The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

Pre-1941: Ternovka, village, Dzhulinka raion, Vinnitsa oblast’, Ukrainian SSR; 1941–1944: Ternowka, Rayon Dshulinka, Gebiet Gaissin, Generalkommissariat Shitomir; post-1991: Ternivka, Bershad’ raion, Vinnytsia oblast’, Ukraine

Ternovka is located about 130 kilometers (81 miles) southeast of Vinnitsa. According to the 1939 population census, there were 1,488 Jews living in the Dzhulinka raion, including the 212 Jews in Dzhulinka itself. Most of the remainder—about 1,276 Jews—lived in Ternovka.

Between late June 1941 and July 26, 1941, when the village was captured by German armed forces, some Jews were able to evacuate to the east, while a few dozen men were called into the Red Army or enlisted voluntarily. Around 1,000 Jews remained in the village at the start of the occupation.

In August 1941, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) controlled the village. From August 4, 1941 onward, the functions of the Ortskommandantur in the village were performed by Armee-Gefangenensammelstelle 15.¹ In late October 1941, authority was transferred to a German civil administration. From this date until liberation in March 1944, the village was incorporated into Rayon Dshulinka, in Gebiet Gaissin, within Generalkommissariat Shitomir. The Gebietskommissar was Kreisleiter Becher, and the Gendarmerie-Gebietsführer was Leutnant der Gendarmerie Pösselt.² Subordinated to the latter were several Gendarmerie posts, including one in Ternovka. The Ternovka post was in charge of several Ukrainian policemen.

On August 19, 1941, on the instructions of the Ortskommandantur, the men of the 602nd Wachbataillon and the 414th Landesschützenbataillon searched the residences of Jews with the aim of confiscating weapons and “hidden property.” No weapons were found, but they took clothing and nine bales of dried wool from the Jews. At about this time, the Ortskommandantur ordered the Jews to wear white armbands with the Star of David.³ Subsequently the Jews were made to wear yellow stars on the left side of their chests.⁴

In the summer, or more likely the fall of 1941, the German authorities established an open ghetto, or “Jewish residential district,” in Ternovka. All the Jews were moved together onto one or two streets in the center of the village. The Jews were permitted to take with them some of their property, such as bed linens, cooking utensils, and furniture, but the rest had to be left behind. The Ukrainians were not allowed into the ghetto, and the Jews were not permitted to leave, except for work assignments, such as agricultural labor on the nearby kolkhoz. The Jews lived in crowded conditions, with several families in each dwelling.⁵

Despite the restrictions, local Ukrainians came to the ghetto and traded food for the Jews’ remaining possessions, such as clothing or shoes. There were therefore few cases of starvation in Ternovka. There were no mass killings of Jews before the summer of 1942, but sometimes groups of about 10 Jewish men were taken away for forced labor and were subsequently shot. The Germans also robbed the Jews of any valuables. People were scared to go outside.⁶

In the winter of 1941–1942, able-bodied Jews under the guard of Ukrainian policemen were ordered to clear the snow from the roads and were beaten and humiliated while doing this. In the spring of 1942, a group of young Jews were transported to a labor camp. Several Jewish families ran away into the Romanian zone of occupation.

On May 27, 1942, the first large-scale Aktion was carried out against the Ternovka ghetto. German and Ukrainian police arrested and shot most of the Ternovka Jews in a pit in the forest, about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from the village.⁷ After the Aktion was completed, the ghetto was reduced in size; it consisted of only a few residences near the market square. In these homes lived the Jewish artisans and their families and also those Jews who had been in hiding and thus escaped the mass shooting on May 27. For example, Raisa Teplitskaia remained hidden for three days without food and water; when she emerged she saw dead bodies lying everywhere. However, she was able to enter the remnant ghetto unmolested. Severe overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and semi-starvation resulted in an outbreak of epidemic typhus. At the start of March 1943, the ghetto was liquidated. Only a few artisans were left alive. A small group of Jews survived by going into hiding.⁸ In total, in the years 1942–1943, at least 756 Jews of the village of Ternovka were killed.⁹

A few Jews survived from the Ternovka ghetto. They passed as non-Jews, went into hiding with the assistance of local Ukrainians, or fled to the Romanian-occupied zone, which by 1943 had become considerably safer than on the German side of the Bug River, where hardly any Jews remained alive.