The Vapniarka camp

In 1939, the number of Jews was 711, which represented 20% of the total population of the locality.

After Vapniarca was occupied by Romanian and German troops, on July 22nd, 1941, the Jews here were deported to the ghettos in Tulcin County. In August 1941, the town was handed over to the administration of the Romanian authorities who, in October 1941, opened a detention camp. In March 1942, it was transformed into a penitentiary camp.

The camp was set up in the ruined precincts of a former Soviet cavalry school. The place of detention was surrounded on the outside by three rows of barbed wire. The detainees were locked in the three large buildings of the former school, each with two floors. Of these, two were for men and one for women. At Vapniarca there were also two smaller buildings where the kitchen and a laundromat operated. Also in this prison, there was a punishment cell, dug in the ground and covered with a large stone, in which the detainees were put to stand, without water and food for 24-48 hours.

Initially, Ukrainian convicts and members of religious minorities not recognized by the Romanian authorities were imprisoned in Vapniarca. From October 1941, it became a detention camp for Jews. At that time, the deported Jews from Odessa were brought to Vapniarca, and in November 1941 several hundred deported Jews from Romania were transferred. In March 1942, another 1,200 Jews were brought from Odessa.

After becoming a prison camp in March 1942, Vapniarca was one of the places where Jews accused of communist activity were deported and imprisoned. In September 1942, 1,200 political detainees and internees, all of Jewish origin, were transported to Vapniarca from the Târgu Jiu camp.

The detention regime at Vapniarca was one of extermination. Upon entering this place of detention, Commander Ilie Murgescu told the detainees that they had arrived in a camp that they would leave only by crawling on all fours or walking on crutches. Due to the conditions of detention, including the lack of any form of medical care, the typhus epidemic broke out in Vapniarca in December 1941. A large number of detainees died then. Others perished due to cold, hunger, and other diseases. The rooms where the detainees were kept did not have windows, doors, water, or heat.

At Vapniarca, feeding the detainees fodder peas, also used for the regiment’s horses, caused many of them to suffer from spastic paralysis.

To make life easier for those imprisoned, a steering committee was formed in Vapniarca to try to improve detention conditions. Communist detainees also formed their own committees.

One survivor described the conditions at Vapniarca as follows: “On arrival, in the three buildings of the camp, the windows were missing; the floor was cement and I slept on a thin layer of straw. At night, the doors were locked and, in the room, where we were staying, there was, for over 100 inmates, only a barrel in which we solved our needs. In the morning, two inmates took the barrel to the latrine. We were all cold, and our kidneys could no longer hold their urine. In Vapniarka, there were hundreds of sick people in the infirmary, and in the conditions of a terrible cold, some of their toes were gangrened and amputated. Without medicine, without healthy food, without enough medical staff for such a large number of patients. The beds weren’t enough for everyone either.”

In October 1943, with the approach of the Soviet army, the camp was closed by the Romanian authorities, and 54 Jewish detainees were transferred to Râbnița, where they were executed by the Germans on March 19th, 1944. The penitentiary where they were was then set on fire. The rest of the detainees were transferred to the Grosulovo ghetto and later repatriated.

Ovidiu Creangă, Vapniarca, n Geoffrey P. Megargee (general editor), Encyclopaedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2018, pp. 811-812.

Comisia Internațională pentru Studierea Holocaustului în România [International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania], Raport Final [Final Report], Iași, Polirom, 2004, p. 312.

Petru Clej, Un evreu comunist deportat de Antonescu la Vapniarka se destăinuie [A Communist Jew Deported by Antonescu to Vapniarka Tells His Story], accessible online at https://www.rfi.ro/social-121723-evreu-comunist-deportat-antonescu-vapniarka-destainuie 

Geza Kornis, Din viața mea și vremurile mele (2) [From my life and my times], accessible online at http://www.memoria.ro/marturii/perioade_istorice/perioada_celui_de-al_doilea_razboi_mondial/din_viata_mea_si_vremurile_mele_(2)/1601/pagina-3/ 

Jean Ancel, Vapniarka, in Israel Gutman (editor), Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust, vol. IV, New York/London, Macmillan Publishing Company/Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1990, pp. 1560-1562. 

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