The Jews in Moghilev during the Holocaust

The presence of Jews in Moghilev is attested in the middle of the 17th century. In the years 1648-1649, the Jewish population here was killed by the Cossacks. The Jews resumed their resettlement in the city in the second half of the 18th century. In 1776, there were two synagogues in the town. In the 19th century, the city of Moghilev was the centre of the region’s grain trade. The city’s status would be an explanation for the growing number of Jews at the time, especially since most of them were merchants and craftsmen. In 1897, 12,344 Jews lived in Moghilev, representing 55.3% of the city’s population. According to Soviet censuses, in the 1920s, the number of Jews was 9,662, 41.8% of the total population, and in 1939 it was 8,703, about 40% of the total population of the city.

Jews in Mogilev have been victims of anti-Semitic violence since the early years of the 20th century. In 1905, as in other localities in the Tsarist Empire, a pogrom took place in Moghilev. During the Russian Civil War, Jews were the victims of both sides involved in the conflict. After Romania and Germany entered the war and as Romanian-German troops approached Moghilev, some of the Jews withdrew with the Soviet authorities, and Jewish men of military age were incorporated into the Red Army. On July 19th, 1941, when the city was occupied by Germans and Romanians, about 3,000 Jews still lived in Moghilev. The entry of German and Romanian troops into the city was equivalent to the beginning of mass killings of Jews who were still in the city. Assassinations also took place the following week. In September 1941, the city came under the administration of the Romanian authorities.

In the years of World War II, Moghilev was one of the main crossing points into Transnistria. According to available data, by September 1942, 56,000 Jews from Bukovina and Bessarabia had passed through the city. The first stop for Jews passing through Mogilev was the former Soviet barracks on the banks of the Dniester, where they stayed for several days. They have been described by survivors as “that dreadful house without a roof, without doors and without windows, which yesterday was a barracks, today is a camp and tomorrow will be a grave”.

Of those who transited the city, only those who had the opportunity to bribe Romanian officials remained in the city. Also, some of those who passed through Moghilev temporarily settled in the neighbouring localities, but most of them were transported to the camps and ghettos in the county and in Transnistria.

For the accommodation of those who received permission to stay in Moghilev, a ghetto was improvised that stretched on the surface of three streets in the city. Outside, in the summer of 1942, the place was fenced with barbed wire, being guarded by Romanian gendarmes and Ukrainian police. Initially, the deportees stayed in the houses left by the local Jews or together with them. Due to overcrowding, many Jews rented rooms, attics, and basements from Ukrainians. However, many of them were devastated and affected by the floods of 1941. According to available information, the number of Jewish deportees was 12,588 in March 1943.

Overcrowding, lack of food and medical care favoured the emergence and spread of typhus among deportees. Between December 1941 and the spring of 1942, there were about 3,500 deaths from typhus. The first medicines reached those affected only in March 1942, being sent by the Jewish Community of the Kingdom. One survivor confessed that in Moghilev “people fell dead on the street, or went to bed at night with a high fever and did not wake up the next day. The epidemic spread from house to house, whole families fell ill at the same time; young children were left without parents”. Because of hunger, “many deportees ate leaves and grass”.

Periodically, for the “decongestion” of the ghetto, in Moghilev several thousand of those here were relocated to the camps in Peciora and Scazineț. Thus, in 1942, 3,000 Jews were transferred to the Peciora death camp.

Among those in the ghetto, there were several engineers. They managed to put the local power plant back into operation, where several Jews worked. Other Jews were used for work by local officials and Romanian institutions. To help the elderly Jews, the orphans, and the very poor, the community of deported Jews from Moghilev put into operation a canteen, a home for the elderly, a hospital, and two orphanages. In the two orphanages, there were more than 1,500 children. In December 1943, the repatriation of Jews from the Moghilev ghetto began, and in March 1944 the city was conquered by the Soviets.

Ovidiu Creangă, Moghilev-Podolsk, in Geoffrey P. Megargee (general editor), Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2018, pp. 715-716.

Jean Ancel, Moghilev-Podolski, in Israel Gutman (editor), Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, vol. III, New York/London, Macmillan Publishing Company/Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1990, pp. 986-987.

Jean Ancel, Transnistria, vol. I, București, Editura Atlas, 1998, pp. 92-94, passim. 

Jean Ancel, Transnistria, vol. III, București, Editura Atlas, 1998, pp. 37-43, passim. 

***, Mogilev-Podolsky, accessible online at http://myshtetl.org/vinnitskaja/mogilev_en.html