The Jewish Community of Korzec, Poland [today Korets, Ukraine]
A Jewish community existed in Korzec from the second half of the 16th century, and in 1921 some 4,900 Jews lived there, approximately 80% of the population. Most of them made a living in trade and craftwork, factory labor and processing agricultural produce.
In September 1939, Korzec was annexed by the Soviet Union as part of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreements. The Germans occupied the city on 8 July 1941, and shortly afterwards Ukrainian nationalists perpetrated a pogrom there. The remaining Jews and their houses were marked with a Star of David. In August of the same year, some 460 Jewish men were shot to death in two aktionen, and the surviving Jews were forced into a ghetto. Hundreds of Jews were conscripted for forced labor. On 21 May 1942 another 2,200 Jews— mostly women and children—were murdered.
On 25 September 1942, over 1,000 Jews were murdered in the ghetto in an aktion carried out by the Germans and the Ukrainians. In the course of the aktion, the head of the Judenrat set fire to his house; the conflagration spread to adjacent buildings and this diversion helped many to escape and join the partisans.
The Gildenman Family
Moshe (Misha) and Golda Gildenman lived in Korzec, Poland (today Korets, Ukraine) with their two children, Simcha and Feiga. Active in the local Jewish community, Misha studied engineering and owned a factory that produced concrete products, where Simcha also worked. Misha remained active in community affairs even after the family was incarcerated in the ghetto following the German occupation in 1941.
In May 1942 Golda and 13-year-old Feiga were shot to death by Germans and Ukrainians, together with thousands of the ghetto's Jews. Misha and Simcha survived thanks to their professional skills, which were needed by the Germans. That same afternoon, they were forced to sort through the clothes of the victims loaded from the killing pits onto wagons, and Misha spotted his daughter's coat.
In the ghetto, Moshe and Simcha organized a small band of young men. Two days before the ghetto's liquidation, the group succeeded in escaping from the ghetto with a number of weapons. In order to bolster their arms supply, the escapees attacked some policemen, taking rifles, guns and grenades off them. With time, the group grew in size and started to carry out armed resistance activities against Germans and collaborators who had harmed Jews. In January 1943 the group headed by Misha, now known as "Diadia Misha" (Uncle Misha) joined the "Suvorov" Soviet partisan brigade. When the area was liberated, Misha and Simcha volunteered to continue fighting in the ranks of the Soviet army: Simcha passed an officer's course and fought as a company commander, while Misha was a captain in the Engineering Corps. Misha and his company were among the first to enter Hitler's bunker; on the walls of the bunker he wrote: "I, Misha Gildenman, am here, despite enemy orders".
After the war, Misha wrote about his partisan unit in articles and books. He immigrated to Israel in the early 1950s.
