Otaci Targ

The town of Otaci is situated on the right bank of the Dniester River, across from the Ukrainian town of Moghilev-Podolsk. In the mid-19th century, the town was known as Ataki, and there were 559 Jewish families among its residents. In 1897, when the town was part of the Russian Empire, it was home to 4,690 Jews, who made up 67 percent of the total population In 1918, after World War I, Ataki, being part of Bessarabia, was incorporated into the independent Kingdom of Romania, and was officially renamed Otaci-Târg. In 1930, Jews constituted 79 percent of the total population of the town, which stood at 3,503. The Jews of Otaci were engaged in trade, crafts, agriculture, and other economic activities that were typical of the region. In the interwar era, a Hebrew-language Tarbut primary school was active in the town, and the Zionist parties and their youth movements (e.g., Gordonia, Beitar, and Hashomer Hatzair) had a presence there. On June 28, 1940, with the arrival of the Red Army in the aftermath of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Otaci (which now reverted to its original name, Ataki) became part of Soviet Moldova. The former Tarbut school was forced to adopt the Soviet curriculum. The Soviet regime banned private commerce, and many Jews began to work at the state-owned cooperatives. In June 1941, some wealthy Jews from Otaci were arrested by the NKVD and deported into the Soviet interior. Romania, which was allied with Nazi Germany, entered the war against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and quickly regained control over Bessarabia. On July 7, 1941, Romanian and German troops entered Otaci, and they engaged in sporadic killing. On July 9, 1941, a group of ten men (two of whom were Jews) were shot by German soldiers near the cellar of Dmitrii Bezdetnyi. Another group of forty-three people (Jews, Moldovans, and Ukrainians), whom the Romanians regarded as Communists and Soviet activists, were shot dead by Romanian gendarmes during the early period of the occupation of Otaci. The killings took place in the town's old market square, near railway crossing No. 97, and on the estates of Maria Rusnak, Antonina Aizikova, and others. In July-August 1941, the remaining Jews of Otaci were driven out of their homes and deported to Transnistria. The deportees endured physical abuse, humiliation, and rape. In the summer and fall of 1941, Otaci became a waystation for Jews being deported to Transnistria from various areas of Bessarabia and Bukovina. Numerous Bukovinian deportees arrived in the town by train, while Jews from Bessarabia would usually reach Otaci on foot. All of them had to cross the Dniester River via a pontoon bridge, and many were drowned in the process. Tens of thousands of Jews passed through Otaci in August-November 1941. Otaci became a ravaged town, being inundated with Jewish deportees, whose number occasionally exceeded 20,000. Many of the deportees, who were sick, old, or too exhausted, died in the ruins of the town or in the nearby fields, where they were held, sometimes for days, before crossing the Dniester River. Other deportees were executed by the Romanian gendarmes, who deemed them too weak to keep up with the convoy; thus, on November 14, 1941, a group of 100 deportees from a column marching from the area of Edineț were executed near Otaci. Otaci was liberated by the Red Army in March 1944, and renamed Ataki once again.