Berezhanka | Vinnytsia

Berezhanka is located 135km (84mi) southeast of Vinnytsia (not to be mistaken with the villages of the same name in the Volhyn and Ternopil regions). Berezhanka was home to Ukrainians, as no Jews lived in the village before the war. There were several kolkhozes [collective farms] in the village. Agriculture was source of revenue. The Jews lived in the nearby town of Obodivka, located about 6km away, where the Jewish community represented 6% of the total population on the eve of the war.

Berezhanka was occupied by German and Romanian forces on July 28, 1941. The village remained under Romanian control and became part of the administrative region of Transnistria in September 1941. Despite the fact that there is no mention of the village in archives, Yahad - In Unum managed to establish the presence of a temporary ghetto for Jewish refugees during the occupation, thanks to the help of local witnesses,. In the fall of 1941, hundreds of Jews - men, women, and children - were brought from Bessarabia and Bukovina and placed in the cow sheds that belonged to the collective farm. The buildings were not fenced in, although it was forbidden for the Jewish people to leave the territory. They were guarded by the local police or Romanian gendarmes, according to different testimonies. Some Jews who managed to bribe the gendarmes and leave the ghetto, found shelter with local people. They worked in exchange for food and a place to sleep, and many of them subsequently managed to survive. All the Jews, except for two rich families who stayed in a separate house, disappeared. They were likely transferred to Obodivka. According to witnesses, about two hundred Jews died from starvation, mistreatment and disease while being confined in the cowsheds. They were buried in two different mass graves which remain unmarked to this day.