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"In Dubina, the Jews were put into a large barn with broken doors and windows. They pushed 400 people into this room meant for animals. By the end, only 40 people remained alive. Every day they died like flies, from disease, hunger and cold. Romanian soldiers prevented them from going out to look for food. "
Chana Luketsher Wroshavskia, Sefer Bălţi (Hebrew), Tel Aviv, 1993, 607
After the conquest of the Ukraine by German and Romanian troops in July and August 1941, Romania was givena 16,000 square mile territory between the Dniester and Bug Rivers in the southern Ukraine,established a military administration there and named the region - Transnistria. On August 30, 1941 with the signing of the Tighina Agreement, Transnistia was finally transferred to Romania, in keeping with Hitler's promise to Antonescu, and existed as a political unit until March 1944.
Before the war, some 300,000 Jews lived in the region. After the occupation, Transnistria become a concentration point for Jews from Bessarabia and Bucovina deported there at the command of Ion Antonescu. Tens of thousands were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen D, as well as by Romanian soldiers. The few survivors of the mass murders in Bessarabia and northern Bucovina were mostly deported and concentrated in ghettoes and camps in northern and central Transnistria. They were forbidden to travel or choose where to live, and were sent to forced labor.
Shortly after the transfer of the territory, the deportation of the Jews of Bessarabia, Bucovina and northern Transnistria began: between July 1941 and June 1942, the Romanian military authorities carried out the deportation of about 120,000 Romanian Jews.The Jews were deported to Transnistria in three phases: from July to August 1941, the Jews of northern Bucovina and Bessarabia, with the exception of those concentrated in Cernăuţi and Chişinău, were deported; from October to December 1941, when most of the Jews of Bessarabia and Bucovina Jews were expelled; and in June 1942, when the remaining Jews of Bucovina were deported.
During the first phase of the deportations Germany still occupied Transnistria, and although the German military authorities permitted the first group of 25,000 Jews to cross the Dniester River, they suddenly reversed their decision, refusing to take in more Jews and expelling those who had been admitted. During the dispute between the German and Romanian authorities that followed, the Jews were marched in circles for weeks without food and shelter.
Finally, on August 30, 1941 the Germans ceded Transnistria to the Romanians, and on September 12, the deportations resumed. The Jews were marched to the Dniester in groups of 1,500. Though some deportees were able to procure wagons or carriages, the conditions were cruel. They received little food or water and suffered from beatings and random killings along the way, resulting in the death of thousands.
The second phase of the deportations was more organized. The Jews were robbedof their possessions before they were expelled, and in Cernăuţi, where it was decided that 20,000 would be saved, exemptions were sold to those who could afford them. During this phase, some groups were deported by train and carriage, while others marched on foot. Again, thousands died or were shot along the way. In the final phase, which began on June 7, 1942, 4,000 formerly exempted Jews from Cernăuţi were deported by cattle car.
The Romanians had no plans for the resettlement of the thousands of Jewish deportees, and made no provisions for their shelter or food once they crossed the Dneister. They wanted only to drive the Jews to the north and east.
Eventually, in the winter of 1941, Romanian authorities established several de facto ghettos and two concentration camps in Transnistria. Ghettoes were established at Bogdanovka, Domadevka, Akhmetchetkha and Mogilev Podolski. The most notorious of these ghettos, which the Romanians called "colonies", was Bogdanovka, on the west bank of the Bug River, where thousands of Jews were locked up. In December 1941, Romanian troops, together with Ukranian auxiliaries, massacred almost all the Jews of Bogdanovka. Shooting continued for more than a week. The Romanians also massacred Jews in Domadevka and Akhmetchetkha. Typhus devastated Jews that were crowded in Mogilev Podolski. Two concentration camps were established in Transnistria: Pechora and Vapniarka that was reserved for Jewish political prisoners deported from Romania proper. Of its several thousand prisoners, few survived.
The winter of 1941-1942 in Transnistria was harsh, thousands died from exposure, starvation and disease. Besides, thousands were massacred by Romanian troops with Ukrainian auxiliaries at camps in Bogdanovka, Domanevka and Akhmetchetkha.
In some of the ghettoes, the appointed Jewish committees were able to set up self-help institutions such as orphanages, soup kitchens and improvised medical centers to assist in their survival. They tried to preserve their internal organization, and formed committees under the direction of former community leaders. The Zionist youth movements continued their activities, and even renewed their contacts with the centers in Bucharest. From there they obtained financial aid, clothes, food, and medicine.
The situation of the Jews in Transnistria experienced a relative improvement towards the end of 1942 when the first shipments of aid from Jewish communities in the Regat were received. In January 1943, after the International Red Cross channeled large sums of aid money through the Central Aid Agency (CAA) to Romania, the first delegation of the CAA and the Social Assistance Department of the Jewish Center went to Transnistria, headed by Fred Şaraga. The report drafted by Şaraga indicated that all the help sent through the Jewish Center covered only a very small part of what was necessary; the situation of the 5,000 orphans was disastrous; and the whole camp population, was underfed, sick and lacked clothing.
This was followed by an aid effort provided by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JOINT) and several other international organizations, andin April 1943 the papal nuncio in Bucharest, Archbishop Andrea Cassulo, visited Transnistria. But despite their efforts, many died as a result of the harsh conditions, the cold, hunger, disease and persecution. Only some 50,000 of the 120,000expelled to Transnistria, survived.
After the German defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943, the Romanian Jews became a bargaining chip for the Antonescu regime, which began to consider the repatriation of Jews from Transnistria. However, it was not until December 20, 1943, that the first group of 6,053 Jews from Dorohoi, who survived deportation, were sent back to their hometown. Several months later, on March 6, 1944, 1,846 children of the over 5,000 orphans were repatriated. With the Red Army closing in on Transnistria in mid March 1944, Antonescu finally authorized the repatriation of the surviving 50,000 deportees.
From the time of their deportation in 1941, until their liberation by the Red Army in March 1944, between 150,000 and 250,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews in Transnistria perished, as a result of hypothermia, starvation, epidemics and murder by the German and Romanian authorities.
Matatias Carp, Holocaust in Rumania: 1940-1944, Budapest, Primor Publishing Company, 1994
Jean Ancel ed., Documents concerning the fate of Romanian Jewry during the Holocaust, New York, 1987, vol. 3, p. 528, doc. 330, 559
Jean Ancel, Contribuţii la istoria României. Problema evreiască, Hasefer, 2003, vol. 2, partea a II-a, 7, 18-23
Dina Porat, "The Transnistria Affair and the Rescue Policy of the Zionist Leadership in Palestine, 1942-1943", Studies in Zionism 6/1, 11 Spring 1985, 27-52.
Radu Ioanid, "Romania," in Laqueur, Walter ed., "The Holocaust Encyclopedia." New Haven, Yale University Press; Gutman, Israel. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Macmillan, 1990
Shachan, Avigdor, Burning Ice: Ghettos of Transnistria, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996
Final Report of the "Elie Wiesel" International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, Bucharest, 2004, 281-219
