Tarnopol Ghetto

Last updated

Tarnopol Ghetto
Old synagogue in Ternopil, western Ukraine.gif
Tarnopol Synagogue prior to destruction during World War II
WW2-Holocaust-Poland.PNG
Red pog.svg
Tarnopol location during the Holocaust in Poland
Ukraine adm location map improved.svg
Red pog.svg
Tarnopol Ghetto
Ternopil in modern-day Ukraine (compare with above)
Location Tarnopol, German-occupied Poland
49°20′N25°22′E / 49.34°N 25.36°E / 49.34; 25.36
Incident typeImprisonment, forced labor, starvation, mass killings
Organizations Schutzstaffel (SS), Einsatzgruppe C, Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, Wehrmacht
ExecutionsTarnopol cemeteries
Victims20,000 Jews

The Tarnopol Ghetto (Polish : getto w Tarnopolu, German : Ghetto Tarnopol) was a Jewish World War II ghetto established in 1941 by the Schutzstaffel (SS) in the prewar Polish city of Tarnopol (now Ternopil, Ukraine). [1]

Contents

Background

According to Polish census of 1931, Jews constituted 44% of the city's diverse multicultural makeup. [2] Tarnopol had the largest Jewish community in the area, [3] with the majority of Jews speaking Polish as their native language. [2] At the time of the Soviet invasion there were 18,000 Jews living in the provincial capital. [4]

The first week-long killing spree of 1,600–2,000 Jews occurred a few days after Tarnopol was occupied by the German army at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. [5] [6] The ghetto was established formally two months later. [4] Tarnopol was occupied by the Wehrmacht on July 2, 1941. Several hundred Jews followed the Soviets in their hasty retreat to the east. [6] Immediately afterwards, up to 1,000 dead bodies of political prisoners murdered by the NKVD were discovered at the Tarnopol prison and 1,000 more in nearby towns. In accordance with the Nazi Judeo-Bolshevism canard, the Germans declared the Jews responsible for the Soviet atrocities. [7] [8]

A pogrom broke out two days later and lasted from July 4 until July 11, 1941, with homes destroyed, synagogue burned and Jews killed indiscriminately, estimated at 1,600 (Yad Vashem) [6] at various locations including inside prison, at the Gurfein School, and at the synagogue set on fire afterwards. [9] The killing of about 1,000 Jews was done by the SS-Sonderkommando 4b attached to Einsatzgruppe C, [6] under the command of Guenther Hermann, [10] (just returning from the massacre in Łuck) [11] with another 600 Jews murdered by the Ukrainian Militia [6] – formed by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists – and renamed as the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police the following month. [12] Nearly all of their Jewish victims were men. [6] Some 500 Jews were murdered in the suburbs on the grounds of the Ternopil's Christian cemetery using weapons handed out by the German army. [13] According to interviews conducted in Ukraine by a Roman Catholic priest, Father Patrick Desbois from Yahad-In Unum, some of the victims were decapitated. [13]

Ghetto history

The German authorities ordered the creation of a Judenrat with 60 members. Teacher Marek Gottfried became its president. The Jews were summoned to police headquarters in one group, loaded onto lorries, and taken out of town to a secret execution site at Zagroble nearby. [9] In early August 1941 the Jews of Tarnopol were ordered to wear a Star of David and mark their homes with it. [6] A 'new' Judenrat was formed by the Nazis soon after the wave of massacres, without disclosing the fate of its original members, and ordered to pay a ransom of 1.5 million rubles. Gustaw Fischer was appointed head of the Judenrat. [9]

In September 1941, the German occupation authorities under Gerhard Hager announced the creation of a designated Jewish ghetto in the city around the Old Square and the Market Square Minor, in a derelict district that occupied mere 5 percent of the metropolitan area. Population density in the ghetto was tripled, with 12,000–13,000 Jews put in it. Death penalty was introduced for leaving the ghetto illegally, and all food allowances rationed. [9] Within a year the conditions in the ghetto became so bad that in the winter of 1941–42 the Judenrat began burying the corpses in mass graves for sanitation concerns due to rampant mortality rates. [6] Satellite labour camps for Jewish slave workers were established by the Germans in Kamionka, Podwołoczyska, Hluboczka, and in Zagroble. [4]

Roundups and ghetto liquidation

Tarnopol Synagogue at Staroszkolna Street, destroyed Ternopil's'ka sinagoga.jpg
Tarnopol Synagogue at Staroszkolna Street, destroyed

The first ghetto liquidation action was perpetrated on August 31, 1942, [9] not long after the Final Solution was set in motion. [6] By that time, the Bełżec extermination camp northwest of Tarnopol was already working at full throttle. [14] Some 3,000–4,000 Jews were rounded up and locked in cattle cars, with no water. [9] The transport remained at the station for two days with all victims crying out for help; meanwhile, another cattle train arrived with Polish Jews from the ghettos in Zbaraż and Mikulińce. The two trains were connected at the station as one Holocaust transport to Bełżec with at least 6,700 victims dying inside from suffocation and thirst. [9]

The next Holocaust train was assembled on November 10, 1942. [9] Some 2,500 Jews were rounded up and marched to the station, with a small Ukrainian orchestra playing on their departure to Bełżec. The ghetto area was greatly reduced; a part of it, turned into a labour camp. [9] Between August 1942 and June 1943 there were five "selections" that decimated the Jewish prisoner population of Tarnopol. [6] The camps were liquidated as the last. [9] The victims were sent in Holocaust trains to the extermination camp at Bełżec, but also massacred in shooting actions at Petrykowo, [9] or Petrykow-Wald, with the assistance of Ukrainian policemen. Estimated 2,500 Jews perished there. [15] A few hundred Jews from Tarnopol and its vicinity attempted to survive by hiding within the town limits. Many were denounced by Ukrainian nationalists, including some 200 people shortly before the Soviets took over the area in 1944. [6]

A number of Jews survived the Holocaust by hiding with the Poles. [6] Righteous Among the Nations who helped Tarnopol Ghetto's Jews included the Regent family [16] and the Misiewicz family. [17] A monument in memory of the Holocaust victims was erected in Ternopil at Petrikovsky Yar in 1996. [18]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belzec extermination camp</span> Nazi German death camp in occupied Poland

Belzec was a Nazi German extermination camp in occupied Poland. It was built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder all Polish Jews, a major part of the "Final Solution", the overall Nazi effort to complete the genocide of all European Jews. Before Germany's defeat put an end to this project more than six million Jews had been murdered in the Holocaust. The camp operated from 17 March 1942 to the end of June 1943. It was situated about 500 m (1,600 ft) south of the local railroad station of Bełżec, in the new Lublin District of the General Government territory of German-occupied Poland. The burning of exhumed corpses on five open-air grids and bone crushing continued until March 1943.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tarnopol Voivodeship</span> Former voivodeship of Poland

Tarnopol Voivodeship was an administrative region of interwar Poland (1918–1939), created on 23 December 1920, with an area of 16,500 km2 and provincial capital in Tarnopol. The voivodeship was divided into 17 districts (powiaty). At the end of World War II, at the insistence of Joseph Stalin during the Tehran Conference of 1943 without official Polish representation whatsoever, the borders of Poland were redrawn by the Allies. The Polish population was forcibly resettled after the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Tarnopol Voivodeship was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. Since 1991, most of the region is located in the Ternopil Oblast in sovereign Ukraine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast</span> City in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine

Zolochiv is a small city in Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine, and the administrative center of Zolochiv Raion. It hosts the administration of Zolochiv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. The city is located 60 kilometres (37 mi) east of Lviv along Highway H02 Lviv-Ternopil and the railway line Krasne-Ternopil. It has a population of 23,912, covering an area of 1,164 square kilometres (449 sq mi)

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kraków Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in Poland

The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major metropolitan Nazi ghettos created by Germany in the new General Government territory during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It was established for the purpose of exploitation, terror, and persecution of local Polish Jews. The ghetto was later used as a staging area for separating the "able workers" from those to be deported to extermination camps in Operation Reinhard. The ghetto was liquidated between June 1942 and March 1943, with most of its inhabitants deported to the Belzec extermination camp as well as to Płaszów slave-labor camp, and Auschwitz concentration camp, 60 kilometres (37 mi) rail distance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lwów Ghetto</span> World War II Jewish ghetto

The Lwów Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto in the city of Lwów in the territory of Nazi-administered General Government in German-occupied Poland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pidhaitsi</span> City in Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine

Pidhaitsi is a small city in Ternopil Raion, Ternopil Oblast, western Ukraine. It is located approximately 15.5 miles (24.9 km) south of Berezhany, 43.5 miles (70.0 km) from Ternopil, and 62 miles (100 km) south-east of Lviv. In 1939, Pidhaitsi obtained the formal status of a city. It hosts the administration of Pidhaitsi urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population: 2,609.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Holocaust in Poland</span>

The Holocaust in Poland was the ghettoization, robbery, deportation and mass murder of Jews, alongside other groups under similar racial pretexts in occupied Poland by the Nazi Germany. 3,000,000+ Polish Jews were murdered, primarily at the Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz extermination camps, who made up half of the Jewish Holocaust victims.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lubartów Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Poland

Lubartów Ghetto was established by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II, and existed officially from 1941 until October 1942. The Polish Jews of the town of Lubartów were confined there initially. The ghetto inmates also included Jews deported from other cities in the vicinity including Lublin and Ciechanów and the rest of German-occupied Europe for the total of 3,500 Jews in its initial stages including 2,000 Jews from Slovakia. In May 1942 additional transport from Slovakia with 2,421 Jews arrived.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Białystok Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Poland

The Białystok Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto set up by the German SS between July 26 and early August 1941 in the newly formed District of Bialystok within occupied Poland. About 50,000 Jews from the vicinity of Białystok and the surrounding region were confined into a small area of the city, which was turned into the district's capital. The ghetto was split in two by the Biała River running through it. Most inmates were put to work in the slave-labor enterprises for the German war effort, primarily in large textile, shoe and chemical companies operating inside and outside its boundaries. The ghetto was liquidated in November 1943. Its inhabitants were transported in Holocaust trains to the Majdanek concentration camp and Treblinka extermination camps. Only a few hundred survived the war, either by hiding in the Polish sector of the city, escape following the Bialystok Ghetto Uprising, or by surviving the camps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janowska concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of present-day Lviv, Ukraine

Janowska concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp combining elements of labor, transit, and extermination camps. It was established in September 1941 on the outskirts of Lwów in what had become, after the German invasion, the General Government. The camp was named after the nearby street Janowska in Lwów of the interwar Second Polish Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Częstochowa Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Poland

The Częstochowa Ghetto was a World War II ghetto set up by Nazi Germany for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of local Jews in the city of Częstochowa during the German occupation of Poland. The approximate number of people confined to the ghetto was around 40,000 at the beginning and in late 1942 at its peak, immediately before mass deportations, 48,000. Most ghetto inmates were delivered by the Holocaust trains to Treblinka extermination camp, where they were murdered. In June 1943, the remaining ghetto inhabitants launched the Częstochowa Ghetto uprising, which was extinguished by the SS after a few days of fighting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grodno Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Poland

The Grodno Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto established in November 1941 by Nazi Germany in the city of Grodno for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of Jews in Western Belarus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lublin Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in Lublin, German-occupied Poland

The Lublin Ghetto was a World War II ghetto created by Nazi Germany in the city of Lublin on the territory of General Government in occupied Poland. The ghetto inmates were mostly Polish Jews, although a number of Roma were also brought in. Set up in March 1941, the Lublin ghetto was one of the first Nazi-era ghettos slated for liquidation during the deadliest phase of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Between mid-March and mid-April 1942 over 30,000 Jews were delivered to their deaths in cattle trucks at the Bełżec extermination camp and additional 4,000 at Majdanek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sosnowiec Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Poland

The Sosnowiec Ghetto was a World War II ghetto set up by Nazi German authorities for Polish Jews in the Środula district of Sosnowiec in the Province of Upper Silesia. During the Holocaust in occupied Poland, most inmates, estimated at over 35,000 Jewish men, women and children were deported to Auschwitz death camp aboard Holocaust trains following roundups lasting from June until August 1943. The ghetto was liquidated during an uprising, a final act of defiance of its Underground Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) made up of youth. Most of the Jewish fighters perished.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanisławów Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Ukraine

Stanisławów Ghetto was a ghetto established in 1941 by Nazi Germany in Stanisławów in German occupied Poland. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the town was incorporated into District of Galicia, as the fifth district of the General Government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lutsk Ghetto</span>

The Lutsk Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto established in 1941 by the SS in Lutsk, Western Ukraine, during World War II. In the interwar period, the city was known as Łuck and was part of the Wołyń Voivodeship (1921–1939) in the Second Polish Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nowy Sącz Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Poland

The Nowy Sącz Ghetto known in German as Ghetto von Neu-Sandez and in Yiddish as צאנז or נײ-סאנץ was a World War II ghetto set up by Nazi Germany for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of Polish Jews in the city of Nowy Sącz pronounced[ˈnɔvɨˈsɔnt͡ʂ] during the occupation of Poland (1939–45).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kielce Ghetto</span>

The Kielce Ghetto was a Jewish World War II ghetto created in 1941 by the Schutzstaffel (SS) in the Polish city of Kielce in the south-western region of the Second Polish Republic, occupied by German forces from 4 September 1939. Before the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, Kielce was the capital of the Kielce Voivodeship. The Germans incorporated the city into Distrikt Radom of the semi-colonial General Government territory. The liquidation of the ghetto took place in August 1942, with over 21,000 victims deported to their deaths at the Treblinka extermination camp, and several thousands more shot, face-to-face.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sambor Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Ukraine

Sambor Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto established in March 1942 by the SS in Sambir, Western Ukraine. In the interwar period, the town (Sambor) had been part of the Second Polish Republic. In 1941, the Germans captured the town at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. According to the Polish census of 1931, Jews constituted nearly 29 percent of the town's inhabitants, most of whom were murdered during the Holocaust. Sambor (Sambir) is not to be confused with the much smaller Old Sambor located nearby, although the Jewish history of the two is inextricably linked.

The history of Ternopil describes the history of the city of Ternopil, located in modern day Ukraine.

References

  1. ↑ Joshua D. Zimmerman (2015), The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945. Cambridge University Press via Google Books. "The Provinces of Poland on the Eve of World War II," pp. xviii, 278, 328, 347. At Teheran (1943) Churchill told Stalin that he wished to see a new Poland "friendly to Russia". Stalin replied that nevertheless, he considered the annexation of Eastern Poland "just and right" only along the frontiers of the Nazi-Soviet invasion of 1939.[p. 351]
  2. 1 2 Central Statistical Office (Poland), Drugi Powszechny Spis Ludności. Woj.tarnopolskie, 1931. PDF file, 21.09 MB. The complete text of the Polish census of 1931 for the Tarnopol Voivodeship, page 59 (select, drop-down menu). Wikimedia Commons.
  3. ↑ Wydarzenia 1931 roku. Historia-Polski.com. Compendium of cities in the Republic with Jewish populations exceeding 12 thousand (Wykaz miast RP z populacją żydowską powyżej 12 tysięcy). Tarnopol: 14.000 czyli 44% ludności.
  4. 1 2 3 Robert Kuwałek; Eugeniusz Riadczenko; Adam Marczewski (2015). "Tarnopol". History - Jewish community before 1989. Translated by Katarzyna Czoków and Magdalena Wójcik. Virtual Shtetl. pp. 3–4 of 5. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  5. ↑ Aharon Weiss (2015). "Tarnopol (Rus. Ternopol)". Jewish Families of Ternopil (Tarnopol). Geni.com. Holocaust and Postwar Periods. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "The Righteous Among the Nations – Featured Stories: Tarnopol Historical Background". Yad Vashem. Archived from the original on 9 March 2014.
  7. ↑ Ferguson 2006, p. 419.
  8. ↑ Piotrowski 1998, pp. 9–10.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Robert Kuwałek; Eugeniusz Riadczenko; Adam Dylewski; Justyna Filochowska; Michał Czajka (2015). "Tarnopol". Historia - Społeczność żydowska przed 1989 (in Polish). Virtual Shtetl (Wirtualny Sztetl). pp. 3–4. of 5 pages. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  10. ↑ IDs of SS-Men. The SS & Polizei section. Axis History Forum. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
  11. ↑ Ronald Headland (1992), Messages of Murder: A Study of the Reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 1941–1943. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, pp. 79, 125. ISBN   0-8386-3418-4.
  12. ↑ Symposium Presentations (September 2005). "The Holocaust and [German] Colonialism in Ukraine: A Case Study" (PDF). The Holocaust in the Soviet Union. The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. pp. 15, 18–19, 20 in current document of 1/154. Direct download 1.63 MB. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 16, 2012. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  13. 1 2 Cnaan Liphshiz, Talking with the willing executioners. Haaretz.com, May 18, 2009. A horrific page of history unfolded last Monday in Ukraine. It concerned the gruesome and untold story of a spontaneous pogrom by local villagers against hundreds of Jews in a town [now suburb] south of Ternopil in 1941. Not one, but five independent witnesses recounted the tale, recalling how they rushed to a German army camp, borrowed weapons and gunned down 500 Jews inside the town's Christian cemetery. One of them remembered decapitating bodies in front of the church.
  14. ↑ Browning, Christopher (2000). Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers . Cambridge University Press. p.  71. ISBN   052177490X. substitution.
  15. ↑
    • "Tarnopol region - Online Guide of Murder Sites of Jews in the Former USSR", Yad Vashem, Tarnopol District, Poland, Petrykow Area, Shootings near Petrykow village began in mid July 1941 and concluded on 1-2 August 1943.
    • C. F. Rüter; D. W. de Mildt, eds. (1968), "Andere Massenvernichtungsverbrechen im Wirkungsbereich der Sipo-Außenstelle Tarnopol wurden vom LG Stuttgart ermittelt, lfd. Nr. 634" [Other crimes of mass extermination committed within range of the Sipo branch office Tarnopol; investigated LG Stuttgart, Serial number 634], Volume XXIV: Proceedings No.634 - 639 (1966), Westdeutsche Gerichtsentscheidungen–Justiz und NS-Verbrechen [West German court decisions – Justice and Nazi crimes] (in German), Amsterdam: Foundation for scientific research into National Socialist crimes, (Gerichtsentscheidungen LG Stuttgart vom 15.07.1966, Ks 7/64; BGH vom 07.05.1968, 1 StR 601/67 [Court decisions: LG Stuttgart dated July 15, 1966, Ks 7/64; BGH dated May 7, 1968, 1 StR 601/67]) – via JuNSV Project:
  16. ↑ Piotr Żulikowski (January 2011). "Rodzina Regentów" [The Regent Family]. Przywracanie Pamięci (The Return of Memory). Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous). pp. 1 of 3. In Polish, with Google link to optional webpage translation in English.
  17. ↑ Wojciech Załuska (October 2010). "Rodzina Misiewiczów" [The Misiewicz Family]. Przywracanie Pamięci (The Return of Memory). Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous). p. 1. In Polish. Israel Gutman, Księga Sprawiedliwych wśród Narodów Świata.
  18. ↑ В Тернополе осквернили памятник жертвам Холокоста [Monument to Holocaust victims in Ternopil desecrated] (in Russian). Евроазиатский Еврейский Конгресс. 2012-09-25. Archived from the original on 2014-03-02. Retrieved 12 September 2015. The USSR officially ceased to exist on 31 December 1991.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.