According to the available information, the number of Jews in Tiraspol was 6,398 in 1926, which represented 29% of the city’s population, and 11,764 in 1939, i.e. 30% of the total population. At the start of the war, some Jews withdrew together with the Soviet authorities, and others enlisted in the Soviet army.
Persecutions
On August 8th, 1941, Romanian and German troops entered Tiraspol. In a short time, under the pretext of securing the area behind the front, the Einsatzgruppe troops, assisted by the Romanian ones, proceeded to massacre the Jews in the city. About 10,000 Jews were shot dead and then buried in mass graves without marking. The few who survivors were deported by the Romanian authorities to the ghettos in Transnistria. In September 1941, the city of Tiraspol was handed over to the Romanian authorities.
In the years of the Second World War, the city was also one of the crossing points into Transnistria. Existing data shows that by January 15th, 1942, 827 Jews had passed through the city. Their stay was short. According to some testimonies, in September 1942, several trains arrived in Tiraspol with about 1,500 Jews deported from Romania. Among them, 407 had been brought from the political internment camp in Târgu Jiu, 85 had been convicted of communist activity, and 554 had been arrested for their alleged communist activity. Another 587 Jews were arrested by the Romanian authorities and sent to Tiraspol because during the legionary government, September 1940 – January 1941, they requested repatriation to the Soviet Union. Communist Jews or those considered communist sympathizers were transferred to Vapniarka, and the others were sent to Mostvoi-Berezovca.
Also in the town, a small ghetto was set up, in which Jewish specialists were imprisoned. They worked in the ghetto workshops, in several local factories, or were used for various jobs by Romanian institutions. Initially, the number of Jews in the ghetto was of 30 people. Subsequently, the number of those ghettoized in Tiraspol increased, reaching 256 people in 1943. At first, the ghetto was arranged in several houses. After the ghetto’s population grew, it occupied several streets. At the same time, as the number of Jews increased, the ghetto was fenced off.
In March 1944, with the approach of the Soviets and the withdrawal of the Romanian-German armies, the Romanian administration of the city was replaced by a German one. At that time, the Tiraspol ghetto was disbanded and the Jews transferred. However, about 1,000 Jews were then imprisoned in the Tiraspol penitentiary for various offenses. Thus, after the Germans regained control of the city, one of the measures taken by them was the shooting of Jewish detainees in Tiraspol prison.
In Tiraspol, during the years of the Second World War, there were also two camps for prisoners of war, administered by the Eastern Stages Command. In the spring of 1943, there were 5,820 Soviet prisoners of war in these two camps, employed in forced labour in Transnistria. Cold, overcrowding, and inadequate nutrition were common features of all these prisoners of war camps.
The city was recaptured by the Soviets on April 12th, 1944.
Sources:
Ovidiu Creangă, Tiraspol, in Geoffrey P. Megargee (general editor), Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2018, pp. 795-796.
Ovidiu Creangă, Tiraspol/LPRS no. 5 and no. 11, in Geoffrey P. Megargee (general editor), Encyclopaedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2018, pp. 797-798.
Matatias Carp, The Black Book. The Sufferings of the Jews from Romania 1940-1944. Transnistria, vol. III, Bucharest, "DACIA TRAIANA" NATIONAL PUBLISHING AND GRAPHIC ARTS SOCIETY , 1947, passim.
Jean Ancel, Transnistria, vol. I, București, Editura Atlas, 1998, p. 122.