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On the eve
of World War II, Dnepropetrovsk had a Jewish population of 80,000
out of a total population of 500,662. As the German armies
approached on August 5, 1941, the evacuation of the city was begun
and some 60,000 Jews left. The Germans took the city on August 25.
In the first few days of the occupation, the Ukrainian population
was extremely hostile to the Jews, plundering their property and
denouncing many of them to the Germans. The 20,000 Jews of the city
were ordered to wear the Jewish Badge (a blue Star of David on a
white background), and to elect a committee that was referred to as
the "community leadership." Its first chairman was a
lawyer named Gorenberg. House managers were ordered to provide the
command headquarters in the city with a list of their Jewish
tenants, and the military administration made preparations to
establish a ghetto for Dnepropetrovsk’s Jews.
On October
8, 1941, the military governor imposed a collective fine of 30
million rubles on the city’s Jews. On October 13, even before the
fine was collected, Einsatzkommando 6 (of Einsatzgruppe C) began
rounding up the Jews and confining them to a large department store
in the city; from there, the Jews were taken in groups to a nearby
ravine to be murdered. A total of 15,000 Jews were killed in this
operation, which was followed at a later stage by the killing of the
remaining 5,000 Jews.
When
Dnepropetrovsk was liberated by the Red Army on October 25, 1943,
only 15 Jews were left alive in the city. |
