StudyGuide - Courses

Uncovering the Holocaust by Bullets

Watch the testimony video, read accompanying documents and answer related questions.

Access to accompanying documents

Witness

Iossyp R.

Country

Ukraine

Birthdate and Birthplace

1930, Khust

Year of video recording

2018

Khust, UKRAINE

Khust is a town located in Western Ukraine in the region of Zakarpattia. However, during World War Two, this region was under Hungarian occupation. In 1944, a commission made up of local policemen, villagers and Jewish collaborators was formed. They had to register Jews at the synagogue, seize and estimate the value of their property, and draw up an inventory of their homes. They then handed the Jews over to the Gestapo and Hungarian police, who sent them to a ghetto. 6,000 Jews from all over the district were interned there and forced to work. 200 of them lost their lives and were buried in the Jewish cemetery. The survivors stayed for less than a month, before being taken to the brickworks, where they were searched and violently deported from the Khust railway station to Auschwitz. In late spring 1944, Khust was declared “Judenrein”.

Iossyp, born in 1930, in his house in Khust - © Sabina Caputo / Yahad-In-Unum

Glossary

Leventes
The "Leventes" was a Hungarian paramilitary organisation created in 1921. Young people between the ages of 12 and 21 were obliged to join to undergo pre-military training. The training focused on physical exercise, but also on religious and moral education.

Questionnaire

1) How old was Iossyp at the time of the events?

2) Who told Iossyp which Jewish houses to go to?

3) Did the gathering of the Jews come as a surprise to the local Jewish administration?

4) How was business for the coachmen in Khust just before the gathering of the Jews?

5) What did the gendarmes tell the Jews to put on the table?

6) What did Iossyp receive in return for his work?

7) Were the Jews allowed to bring belongings with them to the ghetto?

8) In your opinion, why did Iossyp accept to transport the Jews to the ghetto?

9) Why do you think the witness agreed to give his testimony 80 years after the events?

10) Why do you think it is important to record and disseminate this type of testimony?

Additional Resources

Access supplementary materials, including articles and further reading suggestions, for a comprehensive learning experience.

Historical notes

The Jewish community began to settle in Khust in the middle of the 18th century. By the mid-19th century, the community had become one of the largest and most important in northern Hungary. In 1941, over 6000 out of 21 000 inhabitants were Jewish.
During the inter-war period, the Jews owned most of the businesses and artisan shops in the town, including banks, factories, and flour mills. There were Jewish doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, and some of them served in the town council.
After the outbreak of World War Two, antisemitism grew stronger in Hungary. The Jews of Khust were targeted early on, when the region came under Hungarian rule in March 1939.

Former Hungarian gendarmerie - © Sabina Caputo / Yahad-In-Unum

Site near the brickworks from where the Jews were deported to Auschwitz - © Sabina Caputo / Yahad-In-Unum

Jewish cemetery - © Sabina Caputo / Yahad-In-Unum

Sources / Archives

Soviet archives

Everyone, without exception, was taken into the ghetto, including women, the elderly and children. Some 6,000 people were rounded up in this way. It goes without saying that such a large concentration of people in such a small area creates unbearable living conditions. Houses that once housed 3-4 people, i.e. a family, now had to accommodate around 40. In this case, healthy men like myself had to sleep outside in the open air.
The population concentrated in the ghetto received poor quality and insufficient food. Like the others, I received two meals a day, consisting of 200g of bread and a litre of watery soup with a little flour and a few grams of oil. During the five weeks I spent in the ghetto (from April 12 to May 5), around 200 people died. We buried the bodies ourselves, under police supervision, in the Jewish cemetery.”
[Deposition of Lyudvig Noyevich Enguelman to the Extraordinary State Commission. GARF 7021-62-8, pp. 24-27]

PICTURES GALLERY

YIU TEAM WITH IOSSYP R.