During the first days of August 1942, the German forces issued statements in the town that incited the local population against the Jews. On Saturday, August 9, 1942 Jewish workers received an order to report after work to trains to load grain onto wagons. They worked half the night; this ensured that they would be even more exhausted than usual and unable to resist when the murder operation was carried out. During the night of August 9-10, loud shooting was heard in the ghetto. As a result, Gendarmerie (German rural order police) and Ukrainian auxiliary police surrounded the ghetto. Although they initiated it, the Germans claimed that the shooting throughout the night was carried out by the Jews, who had begun an uprising. The Judenrat was ordered to assemble all those capable of work at the gate. The ghetto fence was torn down. Members of the Gendarmerie and the Ukrainian auxiliary police entered the ghetto and dragged Jews out of their houses. Some people were caught in the crossfire and died in the ghetto; a number of others escaped to hiding places. The Gendarmerie men and Security Police made a selection to determine who would be removed from the ghetto. People were lined up at the gates in two long lines, with Ukrainian policemen standing between the lines. Following a selection, between 1,200 and 1,500 Jewish artisans, as well as members of the Judenrat and Jewish policemen and their families, were taken in groups of 400, under heavy guard, to the nearby village of Bialokrynica for the purpose of forced labor. Those who tried to escape were shot on the spot. The next day, August 10, the patients from the hospital and poor people who were living in a former hotel in the ghetto were the first to be collected at the synagogue square and taken from there, by truck or on foot, to the western part of the town, to the former (during World War I) shooting range of the Yakutsk Regiment. They were followed by many of the remaining inmates of the ghetto - children, women, elderly people, and men who had been brought by truck-- to the murder site. On that day half of the Jewish specialists who had been held in Bialokrynica were also taken to this murder site, as well as Jews from the nearby ghetto of the town of Berezce. Upon their arrival at the former shooting range, the victims were brutally pushed from the trucks and forced to strip naked. Those who resisted were beaten. Then, in groups of 4-5, the victims were driven into several pits that had been prepared the previous day by Soviet POWs and some Jewish prisoners, and shot to death with machine-guns. Those who tried to run away from the murder site were shot to death on the spot and their bodies thrown into a mass grave. Ukrainian auxiliary policemen guarded the murder site to prevent the victims from escaping. Each layer of bodies of the victims was covered with earth and sprinkled with lime chloride. During the two days of August 10 and 11 the killing was carried out from early morning until late evening by a group of Security Police and SD, with the assistance of Gendarmerie and Ukrainian auxiliary police. After the murder, the clothes of the victims and their valuables, that had been piled up during the killing, were sorted and taken to the high school of Krzemieniec and were later sold. The less valuable items, documents, and photographs of the victims were burned at the murder site. During the following days and weeks members of the Gendarmerie and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen returned to the ghetto to look for people concealed in bunkers and hideouts. Thus, on August 14, 1942 1,500 Jews discovered in hiding were shot to death at this murder site. Two days later about 400 additional Jews from the village of Bialokrynica were killed, together with Jews captured in the ghetto. On August 20, 1942 a group of Security Police and SD shot to death another 1,210 Jews (848 women and children and 362 men). Some people in the ghetto committed suicide, along with their families, in order to avoid falling into the hands of the Germans.

More information: Yad Vashem

In the first days of July 1941, after the bodies of Ukrainian prisoners had been found by the Germans, who blamed the Jewish residents of Krzemieniec for killing them, a pogrom staged by some Ukrainian militia members and other local residents of the town and its surrounding and incited by the Germans broke out. The rioters looted Jewish houses and abducted hundreds of Jewish men from their houses and on the street -- under the pretext of their mobilization for work -- and took them to the town prison. In the prison, while being tortured and beaten, the Jewish men had to wash the bodies of the Ukrainian prisoners. Then the Germans forced the Jews to dig graves for themselves inside the prison compound and to lie down in them. The Germans then shot the men to death. According to some testimonies, some of the victims were buried alive. During this murder operation between 400 and 800 Jewish men were killed. The pogrom lasted for three days until the Germans ordered the killing to be stopped. After the two-day mass murder operation directed against Krzemieniec Jews on August 10 and 11, 1942, in order to facilitate the finding of Jews who were in hiding, the Germans and Ukrainian lured the Jews out of hiding by claiming to assure their safety. Many Jews compiled, but were collected and taken to the prison. After these Jews had been forced to bury many bodies that were scattered throughout the ghetto, they were all were killed in the prison yard. About August 20, 200 Jewish tailors were taken from the village of Bialokrynica, where they had been kept to the prison. On September 2 or 9, 1942 several hundred Jews who had been still hiding in the ghetto set it on fire to cover their escape. They were subsequently captured and shot to death, apparently at the local prison. On the same day, 120 Jewish tailors who had been kept in prison were shot to death. Later, the remaining Jewish artisans, apparently including some cooperative workers, were shot to death in the same place. On October 22 or 23 a last group of 21 Jewish artisans were transferred from Bialokrynica to the prison and shot to death there on their arrival. In the following days and weeks some Jews who had been found in hiding were held in the prison until they were all shot to death.

More information: Yad Vashem

Apparently after [during?] the second half of July 1941, a Security Police unit that had arrived in Krzemieniec issued a decree according to which all the town's intelligentsia and local officials (whether of Jewish, Polish, or Ukrainian origin) who had worked under Soviet rule, as well as the religious figures of the town, had to appear at the Security police headquarters, located at the foot of Krestovaya Hill -- on the pretext of being providing with work. For this purpose the heads of the Jewish community had to submit to the Security police unit a list of people of various free professions. The people who had reported at the Security police headquarters were arrested and, according to one testimony, were held there for several days without food or water and were subjected to torture. Their absence worried their families, who had brought them food packages but were not allowed to see them or to deliver the food. Subsequently, some of the relatives who had attempted to visit their dear ones were also arrested and taken into the building. On July 23 the Security Police took all the prisoners, in large groups, to Krestovaya hill, to the nearby grove on its slope. At this murder site the victims, both Jews and non-Jews, were shot to death by a Security Police unit and buried.

More information: Yad Vashem