On June 22, 1941 the Operation Barbarossa began. German troops crossed the borders to the Ukrainian SSR and the Belorussian SSR and advanced rapidly. Lviv was taken already on June 30. By mid July 1941 they had advanced to the village Andrushivka. On July 22 they had taken the nearby village Plyskiv. No major fightings were held in the area, although some retreating Soviet soldiers were killed there. One of them was the NKVD major Gerasim Vasiljevich Barinov who is buried in Andrushivka. Retreating Soviet troops destroyed factories and other vital buildings on their way to the east. In this area it's known they blew up the sugar factory in Spychyntsi and the railway station in Andrusovo.

It's said that the German troops just passed the village for some days on their way further east. Although the Germans set up a local Ukrainian police and in each village they appointed a starosta (= village elder). In Andrushivka a man named Pavlo Arkusha (but nick-named »Shcherbatyj«) was appointed as starosta and there were at least two policemen (named Polovinka and Sheremenko). The Germans also had a commandant who lived in the manor house. The collective farm continued to work as before.

There were probably only one Jewish families living in Andrushivka at the time. It was Khaim Chernjavskyj's family. He and his family was taken by the Ukrainian police and handed over to the Germans who later shot them, maybe together with Jews in nearby Plyskiv on October 22, 1941. Khaim's son Leonid was drafted in the Red Army at the time which saved him, but he was later killed in action.

The nearby town Lypovets was known for its many Jewish inhabitants, but they too was gathered by the Germans and the local Ukrainian police and was taken to a field just west of Lypovets where they had to dig their own graves and were shot. It's estimated that about 600.000 Ukrainian Jews were killed during the German occupation.

But also communists were arrested and killed by the Ukrainian police and German troops. In Andrushivka Mykyta Ju. Stypanyshyn and Karpo I. Sljusarenko are known to have been such victims.

During the German occupation of Ukraine special money was issued under the name »karbowanez«.

The German occupation of Andrushivka lasted until January 5, 1944. During these two and a half year of occupation people from the village was forcibly sent to Germany to work as slave labour. In total there were more than two million Ukrainians that was sent to Germany in this way. There were many such slave workers sent also from Andrushivka, although the exact number is not known.

Many villager was drafted into the Soviet army when the war started. Later some also joined the Soviet Partisan army that was active also in this area. After the war a monument was built in Andrushivka in memory of the villagers that was was killed as soldiers in the Soviet army or the Soviet Partisan army. On 14 plates there are 261 names, both men and women, young and old. The complete list of the names can be read here. It's estimated that about eight million Ukrainians were killed during World War II.

There were some fightings around the village when the Germans retreated in January 1944 (see map over the Red Army's movements in January 1944 here). The Soviet soldiers that was killed in the area are buried at the village cemetery in Andrushivka. The local Ukrainian police that had worked for the Germans were arrested by the Red Army when the Germans retreated. They were later sentenced to 25 years in prison. The starosta Pavlo Arkusha had been killed on the street much earlier by the partisans while attacking the village by horse.

Just some kilometres north of Vinnytsia outside the village of Stryzhavka the Germans built a headquarter called Wehrwolf, where Adolf Hitler stayed during two periods: 16 July until 27 September 1942 and 19 February until 13 March 1943. The Wehrwolf was taken by Soviet troops on March 20, 1944. The modern picture above shows what is left of the headquarter today. The Germans destroyed it before it was abandoned. The old picture shows Adolf Hitler at Wehrwolf.