Vapniarka

History

During World War II, following the start of Operation Barbarossa, Vapniarka was administered by Romania. From October 22, 1941, to March 1944, it was included in the region of Transnistria and became the site for a concentration camp for members of the Romanian Jewish community. This succession of events formed a part of The Holocaust in Romania.

Today, Vapniarka serves as the final train destination for visitors traveling to villages in Tomashpilskyi and Yampilskyi Raion of Vinnytsia Oblast. From here, buses or private transportation are used to get to villages like Busha, Dzyhivka, Olhopil, Tomashpil, and Sobolivka.

Until 26 January 2024, Vapniarka was designated urban-type settlement. On this day, a new law entered into force which abolished this status, and Vapniarka became a rural settlement.

World War II camp

In October 1941, the Romanians established a detention camp in Vapniarka. (By that time, the 700 local Jewish inhabitants had fled or had been killed by the Nazi German or Romanian troops.) One thousand Jews were brought to the site that month, mostly from the city of Odessa. Some 200 died in a typhus epidemic; the others were taken out of the camp in two batches, guarded by soldiers of the Romanian Gendarmerie, and shot to death. In early 1942, a few hundred Jews originally from Odessa were sent to Vapniarka. Many of them died; a Jew originally from Odessa died in Vapniarka in September 1942.

In 1942, 150 Jews from Bukovina were brought to Vapniarka. On September 16 of that year, 1023 Jews from the Old Kingdom of Romania and southern Transylvania were also brought to the camp. About half had been banished from their homes on suspicion of being communists, but 554 had been included without any specific charges being brought against them. By keeping the camp meticulously clean, the prisoners were able to overcome the typhus epidemic, but they suffered from the poor quality of the food, which included Lathyrus sativus, a species of pea that was normally used to feed livestock, and barley bread that had a 20% straw content. A team of doctors among the inmates, led by Dr. Arthur Kessler of Cernăuţi, reached the conclusion that the disease presented all the symptoms of lathyrism, a spastic paralysis caused by the oxalyldiaminopropionic acid present in the pea fodder. Within a few weeks, the first symptoms of the disease appeared, affecting the bone marrow of prisoners and causing paralysis. By January 1943, hundreds of prisoners were suffering from lathyrism. The inmates declared a hunger strike and demanded medical assistance. As a result, the authorities allowed the Jewish Aid Committee in Bucharest to supply them with medicine, and the prisoners' relatives were allowed to send them parcels. It was only at the end of January that the prisoners were no longer fed with the animal fodder that had caused the disease, but 117 Jews were paralyzed for life.

In March 1943, it was found that 427 Jews had been imprisoned for no reason whatsoever. They were moved to various ghettos in Transnistria, but were sent back to Romania and released only in December 1943–January 1944. In October 1943, when the Soviet Red Army was approaching the region, it was decided to liquidate the camp. 80 Jews were sent to ghettos in Transnistria. 54 Communists were taken to a prison in Rîbnița, Transnistria, where they were killed in their cells by SS men on March 19, 1944. A third group, which included most of the prisoners (565 persons), was moved to Romania in March 1944 and imprisoned in the camp for political prisoners in Târgu Jiu, until after the fall of the Antonescu government in August. According to the Yad Vashem database, the number of Jews who lived in Vapniarka whose names are available, including the deportees, who died in the Holocaust was 92. For more information on the Holocaust in Transnistria, including on the fate of the Jewish deportees from Romania, see History of the Jews in Transnistria.

References

References

1. (1 January 2024). "Что изменится в Украине с 1 января". glavnoe.in.ua.
2. Jean Ancel, "Vapniarka", in Israel Gutman (editor in Chief), ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'' (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990), vol. 4, p. 1560.
3. Kessler, Arthur. (2024). "A Doctor's Memoir of the Romanian Holocaust: Survival in Lager Vapniarka and the Ghettos of Transnistria". University of Rochester Press.
4. See Jean Ancel, ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'' (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2011) p. 372.
5. See, for example, the file of Izya Bronfman in Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center (in Israel), at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/5872463.
6. Stefan, Olga https://www.academia.edu/126359982/Vapniarka_Forms_of_Antifascist_Resistance_in_the_Camp_of_Death
7. Jean Ancel, "Vapniarka", in Israel Gutman (editor in Chief), ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'' (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990), vol. 4, p. 1561.
8. [http://www.clima.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/919796/Kessler.pdf "Dr. Arthur Kessler (1903-2000)"], in ''Lathyrus Lathyrism Newsletter'', Vol. 3, pp. 3–4
9. Kessler, Arthur. (2024). "A Doctor's Memoir of the Romanian Holocaust: Survival in Lager Vapniarka and the Ghettos of Transnistria". University of Rochester Press.
10. [[Dennis Deletant]] ''Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and His Regime, Romania, 1940-1944''. [[Palgrave Macmillan]], London, 2006, {{ISBN. 1-4039-9341-6, p. 197; Kornis, pp. 228–229
11. Stefan, Olga https://www.academia.edu/126975733/_The_Success_is_Their_Own_The_Long_Arduous_History_of_Reparations_for_Survivors_of_Vapniarka_the_Camp_of_Death
12. Jean Ancel, "Vapniarka", in Israel Gutman (editor in Chief), ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'' (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990), vol. 4, p. 1561-1562.
13. "The Vapniarka camp".
14. Jean Ancel, "Vapniarka", in Israel Gutman (editor in Chief), ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'' (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990), vol. 4, p. 1562.
15. Yad Vashem Collections - Names - Search Results/Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center (in Israel), at https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/names/search-results?page=1&s_place_death_search_en=Vapniarka&t_place_death_search_en=yvSynonym.