Ghettos of Transnistria, Golta county
November 1941 in Transnistria
The Golta County in Transnistria was the place where tens of thousands of Jews perished in the fall and winter of 1941 and 1942.
During November 1941, convoys of tens of thousands of Jews were on the roads of Transnistria. The province administered by the Romanian authorities since August was already beginning to become the place of death for many Ukrainian Jews and those deported from Bessarabia and Bukovina.
During November 1941, convoys of tens of thousands of Jews were on the roads of Transnistria. The province administered by the Romanian authorities since August was already beginning to become the place of death for many Ukrainian Jews and those deported from Bessarabia and Bukovina.
On November 11, 1941, Transnistria's governor, Gheorghe Alexianu, by Ordinance no. 23, set the legal framework under which, for almost three years, the Jews there tried to survive. The text of this regulation called Jews deported from Bukovina and Bessarabia "Jews from the battlefields of the front in Transnistria," and the confinement of Ukrainian Jews in camps and ghettos was euphemistically named as "travel to certain centers."
Article 5 of the ordinance stated that Jews could not leave the locality where they had the fixe domicile, except with the prefect's permission. Article 8 stated that whoever was found in another locality "shall be considered a spy and punished immediately under military laws in time of war." The Jews had a choice between starving to death in the locality or risking being caught and executed when they left the village searching for food.
On November 1, 1941, Alexianu wrote to Antonescu about his incapacity to cope with the number of Jews deported to Transnistria.
"A much larger number of Jews than I expected were brought to me, and in today's circumstances, with bad weather, impassable roads, their settlement at the designated places is done in tough conditions."
He pointed out that more than 50,000 Jews passed through the north of the province, "and now, convoys of 10,000 - 15,000 at a time are beginning to come from Iasca."
At the end of the month, on November 27, 1941, the Transnistrian Gendarmerie Inspectorate stated in a letter that 56,000 Jews had been deported from Bessarabia and Bukovina only in Mogilev County. Initially, the agreement was to receive 15,000.
On November 5, 1941, the prefect of Golta County, Colonel Modest Isopescu, ordered his subordinates to sort the Jews. The ones able to work were to be taken to buildings with closed windows or planks and even heated. Those who were unfit for work, weak women, the elderly, and children were to be taken to Bogdanovca and housed in the sovkhoz's pig stables. Isopescu knew that many would die and ordered: "The eventual deads on the road will also be buried at a depth of 2 m. For this purpose, spades will be taken." Many of the deportees were already suffering from typhus and dysentery.
One week later, Alexianu received a letter from the prefect of Golta stating that of the 15,000 Jews brought to the Gvozdovca commune, 8,000 had died of typhus and starvation. He complained that he could not cope with a large number of Jews.
At Bogdanovca, "of what was there and what came after, there are in total 11,000 Jews placed in the stables of the sovkhoz where 7,000 pigs could not fit. Today, the mayor came to me with the head of the sovkhoz, both desperate because they were told that about 40,000 Jews are on their way from Odessa. [...]I beg you not to infest us with new convoys of Jews."
It is how Isopescu ended his letter, after mentioning that he hoped to cross the Jews over the Bug, in the territory administered by the Germans.