Ukraine / Mohyliv-Podilskyi (Mohyliw-Podilskyj)

Memorial to the murdered Jews of Mohyliv-Podilskyi

Пам'ятник євреям, загиблим у гетто Могилева-Подільського

In Mohyliv-Podilskyi (Russian: Mogilyov-Podolskiy) two memorials and two memorial plaques commemorate the victims of the biggest transit ghetto in the Romanian occupied region of Transnistria. Another memorial commemorates local »Righteous among the Nations« who helped to save Jews.

History

Mohyliv-Podilskyi located on the Dniester River opposite the Moldavian town of Otaci was founded by prince Jeremia Movilă in 1595. The first Jews settled here in the early 17th century. Shortly afterwards the first Jewish community was annihilated during the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648. A new community formed in the second half of the century. In the 1770s they built two synagogues. The town was part of the Russian Empire. In the early 20th century there were anti-Jewish pogroms. In Soviet times prior to the Second World War more than 9,600 Jews lived in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, equating to 40% of the population.
The German Wehrmacht and the Romanian Army occupied Mohyliv-Podilskyi on July 19, 1941. Many Jews managed to flee beforehand but approximately 5,000 Jews remained in town. A few days later the German Sonderkommando (special unit) 10b arrived and killed about 1,000 Jews in the region.
In September 1941 Mohyliv-Podilskyi became part of the Romanian-occupied Ukrainian area of Transnistria. Shortly afterwards the Romanian occupiers established a transit ghetto for Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina who were expelled from their homeland and deported over the Dniester River to Transnistria. It was the biggest of five such transit ghettos on the border to Transnistria along the river. The inhabitants of the ghetto lived in the tightest of spaces in derelict barracks, incessantly subjected to the harassments of the Romanian constabulary. Still, the conditions were better than in the German-occupied area east of the Bug River. In May 1942 the ghetto was to be reduced in size because of an epidemic. The Romanians deported about 7,500 Jews to other camps. The deportations were stopped after the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad. In January 1943 approximately 3,000 local Jews and 12,000 Jews expelled from other areas were still living in the ghetto.

Mohyliv-Podilskyi, 2010, Jewish cemetery, Edgar Hauster

Victims

From August to September 1941 the Sonderkommando (special unit) 10b murdered more than 1,000 Jews in the town and its surroundings. Most of the victims were expellees from the Romanian occupied areas opposite the Dniester River. In December the ghetto had about 3,700 local Jewish inhabitants and about 15,000 Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina. All in all approximately 55,000 Jews passed through the ghetto between September 15, 1941 and February 15, 1942. From late 1941 until June 1942 about 1,200 Jews died in the ghetto because of a typhus epidemic. From May 1942 until May 1943 the Romanian occupiers deported about 7,500 Jews to other camps, including the Pechora camp, where all Jews died of starvation or were murdered within a year. The victims were mainly local Jews belonging to the poorest and not having the benefit of being able to communicate with the Romanian occupiers.
The transit ghetto of Mohyliv-Podilskyi had a permanent population of approximately 15,000 Jews. While 2,000 – 3,000 of them had residence permits thanks to a job, the vast majority lived in constant fear of their deportation. The Extraordinary Soviet State Commission later quoted the number of 4,394 victims in the transit camp of Mohyliv-Podilskyi.

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 the defeat of the axis powers in the Battle of Stalingrad the Romanian policy towards Jews changed. The government allowed Jewish aid agencies from Romania to help Jews in Transnistria. Some Jews were even allowed to return to their homes.
On March 19, 1944 the Red Army liberated the transit ghetto of Mohyliv-Podilskyi. In the 1950s about 5,000 Jews lived in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, approximately one quarter of the population. In the 1970s a synagogue was set up in a residential house. The Jewish community re-established itself when the Ukraine became independent, however its numbers declined: In 1989 the town had a Jewish population of 2,830. Most of them emigrated in the 1990s to the USA or to Israel. In 2001 only 300 Jews lived in the town. In 1991 a memorial plaque was mounted at the former main entrance to the ghetto on the initiative of the organisation »Association of Former Underage Prisoners of Fascism«. Also on the former site of the ghetto, in Stawiskoy Street, a memorial commemorating the victims of the transit ghetto was erected a year later. In 1995 a further memorial was dedicated on the former Jewish cemetery in the eastern part of town where more than 1,000 victims of the ghetto are buried. At the coach station a memorial plaque commemorates the Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina who were collected there to be deported further east. In 2002 a memorial for the »Righteous among the Nations« was erected, next to the existing one in Stawiskoy Street, to honour locals who saved Jews. Abram Kaplan, chairman of the Jewish community and since 1990 head of the organisation »Association of Former Underage Prisoners of Fascism« cares for the preservation of the memorials. Together with the organisation and the Jewish community he has erected 12 memorials in the town and the surrounding villages.

Mohyliv-Podilskyi, undated, Synagogue, Yevgenniy Shnayder

Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Former Synagogue, Yevgenniy Shnayder

Open

The memorials are accessible at all times.

Contact

http://myshtetl.org/vinnitskaja/mogilev.html

Wulizja Stawiska 34
24001 Mohyliw-Podilskyj

Mohyliv-Podilskyi, undated, Memorial in remembrance of the victims of the ghetto, Yevgenniy Shnayder

Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Plaque at the memorial for the »Righteous among the Nations«, Yevgenniy Shnayder

Mohyliv-Podilskyi, undated, Historical view, public domain

Near Mohyliv-Podilskyi, June 10, 1942, Jews before their deportation over the Dniester river, Yad Vashem

Mohyliv-Podilskyi, undated, Memorial to the »Righteous among the Nations«, Yevgenniy Shnayder

Mohyliv-Podilskyi, undated, Memorial plaque to Jews who had been deported from this place, Yevgenniy Shnayder

Mohyliv-Podilskyi, undated, Museum for the victims of National Socialism, Yevgenniy Shnayder

Mohyliv-Podilskyi, 2010, Memorial plaque on the Jewish cemetery, Edgar Hauster

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