Albert Fein - February 19, 2005
The Kolomyia Ghetto
They were long gone, I know. Do you remember was it the Wehrmacht that was there? Was it the SS? Was it just....
Where?
In, in Kolomyia?
There was either Wehrmacht and the SS...
And the SS.
...and Luftwaffe was there, at the airport. This was not an airport, this was the airfield.
And Einsatzgruppen?
Einsatzgruppen, I eh, I don't know. I don't know, I cannot tell you. I know that there was Gestapo, there was Schutzpolizei, and uh, there was a Kommandantur.
And Ordnungspolizei probably.
Huh?
Ordnungspolizei. The Order Police. And there was a ghetto, right?
The ghetto, it started next year. When we arrived, arrived after Yom Kippur--after Yom Kippur, in '41. So then the Jews start to believe something what we was seeing, because for the Yom Kippur there was a big synagogue and it was full of Jews, and they were bringing in from other places Jews in, and surrounded the synagogue to put gasoil...gasoline or gasoil, kerosene or something, surrounded this thing and put them on fire.
With the Jews in...
People were jumping out, shouting, "Turn back!" So then they start to believe what they was seeing. To this point they didn't believe it. And then in April '42, before Passover, it started, you know, organized--this mean not organize--to put all the Jews in a ghetto. They was already in ??? and then surrounded it with...
Barbed wire.
Barbed wire, with, with Ukrainian police. See, they had the police--I mean they didn't give them--because they, they just pick anybody if he was Ukrainian, they took him to the police. The Polish--the young people they take to--there was ???, you know what ??? is...
Construction service.
Construction uh, yes, battalions, and all the work--for work you know? So uh, they give him a, a, a gun without bullets, only this they didn't mean anything. After--after this, in the ghetto, they organized Jewish police.
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