Holocaust memorials in Chernivtsi

Меморіали жертвам Голокосту в Чернівцях

Several monuments in Chernivtsi (German: Czernowitz, Romanian: Cernăuţi), which lies in the historic region of Bukovina, commemorate the Jews of Czernowitz who were murdered during the German and Romanian occupation of the city from 1941 to 1944 or fell victim to the inhumane conditions in the ghetto.

History

Czernowitz, capital of the historic region of Bukovina, was part of Austria-Hungary until 1918. Bukovina was the epitome of multi-ethnicity in the Austro-Hungarian Empire; during this period, Jewish life in the city flourished, a prime example of this being the completion of the magnificent synagogue of the reformed community in 1877. After World War I, the Bukovina region became part of Romania. In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied the northern part of Bukovina, including Czernowitz, in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and Romania was forced to cede these territories under diplomatic pressure exerted by the German Reich. At the time, Czernowitz was home to nearly 50,000 Jews representing over a third of the total population. During the Soviet occupation of the city, the Soviet secret service NKVD deported many inhabitants of Czernowitz to Siberia, among them thousands of Jews.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, during which Romania fought alongside the Germans, the region came under Romanian rule. The invading armies marching into Czernowitz were closely followed by SS-Einsatzkommando 10b (mobile killing squad). By August 1941, the SS mobile killing unit and Romanian troops shot over 600 Jews, while many more were taken hostage. In October 1941, Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu deported the Jews of Bukovina to Transnistria, a region in the Ukraine under Romanian occupation, as agreed upon with the German military. By November 1941, over 28,000 Jews were deported from Czernowitz across the river Dniester. Further transports carrying several thousand Jews from Czernowitz followed in 1942. Only few survived the forced labour, terror and inhumane conditions in the camps and ghettos of Transnistria. Those who remained in Czernowitz had to conduct forced labour under dire conditions. When the Red Army reached Czernowitz in April 1944, it liberated about 14,500 Jews.

Czernowitz, about 1900, Historical view of the town hall, Photo archive Helmut Kusdat, Vienna

Victims

The monument, which is located on the bank of the river Prut, is dedicated to the approximately 600 Jews from Czernowitz who were murdered by the German SS mobile killing squad 10b in July 1941. In all, the Romanian authorities deported about 90,000 Jews from Bukovina to Transnistria; only about half of them survived.

Ukraine, the second-largest Republic in the European part of the former Soviet Union, was at the centre of the Second World War and the Holocaust. It is estimated that five to six million Ukrainians died during the war, including around 630,000 Jews. In mid-September 1939, following the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in accordance with the Hitler-Stalin Pact – a secret German-Soviet agreement –, the south-east of Poland became part of the Soviet Ukraine. The oppression of the local population was now an everyday occurrence. In summer 1941, the German attack on the Soviet Union initially affected these very regions. Right from the start of the invasion the Jewish population was accused of supporting the Soviet powers and became the target of brutal attacks. These attacks were often the work of nationalist Ukrainians, who initially welcomed the advance of the Wehrmacht. German SS Einsatzgruppen and allied Rumanian units soon began to carry out mass shootings of Jews. The Babyn Yar ravine near Kiev, where German units and Ukrainian militia murdered over 33,700 Jews over two days in September 1941, has since become a global symbol of the genocide of Jews. The non-Jewish population was also a target for persecution. National Socialist racist ideology classed Ukrainians, as all »Slavs«, as »subhuman«. The occupiers looted the country, deported way over one million civilians to carry out forced labour and publicly executed hostages. By 1943 a partisan war against the Wehrmacht was raging along with the campaign of the nationalist »Ukrayinska Povstanska Armiya« (Ukrainian Rebel Army or UPA) against the Soviets and the Polish population in western Ukraine. The number of Poles to die in the process lies way over 100,000. From 1944 the Ukraine was again part of the Soviet Union and also encompassed former territories in eastern Poland. The UPA continued its campaign until the mid-1950s. The Soviet authorities deported around 300,000 Ukrainians to Siberia to counter the resistance. The Ukrainian culture of memory was aligned with the symbolic forms of remembrance found in the Soviet Union. Monumental sites of memory were constructed to celebrate the »victory« in the Great Patriotic War. It is only recently that victims have been remembered alongside the venerated heroes. In addition, a culture of memory centred on the campaign of the UPA has emerged in western Ukraine, with the UPA’s legacy being interpreted as a struggle for independence. Confrontation with anti-semitism and the collaboration with the German occupiers has only begun around 2000. With just a few exceptions, the mass shootings of Jews were ignored until the 1980s. It was not until 1991 that the government of independent Ukraine acknowledged Babyn Yar as a »symbol of Jewish martyrdom«. Long after gaining independence, Ukraine was still on the search for its national identity. The documentation of Soviet crimes – for example the state’s responsibility for the Great Famine (Holodomor) in 1922-23 that led to millions of deaths – has more significance in the establishment of a Ukrainian identity than learning about the Holocaust. Nevertheless, new memorial sites for the murdered Jews were established throughout the country, such as Drobitskiy Yar in Kharkiv or the Holocaust Museum in Odessa. On many mass grave sites new memorials were created, partially with German support. In Kiev, a new grand memorial site with global relevance was planned at Babyn Yar. These plans were put on hold with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. What impact the current defensive war will have on Holocaust remembrance in the future remains to be seen.

Remembrance

After World War II, Czernowitz once again became part of the Soviet Union. A majority of the Jewish survivors emigrated, most of them to Israel. The Romanian population too diminished after the war - today, the city is to a large degree inhabited by Ukrainians. There are about 1,500 Jews in the city which is now called Chernivtsi. The former synagogue was severely damaged shortly after the German and Romanian invasion in 1941; the building now houses a cinema, having been deprived of its former splendour. Other synagogue buildings and Jewish institutions too presently no longer serve their initial purposes.

The most significant reminder of the once great Jewish community of Czernowitz is the Jewish cemetery. With over 50,000 graves, it is one of the largest surviving Jewish cemeteries in Europe. It is maintained by volunteers. Located on the cemetery is a mass grave for Jews murdered by pillaging Romanian soldiers during the first days of the occupation. Due to the summer heat, the victims had to be buried in great haste.

A memorial to the victims of the mass shootings carried out by the SS killing squads lies on Pidhaetska street, close to the bridge across the river Prut.

For a long time, the only reminder of the ghetto and its victims was a memorial stone at the so-called Turkish Fountain (»Turetsʹka Krynytsya«) on what was once the ghetto’s main square. In October 2016, to mark the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the ghetto by the Romanian occupying forces, a new memorial »to the Jewish prisoners of the ghetto« was inaugurated. The main element of the monument consists of two triangular granite stones which, when placed together, form a Star of David. The inscriptions on the monument’s plinth are in Ukrainian, English and Hebrew.

In Chernivtsi, the legacy of the city’s Jewish culture is visibly preserved, particularly through commemorative plaques and monuments to poets and writers. For example, there are monuments to the two poets Rose Ausländer (1901–1988) and Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger (1924–1942), who died in the Mychailiwka camp in Transnistria following her deportation, as well as a monument to the poet Paul Celan (1920–1970), author of the Todesfuge (»Death Fugue«), one of the most emblematic poems about the Holocaust.

Chernivtsi, 2026, Memorial plaque with the main square of the former ghetto in the background, Stitung Denkmal

Open

The monuments are always accessible. The mass grave can be visited during the opening hours of the Jewish Cemetery.

Contact

Zelenaja ul.
Czernowitz

Chernivtsi, 2026, Detailed view of the 2016 memorial, Stitung Denkmal

Chernivtsi, 2011, Ceremonial Hall of the Jewish cemetery, Daniel Fuhrhop

Chernivtsi, 2011, View of the Jewish cemetery, Daniel Fuhrhop

Chernivtsi, 2009, Mass grave on the Jewish Cemetery, Christian Herrmann

Chernivtsi, 2026, Memorial plaque for the victims of the ghetto, Stitung Denkmal

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