The Râbnița Ghetto

In 1939, 3,216 Jews lived in Râbnița, which represented 28% of the local population. By 1941, their number had dropped to about 1,500. Some of the Jews withdrew with the Soviet authorities, and some of the men were enlisted in the Red Army.

On August 5th, 1941, the Romanian and German armies occupied the city. In the following days, several executions took place. Soon, control over the city was transferred to the Romanian authorities. During the Second World War, Râbnița was a point of entry and transit to/from Transnistria. According to existing information, 24,570 Jews passed through the city between October 1941 and January 15th, 1942.

After taking control of the city, the Romanian authorities set up a ghetto. Apart from the local Jews, the deported Bessarabian Jews were also imprisoned in the ghetto. Thus, between October 8th and 10th, 1941, the first convoys of Bessarabian Jews arrived in Râbnița, who had initially been deported to Vertujeni or Mărculești. They were all barefoot, thin and ragged. Later, the deported Jews from Chișinău were also brought. The ghetto population was 3,000 at the end of the year. The detention regime was at that time an extermination regime. About half of those here died from typhus, hunger, cold, or lack of medical care. In December 1941, 1,467 people were still alive. 

Jews could only leave the ghetto with a special permit twice a week. Those caught outside the perimeter without such a permit were executed on the spot. On April 4th, 1942, 48 Jews were shot, found by gendarmes outside the ghetto, and without a permit. The random shooting of Jews was a common practice in Râbnița. The assassinations multiplied in March 1944, after the city was handed over to the Germans. The Jews in the ghetto were used for forced labour, to clean the streets. They also worked on the construction of the “Ion Antonescu” park and a bridge over the Bug, in Trihati.

Due to the conditions of detention, the murders, and the fact that Râbnița was a transit point, the ghetto population fluctuated. On April 1st, 1942, 1,371 Jews were in the ghetto, of whom 254 were men, 548 women, and 569 children. In September 1943, the number of Jews in the ghetto was 1,458. Of these, 407 were Romanian Jews.

After the closure of the Vapniarca camp, 50 – 60 communist Jews were transferred to the Râbnița penitentiary, where there were about 200 detainees. These were prisoners of war, former communists or kolkhoz leaders. The penitentiary was a former Soviet garrison. On March 19th, 1944, Vapniarca detainees were shot by Germans in their cells. The prison was subsequently set on fire. According to reports, only a few people survived. The way the executions took place was told by one of the survivors, Matei Gall.

On the night of March 18th-19th, 1944, mounted soldiers entered the prison yard. They then went to the cells and began counting the detainees. Shortly afterwards, the detainees heard explosions and shootings. Initially, they thought they were from outside the penitentiary, but they realized that the shootings were taking place right in the building. Accompanied by one of the prison guards, the soldiers entered the cells. The guard told the detainees, “It won’t hurt!”. He then asked them to kneel with their heads against the wall. After being lined up, the detainees were shot. “I heard the first shots to my right. One two three. It followed… well, I hear the blood flowing from a body, the last bursts from the lungs, that is, the last remnants of air that probably come out, a kind of snoring, and then I hear from the left. Then I say: look, Văluţă was right, you die without pain, I don’t feel any pain. And I sit on my knees and wait to see the stages of my life disappear. For someone in the back to come and kick me. I don’t move, I don’t react, then they shoot one, two more bullets and retreat. They close the door and move on. It’s over, they leave. Our guards left before the massacre. They were told, <<Leave because the massacre is coming>>. Because one of them said to the other colleague, <<Don’t stand by the window or take care, get away from the windows so they don’t touch you!>> I didn’t understand what he meant, but I heard. Finally, the criminals left as well”.

Ovidiu Creangă, Râbnița, in Geoffrey P. Megargee (general editor), Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2018, pp. 747.

***, Rabnitza, accessible online at https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_romania/rom1_00509a.html

Cosmina Gușu, Interviu cu Matei Gall [Interview with Matei Gall], accessible online at http://www.inshr-ew.ro/matei-gall-interviu/