Life and Death in Transnistria

The Chronological Order of Events

October 1,1941 - March 20,1944

October 1, 1941

The first Rumanian Jewish deportees to step onto Transnistrian soil were the most unfortunate. They were Bessarabian Jews, collected in August - survivors of the massacres. They were driven here and there on both sides of the Dniester first by the Rumanian, then by the German army. They crossed Moghilau and were allowed to rest in Scazinet. After being tortured, robbed and starved, one third of them had perished before they arrived at the ghastly camp in Vertujeni. The first marching columns departed from there on September 16, to cross the river Dniester after two more weeks of suffering at two places: those driven towards Iampol crossed near Cosauti, others taken to Rabnita did the same near Rezina. The new marching columns, which were later driven towards the river Bug, were assembled at these two gates of Transnistria. The first marching column was allowed to rest in Barzula, then arrived in Grozdovca and stayed there. Throughout the entire journey they had to withstand the beating and jeering of non-commissioned officer Tarca, on whose orders several deportees were executed. Later, after they had rested, they found themselves in the hands of a corporal who considered himself the leader [306] of the camp of Grozdovca. He counted them, while taking them over, hitting each one on the back with an iron bar.

The marching columns moved on different routes but all suffered an unfortunate fate.

November 1, 1941

Throughout the month of October marching column followed marching column through the three crossing-points (Rabnita, Iampol and Moghilev). No one was allowed to stay at the first two. The deportees who were driven there, were forced to move on towards the Bug, where they were locked into the ghettos of Bersad, Obodovca, Tibulovca, Olgopol, Ustea, etc. They had to walk almost naked on the road sodden with the sticky mud of early winter. They suffered first from the greed and barbarity of their escorts. A great number were either murdered or died of cold, starvation or complete exhaustion. The corpses were not even buried, just left on the meadows where dogs and ravens finished what humans had started. Occasionally, risking execution, a mother dug out a handful of soil to bury a child who had died in her arms. When they arrived at their destination, the deportees could only find shelter in stables without doors and windows (frequently next to cattle) or in pigsties, barns, etc. One could see the terrible picture of completely exhausted people leaning against the walls of stables; they did not talk, moan, eat or curse, they simply waited in total senility until death forced them to collapse onto the floor or another dead body. It was at this time, in the autumn of 1941 that the expression "Totenwände" (death walls) came into being throughout Transnistria. This was the beginning of the ghettos at the bank of Bug.

The authorities in Moghilev did not want to allow Jews to stay there, either. Here, however, due to a number of coincidences, a few of those who had crossed the Dniester near Atachi had the opportunity to partly decide their own future. For others, however, this choice later turned out to be fatal.

Transnistria was entered here by Jews from Southern Bucovina, and a number of Jews from Chernovitz and Dorohoi also crossed the Dniester at this point. Some Jews were collected from their places of work, but others were rich people who were able to take their savings across the Dniester, in spite of organised robberies. As a result, they had enough money to buy a little goodwill. The first Jews deported from Suceava and Campulung bought transport vehicles and drove away, spreading themselves throughout the county. The first deportees continued their journey on German lorries. They paid 50-125,000 lei to the prefect, his deputy or the police superintendent, and became inhabitants of the ghettos in Sargorod, Copaigorod, Djurin, Murafa, Smerinca, etc.

Only a few of these lucky ones were able to continue by lorry.

The poor people, who did not have enough money to pay the tremendous amount required for transportation, and those, who had money but could not find room on the lorries, started their journey on foot on the sodden roads in rain and snow. Their suffering was appalling, and for some also fatal. A number of Jews, the first to arrive from Suceava, were forced onwards on foot towards Lucinet, Copaigorod and Bar, to the north-western part of Transnistria on a road [308] which was more like a swamp from one end to the other. At the point where this road crossed the main Moghilev - Ozarinet road, 28 people were unable to pull their feet out of the mud. They sank even further in their attempts to free themselves. No one was allowed to help them. Dr. Abraham Sapirer, a lawyer, objected to what was being done to the Jews, and tried to assist them, but the Gendarmes shot him dead. The marching columns passed by and could do no more than just watch them as they waited to die. All of them died.

There were similar cases on other roads to Transnistria. Several hundred Jews drowned in swamps.

November 30, 1941

The last marching columns from Chernovitz and Dorohoi crossed the Dniester. The authorities acknowledged the deportation of 118,000 people, half of whom crossed through Moghilev. Approx. 15,000 (25%) were able to stay in the town, but only one third of these received legal permission to do so, and had to pay a large sum for this right. Under orders from the County Head Office, existing permits were subject to validation, and no further permits were to be issued.

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December 1, 1941

Wherever Jewish deportees were accommodated, dysentery, typhoid fever and petechial typhus broke out on an epidemic scale. In Bershad there was an epidemic of typhus before the arrival of the first deportees. In Sargorod, the first cases of typhus appeared on October 16, a month after the first deportees arrived. At that time petechial typhus had not yet hit Moghilev, but an increasing number of people were displaying symptoms of typhoid fever.

December 10, 1941

Five months after hundreds of thousands of people had been hunted out of their homes, and two months after the actual start of the deportation campaign, after tens of thousands of people had died of starvation and disease, and following the spread of fatal epidemics, which could not be contained due to lack of medicine, soap, paraffin, clothing, fuel, food, etc., the Presidium of the Council of Ministers decided to permit the Union of Jewish Religious Communities to send money and medicine to Jews deported to Transnistria.

This permission was the final manifestation of a connection between the Antonescu-government and the traditional Jewish organisation. Six days later, it was disbanded, and replaced with a Jewish organisation whose structure was based on German police patterns. The leadership of this new organ took over the task of assisting Jews who had been [310] deported lo Transnistria, however, because of its reluctance to act and its servile manner, the organisation could not be counted on.

Dr. N. Ghingold spokesperson and general secretary of the Rumanian Central Jewish Office expressed his personal view that action aimed at aiding deportees should be stopped, because it is contrary to government policy, and since all deportees must be considered enemies of the home land, and Jews are to considered in the same way. He continued by saying that those who insisted on carrying out acts of humanitarian aid, by doing so would undertake serious personal obligations and risks. He claimed that his authority spread as far as the river Prut, but he could not interfere in issues beyond the Prut.

The Aid Committee, which had been established alongside the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in January 1941, immediately following the Iron Guard revolt, could not accept this stand. They dismissed the fears of the leader of the Central Jewish Office, and decided to undertake both the task itself and the responsibility. Making use of the fact that one of the most enthusiastic initiators of deportee-aid, Dr. M. Zimmer, a lawyer, was trusted by Mihai Antonescu, the committee attempted to find out the latter's opinion concerning the issue. Through the proposal of the Deputy Prime Minister, supported by the written acceptance of the real leaders of the Jews, Dr. Zimmer agreed to join the Central Jewish Office, and direct - along with A. Schwefelberg, lawyer, and Fred Saraga - actions aimed at assisting deportees.

January 5, 1942

In Obadovca the petechial typhus epidemic is devastating and cannot be contained. The whole camp is declared a quarantine zone, surrounded with barbed wire and guarded with weapons. The interned people are not allowed to leave the camp, even to get food. As a result, a large number die, because of the epidemic itself and of starvation.

January 20, 1942

In Tibulovca 180 people survived from the 2,000 interned in November (100 men, 76 women and 4 children); all of them have frostbite on their limbs. They were allowed to move into the village, but they had to give money or their remaining items of clothing.

January 31, 1942

The petechial typhus epidemic has broken out in every area in the northern part of Transnistria where deported Jews live. There are only a few places where this epidemic is unknown, because in these regions (Djurin, Murafa, Smerinca), accommodation conditions are slightly more humane. The epidemic spreads faster in densely populated areas, i.e. Bershad, Sargorod, Moghilev.

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February 6, 1942

One hundred and sixty-five corpses were taken to the cemetery in Sargorod but could not be buried because the ground was frozen. A fire was lit in the -40_C temperature. It burned for 24 hours. This was the only way the mass-grave could be dug.

In Bershad corpses were lying about everywhere for 3-4 weeks because they could not be buried because of the frost and a lack of workers. There were cases when 200 corpses were collected one day.

February 17, 1942

Throughout Transnistria, but primarily in small villages, Jews are at the mercy of every beast in any power position, however slight. In Obodovca, Stefanescu, an engineer at the Agricultural Centre, is the monster who haunts the deportees. Even though in his job he has no connection with Jews, he takes the wildest measures against them. He beats and tortures them, and uses barbed wire to prevent them from buying food, and at the same time, for exorbitant sums of money he arbitrarily issues permits entitling the holders to stay in Obodovca.

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March 31, 1942

The petechial typhus epidemic reaches its peak in all contaminated villages. (...) Doctors, one after the other, become victims of their profession. In Moghilev, 25 doctors became ill as early as February, the chief physician included; of the 27 doctors in Sargorod 23 became ill, i. e 85%, 12 died, 52% of the doctors. The undertaker is unable to finish his work. There are always 60-80 corpses awaiting burial in the cemetery in Moghilev.

The highest numbers of fatalities from the epidemic are in areas along the bank of the Bug. The general misery, in which the deportees lived, did not help prevent the epidemic. It raged on until it faded away by itself. In Bershad and its surrounding villages, approx. 20,000 people died of petechial typhus. In Ustea alone, some 5 km from the Bug, 1,600 died from among the 2,500 deportees.

June 5, 1942

The petechial typhus epidemic, which had become less of a threat with the passing of spring, ceased almost completely. The survivors prepared for battle against ensuing dangers, and closed the chapter on the previous, tragic, winter.

In Moghilev 4,401 people were counted with typhus, 1,254 of these died, putting the death rate at 28%. However, this data is not accurate since not every patient was [314] recorded. It is suggested, there were approx. 7,000 patients in the town, approx. half of whom died.

Both the number of patients and deaths were much higher in the other places, where the death rate was more than 50%. In Bershad it was 85% as a consequence of housing conditions. We will never know the exact figures, because (at least in the first winter) no one dealt with the registration and burial of the dead. When people died, their corpses were collected from the houses or roadsides, and thrown into ditches. Others were left to decompose in meadows. It is supposed that in the winter of 1941-42, the epidemic killed 50% of the Jews who, having survived massacres, camps and transportation, crossed the Dniester in October and November of 1941. This supposition was justified by the report of General C.Z. Vasiliu, Deputy Secretary of State. It claims that 110,033 Jews were evacuated, and only 50,741 were alive in September 1943. The missing 59,392 were written off as victims of the epidemic.

June 10, 1942

The camp in Scazinet was created from the ruined barracks of what had once been a school for officers. It was composed of two parts built on either side of the main road. The buildings on the right - after haphazard renovation - were turned into living quarters. The structures on the left had no windows and doors; some buildings did not even have roofs; they were in fact stables, and people suffered in these for months in the most terrible chaos.

The buildings on the right housed deportees who had [315] managed to save some of their money, or because of their good connections were able to receive aid in Moghilev. On the left side, however, hunger reigned. A number of those interned had no choice but to eat grass from the meadows and leaves from trees. There was also a lack of water, and thirst was usually more lethal than hunger. The deportees started to dig near the camp in an attempt to find water. They did not find any, but they did stumble across an anti tank ditch full of corpses; they found rags, sacks and documents, and the remains of those Bessarabian Jews who had been killed by the Germans in August 1941.

June 16 1942

The County Head Office of Moghilev sent his guidelines concerning the setting up of ghettos to the Police Stations, Gendarme Legions and Mayor's Offices under its authority.

In the order enclosed with the guidelines Colonel Nasturas, County Head (Poiana Volbura, a poet) emphasised that the execution of this decree "is an issue of Rumanian honour and dignity".

June 30, 1942

Jews in Moghilev were enclosed in a ghetto confined to only a few streets. The 16,000 people were crowded together, and 20-30 shared each room. Since many of the buildings had [316] been destroyed by flooding, hundreds of families were forced to sleep in the open air, next to walls unprotected by roofs.

Sihce their arrival in Transnistria, all Jews were forced to wear the star of David on the left side of their chests as a distinguishing sign. In places, where directives were carried out with particular strictness, they also had to wear the signs on their backs. This primarily affected those Jews who worked in open areas. In other places, such as Sargorod and Smerinca, houses were also marked with yellow stars. The sign had to be worn inside the ghetto as well up until the time of liberation.

July 30, 1942

The number of children being sent into the orphanage in Moghilev was constantly increasing. When deportees were taken to Scazinet, many parents handed their children over to the orphanage so as to save them from certain death. On this day the number of children reached 450.

The health of children in the orphanage gradually worsened. They were infested with lice, barely dressed, and their feet were wrapped in rags. Their itching bodies were covered in skin diseases, which spread with each attack of itching, and they suffered from severe diarrhoea. As a result of the harsh winter, most of them fell victim to severe frostbite, and the insides of their mouths became inflamed.

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August 1, 1942

Since their arrival in Transnistria, Jews between the age of 16-60 (mostly men but often also women) had to carry out various tasks under the directives of the authorities. On numerous occasions children under the age of 12 and old people over 70 were forced to work. In the beginning, workers were collected at random. Gendarmes and soldiers caught people in the streets or pulled them out of houses, and ordered them to labour units. Later, Jewish offices were set up everywhere for the purpose of organising work; these brought some semblance of order to the chaos, especially in deciding exactly who was suitable or not suitable for certain jobs, or by laying down guidelines as to who should do what.

August 19, 1942

Under the request of the Todt-organisation, Colonel Loghin, the Prefect of Tulcin county, handed over 3,000 Jews to the Germans. These were taken from those deported from Chernovitz in June. The Germans forced them to cross the Bug; 400 of the remaining Jews were left in the quarry, 140 in Ladijin, 78 in Oleanita and approx. 1,000 in Celvertinovca. Almost no one returned from among those handed over. The old people and a number of the women, children and the disabled were shot dead in the first days. The others were executed group by group, depending on their ability to continue working.

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September 12, l942

A train arrives in Tiraspol with Jews deported from Rumania. From among them 407, accused of communist activity had been interned in the camp in Targu Jiu, 85 had been convicted for the same reason, 554 had been rounded up because they had been suspected of being communist sympathisers, and 587 had been taken because in 1940 during the Iron Guard terror they had asked for permission to emigrate into the Soviet Union.

Those in the first three categories were taken to the camp in Vapniarca. Those in the last category were taken to Mostvoi-Berezovca, where the headquarters of the Gestapo were located.

October 5, 1942

Major Orasanu, Commander of the Gendarme Legion in Moghilev, travelled to Sargorod to personally inform the leaders of the ghetto of the decree he had issued to transfer 3,300 Jews from the district to Peciora, 1,000 from Sargorod, 1,000 from Djurin and 1,000 from Murafa. After long negotiations, the Major agreed to withdraw his decree, after he received what he had been bargaining for: a one and a half carat cut diamond ring.

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October 12, 1942

In Moghilev the transportation of the 3,000 Jews to the camp of Peciora begins. General Iliescu, Inspector of the Gendarmerie of Transnistria, proposes that the poorest people should be sent, because - in his opinion - they will perish anyway, and the camp in Peciora was created exclusively for this reason.

The Jewish Committee, along with the Gendarme Legion, arranges for the deportation to be executed gradually, and only one group of 500 people is to be taken away at a time.

The camp was known throughout Transnistria as a "death camp", (these words were even written on a board above the entrance to the camp). The inhabitants of the ghetto did everything to avoid deportation. They hid in cellars and holes under the ground, they escaped to meadows in the rain in order to hide in cornfields and ditches. Gendarmes searched for them with police dogs.

Eighty evacuees were packed into each freight-car. The doors and windows were kept closed for the whole journey, and the weaker ones suffocated.

People were removed from the freight-cars in Israilovca, 14 km from Peciora. From there, they were taken to the camp on foot; gendarmes beat and tortured them throughout the journey.

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March, 1943

In October 1943, Wilhelm Fischer, the Rumanian representative of the World Jewish Federation, manages to contact foreign - mostly Swiss - leading Jewish circles (Dr. A. Silberstein from Geneva, representative of the World Jewish Federation, and Saly Mayer from Saint Gallen, European representative of the American Joint Distribution Committee). They provide him with a financial base, which at the moment, cannot be raised in the country. Wilhelm Fischer receives loans from a few generous men on condition that they will not be repaid until the war has ended. In this way he manages to collect 28 million lei (at that time 70,000 dollars), half of this was sent to Transnistria with special representatives as aid for the Jews there.

May 10, 1943

Six hundred people (men, women, young girls) are transferred across the Bug from the camp in Peciora.

May 26, 1943

The Leader of the State orders the deportation to Transnistria of Dr. W. Filderman, ex-President of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities, because he handed in a report to the President of the Central Jewish Office, in which he [321] expressed his opinion that the Jewish population would be unable to pay the most recent 4 million lei special contribution levied on them.

May 30, 1943

In Mostovoi there are mass-executions throughout the entire month of May. The victims are selected under the pretext that they have been chosen for work. They are executed in various places near Mostovoi, mostly in Vasilinovo. Before being executed they are tortured terribly. Several are viciously murdered. The mayor of the ghetto, who had come from Chernovitz, was cut into pieces, because he had not provided young girls to perform sexual acts. An engineer from Chernovitz, who protected his wife when policemen wanted to rape her, was also cut into pieces, but first he was forced to watch the mutilation of his wife before his eyes.

October 20, 1943

The Jews suffering in the camp of Slivina were handed over to the Germans, who executed the majority of them. The few who managed to avoid death, arrived in Grosolovo in terrible condition.

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December 10, 1943

In one day, Germans murder the remaining 438 survivors from the camp in Tarasivca, beyond the Bug, and throw their corpses into a hole. Almost all of them had been deported from Chernovitz and Dorohoi in June 1942.

The 350 Jews, still alive in Ovadovca, Talalevca and Crasnopolca, meet the same fate. They are the last to be executed from the 3,000 Jews deported to sites near Ladijin. They had been given as a present to the Todt unit in August 1942 by Colonel Loghin, the Prefect of Tulcin county, and were taken eastwards from the middle of the Bug.

January 1, 1944

Ion Antonescu cynically claims in his new year speech addressed to the army that no one had been deported and the Rumanian army had been passive and tolerant.

February 5, 1944

The Pope sends 1,350,000 lie in aid to Transnistrian Jews to the Central Jewish Office through the Rumanian Foreign Ministry.

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March 20, 1944

In the final weeks of fascist rule Jewish deportees were not tortured in the way they had been throughout the previous three years. They were no longer beaten by officers and soldiers, and neither were they attacked by police superintendents, pharmacists or forestry engineers. They were not forced to work, nor were they transported. The "bloody Jews" had become "Jewish gentlemen''.

In spite of all this, Jews were full of well-founded fear and worry. They were afraid of the massacres and killings which could follow in the wake of withdrawing German troops.

The lightning Soviet attack, however, proved an obstacle to the last crimes.

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