Documentation of the Generalkomissariat (General Commissariat) of Schitomir region, 1941-1944

Documentation of the Generalkomissariat (General Commissariat) of Schitomir region, 1941-1944
 
 The collection of documents from the Generalkomissariat (Reich Commissioner General) in Zhitomir from the period of the German occupancy, 1941-1943, was stored in the Regional Archive in Brest, as was the entire State Archive of the Zhitomir Region. The collection contains orders issued by the Gendarmerie Commander and the Sipo (Security Police) Commander, correspondence with various bodies, maps, photographs, lists of those wanted and lists of German activists and Ukrainian collaborators.
 
 30,000 Jews lived in Zhitomir between World War I and World War II; just before the Nazi invasion, the Jews represented one third of the population. 
 
 The Germans occupied Zhitomir on 09 July 1941. Most of the Jews of Zhitomir had been evacuated on orders of the retreating Soviet regime, had escaped or had scattered among the neighboring settlements even before the entry of the Germans. Sonderkommando 4a arrived with the occupying army, and it commenced its murderous acts. On 19 July 1941 approximately 100 Zhitomir Jews were shot, and by the end of July, the number of murdered Jews reached approximately 400. In August 1941 three "Aktions" were conducted in the city: on 03 August, 400 Jews were shot; on 07 August, 402 Jews were shot; and on 17 August, 266 additional Jews were shot. According to the population census of 05 September 1941, the population of Zhitomir numbered a total of 40,131 people (in the late 1920s, the number was 100,000), of whom 4,079 were Jews.
 
 After the census, the Germans concentrated the Jews in the ghetto for which they allotted three streets in the poorest section of the city. Over the following days they transferred additional Jews there from nearby settlements. The residents of the ghetto were ordered to wear an armband with a Jewish star. They were forbidden to take any furniture to the ghetto, and they were permitted to transfer there only a very small amount of essential items and food. During the early days, the Jews were permitted to leave the ghetto during the daylight hours in order to buy food, but after a few days, the ghetto was shut and encircled with barbed wire. The local authorities appointed one of the Jews as the Judenalteste. The ration of food approved for the ghetto residents was one half the ration received by the Ukrainians. Due to the crowding and the hunger, epidemics broke out in the ghetto and many died. The Jews were taken out for harsh labor in the city. Rumors went around among the Jews of the ghetto that they would be sent to Odessa and from there to Eretz Israel.
 
 On 18 September 1941, Ukrainian policemen encircled the ghetto, and the following day, 3,145 Jews were murdered in the Bogun forest by Sonderkommando 4a. During the second half of October 1941, the soldiers of the unit murdered an additional 1,500 Jews in the area of the Vidumka estate. At around the same time, the Germans removed 35 handicapped Jews from the municipal institution for the handicapped along with 50 children from the municipal children's home, and murdered them all. After the murder, those with professions remained in a big building in the city and were assigned to German military service. On 19 August 1942, they, too, were murdered - 237 people.