1 Killing site(s)
Kyrylo S., born in 1929: "After the shooting of the Jews, the Germans requisitioned the inhabitants of three neighboring villages to dismantle the Jewish houses in Sofiivka [Zofiówka]. The Germans believed they would win the war, so they began constructing a farming estate using planks of wood and bricks taken from Jewish homes, synagogues, and a Jewish mill. They even started bringing cattle from the district to this property under construction. I was also forced to do this work and spent about five days in Sofiivka. Of course, I wasn’t paid for it. When I arrived, the Jewish houses were nearly empty, as the Germans had already moved most of the Jewish belongings elsewhere. Almost all the buildings had been dismantled. By the time the Russians arrived at the end of the war, only about four Jewish houses remained standing." (Testimony N°YIU1363LT, interviewed in Prylutske, on December 3, 2011)
"[…] In August 1942, a German death squad arrived in the villages of Sofievka [Zofiówka], Marianovka [Marianivka] and Ignatovka [Ignativka] of the Tsuman district, where they arrested all the Jews, in total over 2,000 individuals, and shot them all.
The shootings took place in the victims’ homes, in the streets, in the forest and in other places in these three villages, having killed almost the entire Jewish population of these villages. It has not been possible to restore the names of the victims, as even small children were killed.
In July 1943, a gang of Ukrainian-German nationalists destroyed by arson all the dwellings and outbuildings in the above-mentioned localities of Sofievka, Marianovka and Ignatovka, where, according to general accounting data, there were 400 households before the war." [Act drawn by State Extraordinary Soviet Commission (ChGK), on February 22, 1945; GARF 7021-55-12/Copy USHMM RG.22-002M]
Zofiówka, known as Trochenbrod in Yiddish, was located in the Volyn region, approximately 35 km (22 miles) northeast of Lutsk. Founded in 1835 as a Jewish agricultural colony, the town became widely known in 2002 due to Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel *Everything Is Illuminated*, which was adapted into a film in 2005. Zofiówka was almost exclusively inhabited by Jews, except for a non-Jewish postmaster, as required by Russian and Polish regulations. By 1889, around 1,200 people lived in the town. In addition to agriculture, local Jews were involved in the service sector and various artisanal trades, including leather and tannery production. At the beginning of the 20th century, two glass factories were established in the town. Zofiówka also had seven synagogues, including four Hasidic study houses. Facing difficult economic conditions, many young Jews emigrated to America during this period.
During World War I, Zofiówka was under Austrian and German control. In 1918, Poland took over the town, and by 1921, Zofiówka had 1,536 Jewish residents. During the interwar period, Jews played an increasingly active role in the town’s social and cultural life, including involvement in Zionist movements. Some local Jews also became members of the Communist Party, and a Hebrew school led by Rabbi Eliyahu David Yisroel Schuster was established in the town.
In 1939, after the outbreak of war, Zofiówka was incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The economic situation worsened as the Soviet nationalization of Jewish shops and businesses led to shortages of goods and rising prices. Community institutions, including Zionist organizations, were dissolved. By 1939, there were an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 Jewish residents in Zofiówka, with about 1,800 Jews in the nearby village of Ignativka. The number of Jews in the area increased further after 1939 due to an influx of refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Poland who sought shelter in Zofiówka.
Zofiówka was occupied by German troops at the end of June 1941. A new administration was set up, consisting of two German officials and a Ukrainian police unit. Shortly afterward, a Judenrat (Jewish council) and Jewish police were appointed. From the beginning of the occupation, anti-Jewish measures were implemented, including the plundering of Jewish property, confiscation of cattle sent to Germany, the forced wearing of the Star of David, and the imposition of ransom payments. Jews deemed fit for work were forced into labor in the surrounding area, including the town of Tsuman, sawmills, and nearby forests, from which some workers never returned. Open ghettos were established in Zofiówka and the nearby village of Ignativka. While forced laborers and Jewish craftsmen managed to support themselves, conditions were especially harsh for the rest of the ghetto’s population, who resorted to bartering valuables for food.
After a brief military administration, German civil authorities took control of Zofiówka in September 1941. Jewish workers in the local leather factory, whose products were valued by the Germans, were treated better than other laborers, especially after autumn 1941 when a Polish Jew named Klinger, posing as an ethnic German, was appointed as district commander. Once his ruse was discovered, Klinger was killed by Ukrainian policemen in March 1942, and a Ukrainian supervisor took his place, imposing a weekly payment on the factory workers.
The liquidation of the Zofiówka ghetto began at the end of July 1942 (or early August, according to other sources). The Aktion was carried out by a German Gendarmerie murder squad, aided by Ukrainian auxiliary police. Jews from Zofiówka, Ignativka, Marianivka, and two Jewish families from Domashiv were rounded up in the main street of the town. Leather factory workers were relocated to a nearby village to continue their work, while the weaker Jews were shot on the spot. A group of Jews was taken to a field near the village of Jaromiel, where they were forced to dig two pits. Between 3,000 and 4,000 Jews were then marched to the killing site in large groups, with the elderly being transported by truck. Once at the site, the victims were ordered to strip naked and enter the pits, where they were shot by German executioners. Ukrainians from neighboring villages were requisitioned to transport the victims’ clothing back to Zofiówka, where it was sold.
In a second Aktion on September 21, 1942, around 1,000 Jews caught in hiding were murdered in the nearby Kiwerce Forest. Those unable to walk or who attempted to flee were killed along the road, and their bodies were buried nearby. The last remaining Jews, the leather workers, were executed in December 1942. Over the course of the three Aktions, it is estimated that up to 6,000 Jews were murdered.
Following the killings, Ukrainian villagers were forced to dismantle the Jewish homes, synagogues, and other buildings in Zofiówka to build farming estates for the Germans’ postwar use. Later, the remaining buildings of Zofiówka and Ignativka were burned down by partisans operating in the area. Some Jewish survivors of the Zofiówka ghetto joined Ukrainian and Soviet partisan units, but most were killed in reprisal actions. Only about 40 Jews from Zofiówka survived the war and later emigrated, many to Israel.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, descendants of Zofiówka’s Jewish survivors erected monuments at the killing sites. Due to the health of Yahad’s witnesses and the distance between interview locations and Zofiówka, the exact location of the killing sites has not been found. The GPS point on Yahad’s interactive map indicates the former location of the Zofiówka shtetl, which no longer exists.
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