1 Killing site(s)
Vasyl Kh., born in 1932: “A couple dozen Jews lived in Limna before the war. They all lived in the center, while the Ukrainians lived on the outskirts. They had a prayer house, but I don’t remember if they had a cemetery. They most probably went to the closest big town to bury their dead. Most of local Jews were shop owners. I remember the Laipko, Kytsio and Naftulio families. All these families, along with other Jews, were arrested by the Germans and taken somewhere else. I don’t know where they were taken, but they weren’t murdered in Limna.” (Witness n°2455U, interviewed in Limna, on July 17, 2018)
Limna is located 126 km (78mi) southwest of Lviv. From 1918 it was under Polish rule, and in 1939 taken over by Soviet Union as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Little is known about the prewar Jewish communities of Limna or Ripiana. According to the witnesses interviewed by Yahad, they numbered couple dozen people. Most of them lived in the center where they had shops, some were artisans.
Limna was occupied by German and Romanian troops in June 1941. Shortly after the occupation, all the local Jews who hadn’t evacuated were arrested by the Germans and taken to an unknown location. They might have been taken to a bigger ghetto, and then deported to the Belzec death camp, but this cannot be confirmed. Yahad field research revealed that in autumn 1941, a group of 20 Jews from Ripiana was killed in the ravine by the river in Limna. According to an eyewitness, the Jews were taken to the site on three or four carts, forced to get off and then, once stripped naked, shot one by one on the edge of the pit. The pit was dug and filled in by requisitioned local men. Today, there is no memorial at the site.
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