Zhytomyr

At the outbreak of the Second World War, about 30,000 Jews lived in Zhytomyr, which corresponded about a third of the city’s population. When the Germans in early July 1941 occupied Zhytomyr, a majority of them had fled. In the wake of the German army, Nazi mobile killing squads arrived immediately began to murder Jews. A smaller ghetto for the city’s Jews was set up in the city. But already in September 1941, the ghetto was liquidated and the Jews were taken to different sites and shot by Nazi killing squads. More than 5,000 Jews were murdered between July and September 1941. One reason why the Jews in Zhytomyr was killed so quickly is that SS chief, Heinrich Himmler, planned a German colony in the area. This colony was to be populated with ethnic Germans and more or less self-sufficient. The colony was named Hegewald, also the name of Himmler’s field headquarters set up just south of Zhytomyr.