavoidable" (ibid., 15). See also Thomas Sandkühler, "Endlösung" in Galizien: Der Judenmord in Ostpolen und die Rettungsinitiativen von Berthold Beitz, 1941-1944 (Bonn: Dietz, 1996), 15-9. Skepticism over the use of diaries is expressed in Raul Hilberg, Sources of Holocaust Research: An Analysis (Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 2001), 141-2, 155-9, 161-2. For a more sympathetic view that stresses the chronological proximity of accounts, see Saul Friedländer, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2007), xxiv-xxvi.
3.
This is ultimately the case even in Friedländer, Years of Extermination. A good example is Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt, The Holocaust: A History (New York, NY: Norton, 2002). A much more sophisticated discussion can be found in Alexandra Garbarini, Numbered Days: Diaries and the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006); and Simone Gigliotti, The Train Journey: Transit, Captivity, and Witnessing in the Holocaust (New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2009).
4.
Annette Wieviorka, The Era of the Witness, trans. Jared Stark (Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, 2006 ).
5.
A few examples: Lawrence L. Langer, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991); Cathy Caruth, ed., Trauma: Explorations in Memory (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995); Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (New York, NY: Routledge, 1992); Kenneth Jacobson, Embattled Selves: An Investigation into the Nature of Identity through Oral Histories of Holocaust Survival (New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994); and Efraim Sicher, ed., Breaking Crystal: Writing and Memory after Auschwitz (Urbana, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998). An early exception is Terrence Des Pres, The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1976).
6.
Among the most harrowing texts on this "return," see Charlotte Delbo, None of Us Will Return, trans. John Githens (New York, NY: Grove, 1968); and Primo Levi, The Reawakening , trans. Stuart Woolf (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995).
7.
For a detailed account of one such public massacre in an East Galician town, known as "The bloody Sunday of Stanisławów" (now the city of Ivano-Frankivs’k in Western Ukraine), from various perspectives, see Pohl, Judenverfolgung, 144-7; Sandkühler, Endlösung, 150-2; Elisabeth Freundlich, Die Ermordung einer Stadt namens Stanislau: NS-Vernichtungspolitik in Polen 1939-1945 (Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1986), 154-64; and Avraham Liebesman, Im Yehudei Stanislavov bi-yemei klayah [With the Jews of Stanisławów in the Holocaust] (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1980, in Hebrew), 22-31.
8.
Julija Mykhailivna Trembach, written on her behalf by her daughter, Roma Nestorivna Kryvenchuk, in 2003, collected by Mykola Kozak, translated from Ukrainian by Sofia Grachova.
9.
Maria Mykhailivna Khvostenko (née Dovhanchuk), interview with Mykola Kozak, 2003, translated from Ukrainian by Sofia Grachova.
10.
Ibid.
11.
Trembach, 2003.
12.
Tetiana Pavlyshyn, "The Holocaust in Buczacz," Nova Doba 48 (1 December 2000), collected by Mykola Kozak, translated by Sofia Grachova.
13.
Anne H. Resnik (née Herzog), telephone interview with me, 11 September 2002.
14.
Regina Gertner, telephone interview with me, 31 July 2002.
15.
Yitzhak Bauer, interview with me, Tel Aviv, November 2003, in Hebrew.
16.
John Saunders, telephone interview with me, 30 July 2002.
17.
Robert Barton (Bertisz), telephone interview with me, 5 July 2002.
18.
Jacob Heiss, telephone interview with me, 5 July 2003, and meeting in New York City, December 2002.
19.
Arie Klonicki-Klonymus , Yoman Avi Adam [The Diary of Adam’s Father] (Jerusalem: Hakibbutz Hameuchad , 1969, in Hebrew), 47.
20.
Przeżycia i rozporządzenie Joachima Mincere [The Life and Testament of Joachim Mincer], probably written in 1943, Yad Vashem, in Polish, translated by Eva Lutkiewicz.
21.
Undated account by Yitzhak Shalev, formerly Izio Wachtel, sent to me by his son, Ziki Slav, on 25 February 2007.
22.
Shulamit Aberdam (Freiberg), Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 28 April 1998, Haifa, Israel, in Hebrew.
23.
Fannie Kupitz (Feldman), Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 25 April 1994, Forest Hills, New York.
24.
Salomon and Fania Kupitz, interview with me in New York City, 10 October 2002.
25.
This and all subsequent citations of this witness are taken from Kupitz, Shoah Foundation video.
26.
Rózia Brecher, "Recollections from the City of Buczacz," Yad Vashem Archives Division: 033, File: 765, E/32-3-, translation from Polish original with help from Joanna Michlic; Rosa Brecher, "Protocol, Taken Down in the Refugee House, Bucharest, Calea Mosilor 128, on 20 May 1945," ZIH 301/4911, translation of German original.
27.
Ibid.
28.
Alicia Appleman-Jurman, Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 29 January 1996, La Habra, California.
29.
See the extraordinary apologetic accounts of this man’s career, in Yefrem Hasai, "Under Police Uniform There Beat the Heart of a Ukrainian Patriot," Nova Doba 16:8065(23 April 2004); Mykhailo Kheifetz, Ukrayinski syluety (Kharkiv: Folio, 2000), available at Kharkiv Group for Human Rights Protection: http://www.khpg.org/index.php?r=14, both translated by Sofia Grachova. And see records of Kaznovsk’kyi’s 1957 trial in Ternopil’, Branch State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine (Haluzevyi derzhavnyi arkhiv Sluzhby bezpeky Ukraïny): HDA SBU, m. Ternopil’, spr. 30466, 26874, 14050-P, 736, 3713, 14340-P, 9859-P, 8540-P, 8973-P, 14320-P, multiple documents, in Russian and Ukrainian.
30.
Eliasz Chalfen, Yad Vashem Testimony, M1/E 1559, translated from Polish by Eva Lutkiewicz.
31.
Ester Grintal (Nachtigal), Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 21 September 1997, Netanyah, Israel, in Hebrew.
32.
Yoel Katz, Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 11 December 1995, Netanyah, Israel, in Hebrew.
33.
Joe (Yekhezkiel, Jechezkiel, Olszy) Perl, Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 14 October 1996, Los Angeles, California.
34.
Edzia Spielberg-Flitman, Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 14 March 1995, Skokie, Illinois, transcribed by Joshua Tobias.
35.
Mojżesz Szpigiel, USHMM, reel 37 301/3492, Łódż, 10 March 1948, translated from Polish by Evelyn Zegenhagen.
36.
Izaak Szwarc, USHMM, RG-15.084 Acc.1997 A.0125, Reel 5, testimony 327, ZIH 301/327, translated from Polish by Evelyn Zegenhagen.
37.
Rene Zuroff (Tabak), Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 31 August 1995, Bellmore, New York.
38.
This has been discussed especially well by Lawrence L. Langer, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory; and Wieviorka, The Era of the Witness.
39.
Rafael Moses, ed., Persistent Shadows of the Holocaust: The Meaning to Those Not Directly Affected ( Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1993); Dan Bar-On, Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children of the Third Reich (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989); and Dan Bar-On, Fear and Hope: Three Generations of the Holocaust (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995 ).
40.
Safah Prüfer, USHMM, reel 49, from ZIH 301/4581, trans. Evelyn Zegenhagen, probably written in 1945-46.
41.
Trembach, 2003.
42.
Emil Skamene (Kleiner), Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 3 February 1998, Quebec, Canada, transcribed by Rachel Hoffman.
43.
Genia Weksler, USHMM, RG-15.084 Acc.1997 A.0125, Reel 19, Testimony 1865, ZIH 301/1865, sometime in 1946 in Wrocław, translated from Polish by Evelyn Zegenhagen.
44.
Bronia Kahane, Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 8 August 1995, South Fallsburg, New York, transcribed by Josh Tobias.
45.
Aliza Golobov (Bernfeld), Division 0.3, Yad Vashem Testimonies, File # 10241, cassette # 033C/5361, recorded on 29 April 1997, in Hebrew.
46.
Hilda Weitz, Shoah Foundation Videotaped testimony, 4 November 1998, Fort Lee, New Jersey, transcribed by Rachel Hoffman.
47.
Zofia Pollak (Zonka Berkowicz), Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 23 August 1995, Brooklyn, New York, transcribed by Rachel Hoffman.
48.
Cyla Sznajder (Huss), Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw (ZIH) 301/5699, Wrocław, 25 January 1960.
49.
Samuel (Shmuel) Rosen, USHMM, translated from the Polish by Evelyn Zegenhagen, reel 20, testimony 1935, from ZIH (Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw), 301/1935, given on 6 August 1946, in Kraków.
50.
Samuel (Shmuel) Rosen, Yad Vashem, 03/2055, Tel Aviv, 20 December 1960, in file M-49/1935, translated from Polish by Frank Grelka.
51.
Henry Rosen, Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 10 November 1997, Chicago, transcribed by James T. Stever. A gist of Henry Rosen’s story can also be found in Mordecai Paldiel, The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1993), 191-3, along with a photo of Świerszczak.
52.
S. Rosen, Yad Vashem, 1960.
53.
Omer Bartov interview with Shmuel (Samuel) Rosen and Zev Anderman, Tel Aviv, 12 March 2002, transcribed by Raz Bartov.
54.
S. Rosen, Yad Vashem, 1960.
55.
H. Rosen, Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 1997.
56.
The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, The Righteous among the Nations Department, Righteous among the Nations Honored by Yad Vashem by 1 January 2010, www.yadvashem. org, http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/vwall.html.
57.
Wizinger, Moshe, Yad Vashem, 03/3799. The account was written in Cyprus in 1947. Wizinger was a radio technician from Buczacz. Translated from Polish by Eva Lutkiewicz.
58.
Bauer, 2003.
59.
Bundesarchiv B 162/5182: "Aufklärung von NS-Verbrechen im Kreis Czortków / Distrikt Galizien, 1941-1944, Sammelverfahren gg. Brettschneider u.a.," deposition taken on 10 January 1968, pp. 6212-4.
60.
George (Gershon) Gross, Shoah Foundation Videotaped testimony, 17 June 1996, Deerfield Beach, Florida.
61.
Wizinger, Yad Vashem, 03/3799.
62.
Pollak, Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony.
63.
S. Rosen, Yad Vashem, 1960.
64.
Ibid.
65.
Members of the Zuhler family in Buczacz included Prof. Zuhler, who taught German at the gymnasium in 1939 and is said to have survived the war; Herzas Zuhler, who was a prominent prewar merchant; and Regina Zuhler, born in 1907, who testified at a German trial in 1965. Stanisław J. Kowalski, Powiat Buczacki i jego zabytki (Biały Dunajec-Ostróg: Ośrodek "Wołanie z Wołynia," 2005), 89; Adam Żarnowski, ed., Kresy Wschodnie II Rzeczypospolitej: Buczacz (Kraków: Wydanie Własne [privately published], 1992), 9; Aufklärung von NS-Verbrechen im Kreis Czortków/Distrikt Galizien 1941-1944: Sammelverfahren gg. Brettschneider u.a., Bundersarchiv, B 162/5163, pp. 492-3.
66.
Bartov interview with Rosen and Anderman, 2002.
67.
Yisrael Kohen, ed., Sefer Buchach [The Book of Buczacz] (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1956, in Hebrew), 246, 288.
68.
Szwarc, ZIH 301/327. Another account mentions an Abraham Anderman, who is said to have shot a policeman during an Aktion in July (more likely June) 1943: Zakhar Gerber, Shoah Foundation videotaped testimony, 28 November 1996, Akko, Israel, in Russian, translated by Jane Zolot-Gassko; similarly, Moshe Wizinger mentions a certain A. Anderman who shot and killed a Ukrainian policeman in June 1943 and then escaped: Wizinger, Yad Vashem, 03/3799; and Yitzhak Bauer’s above-cited 1968 deposition speaks of "Max Andermann, a former member of the OD, [who] was killed in May 1944": Bundesarchiv B 162/5182. But Dr. Max Anderman, born in Buczacz in 1907, made a deposition in Israel to a German court in 1965. According to this document, he worked in the Jewish hospital until May 1942, after which he was in hiding until the liberation: Bundersarchiv B 162/5169, Aufklärung von NS-Verbrechen im Kreis Czortków / Distrikt Galizien, 1941-1944, Sammelverfahren gg. Brettschneider u.a., deposition taken on 27 December 1965, pp. 1977-8.
69.
For an effective use of oral histories in reconstructing interethnic violence in another part of the world, see Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007).
