1 Execution site(s)
Anna N., born in 1929: “One of my father’s Jewish acquaintances came to see him during the night. Mr. Mayer, that was his name, asked my father to go to his house and take some belongings. He wanted him to take [the belongings] and keep [them] at his place. [Mr. Mayer] hoped to come back and take them back after his return. But he never came back. My father didn’t take anything because deep inside he knew that this Jew would never come back, and he couldn’t keep his belongings.” (Witness n°2526U, interviewed in Ropcha, on October 31, 2018)
Ropcha is a town located in the historic region of Bukovina, 27 km (17 mi) southwest of Chernivtsi. Before WWI, it was part of the Austrian Empire, and in between the two world wars, it was taken over by Romania. In 1940, it was occupied by the Soviet Union. The first records of the town’s Jewish community date back to the 18th century. The Jews of Ropcha lived off trade and handcrafts. A local witness interviewed by Yahad remembered the Mayer family, who owned land in the town. The Ropcha Jews didn’t have a synagogue, but for holidays and Shabbat, they would gather in one house to pray. The cemetery was located in Storozhynets, where a bigger Jewish community lived.
According to a local witness interviewed by Yahad, following the occupation of Ropcha by Romanian forces in early July 1941, the remaining Jews were shot. The victims were taken to the river where they were shot by Romanian soldiers. Later, the corpses were gathered and buried in a mass grave. Many corpses were taken away by the flow of the river, which flooded amid heavy rains.
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