Murder Story of Rashkov Jews at the Dniester River in Rashkov

On August 4, 1941, on the orders of Popa, chief of the Gendarmerie, the Romanian gendarmes arrested all the Jewish men they could find in the town, going by a list of names compiled by Yevstafyi Zavedyi, mayor of Rashkov. The men were locked in a cellar (or barn), apparently in the area of the kolkhoz named "The Third International (Comintern)." According to a testimony, the gendarmes would pick the able-bodied prisoners and take them out of the cellar to dig anti-tank trenches. The others remained in the cellar, where they were subjected to torture and abuse. On the evening of the second or third day, several trucks drove up to the cellar, and 65 victims were loaded onto them and taken to the bank of the Dniester River. Upon arriving at the site, the men were forced into the water and shot dead with machine guns and rifles. On August 17, 1941, the Romanian gendarmes rounded up 38 Jewish men from Rashkov and took them by night to the area of the "Third International" collective farm on the river bank, where the victims were tied with barbed wire, forced into the river in groups of 3-4, and shot. Those who resisted were thrown bodily into the water and then shot. In May 1942, after finding several Jewish families in hiding, the Romanian gendarmes locked them up in the Gendarmerie building for a couple of days, and then drove them to the Dniester River and put them all to death.