Dankivtsi (Dankowce, Dankotsy, Dăncăuți) | Chernivtsi

Execution of Jews in Dankivtsi

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:: Ravine near the cemetery
Memorials:: No
Period of occupation:: 1941-1944
Number of victims:: 4

Witness interview

Vasyl R., born in 1925, recalls: “There were eight Jewish families in our village. They possessed fields and worked there. Some Jews studied in my class. I remember a boy called Dudlyk, we were friends. He was my age, his parents also worked in the fields. During the occupation they were hiding in Ukrainian houses. My friend managed to survive the war. Now he lives in Israel.” (Testimony n°1884, interviewed in Dankivtsi on July 24th, 2015)

Historical note

Dankivtsi is located 60 km north-east of Chernivtsi. The village was a part of the Moldavian Principality of Bessarabia since the founding of the Khotyn County. The first documented record about the village dates back to 1656. With the signing of the Bucharest Peace Treaty in 1812, the entire region that became known as Bessarabia was annexed by the Russian Empire from Moldavia. With the collapse of the Russian Empire, Bessarabia proclaimed independence from Russia in 1917, then union with Romania in April 1918. Dankivtsi became a part of the Khotyn County ruled by Romania. At that time, the village was populated mostly by the Russians. Dankivtsi remained under Romanian control until June 28th 1940, when along with Bessarabia and Northern Bukovyna it was occupied by the Soviet Union. In August 1940, the Soviets created Chernivtsi Oblast, and included the area around Khotyn to it; this region became a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, not of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, as the rest of Bessarabia. There were Jews who lived in the village. The majority of them worked on the fields and some owned shops. The village was occupied by the Romanian troops in July 1941.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

According to the witness interviewed by Yahad-in-Unum when the Romanians arrived, there were at least four Jews executed in Dankivtsi during two separate shootings: the trader Leizer, along with his daughter Khaika, and the two boys, Yetsko and Shoksho. Other Jews were taken in trucks to the camp, located somewhere in the Khlmenetskyi region. Their fate remains unknown.

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