• Memorial to the murdered Jews of Ternopil
In the Ukrainian, formerly East Polish city of Ternopil (German and Polish: Tarnopol) a memorial remembers the city's approximately 18,000 Jews who were shot by SS-Einsatzgruppen (mobile kiling units) between 1941 and 1944 or were deported by the SS to the extermination camp of Bełżec.
Image: Ternopil, undated, A synagogue, Yad Vashem
Ternopil, undated, A synagogue, Yad Vashem

Image: Ternopil, 2005, Memorial on the site of mass shootings, Stiftung Denkmal
Ternopil, 2005, Memorial on the site of mass shootings, Stiftung Denkmal
The city of Ternopil (German and Polish: Tarnopol) is located in the historical region of Galicia. Until the end of World War I the city and the whole of Galicia was part of the Habsburg Empire, in the period between the World Wars the Ternopil was Polish. Shortly after the founding of the city in 1540 Jews settled in Ternopil, for a long time they formed the majority of the population. In 1939 the Jewish community numbered about 18,000 in a total population of 34,000. With the occupation of Ternopil by the Red Army in September 1939 Jewish life was severely restricted. When the German Wehrmacht captured the town on July 2, 1941, they were followed by the SS Special Commando 4b. Along with Ukrainian nationalists members of the SS staged a one-week pogrom against the Jews, killing at least 600 of them. In September 1941 the SS established a ghetto in Ternopil, the first one in Galicia. At least 12,500 Jews were crammed into the city's fenced-off poor district. From then on thousands of Jews had to conduct forced labour. Several times the SS executed Jews by shooting. From the summer of 1942 onwards the SS deported within a few months several thousand Jews from Ternopil to the extermination camp of Bełżec. In the summer of 1943 the SS liquidated the ghetto which meanwhile had been converted into a labour camp by shooting all remaining Jews. Only a few hundred Jews from Ternopil survived.
Image: Ternopil, undated, A synagogue, Yad Vashem
Ternopil, undated, A synagogue, Yad Vashem

Image: Ternopil, 2005, Memorial on the site of mass shootings, Stiftung Denkmal
Ternopil, 2005, Memorial on the site of mass shootings, Stiftung Denkmal
Almost all of the 18,000 Jews who lived in Ternopil by the time of the invasion of the German Wehrmacht died by shootings, hunger and diseases in the ghetto or in the Bełżec extermination camp. The exact numbers of the victims is not known.
Image: Ternopil, 1941, German officers cut off the beards of Jewish men, Yad Vashem
Ternopil, 1941, German officers cut off the beards of Jewish men, Yad Vashem

Image: Ternopil, 2005, Plaque on the building of the university's medical school, Stiftung Denkmal
Ternopil, 2005, Plaque on the building of the university's medical school, Stiftung Denkmal
After the Second World War Ternopil became part of Soviet Ukraine. Most of the few hundred Jewish survivors opted for emigration. Except for the surviving New Jewish Cemetery hardly anything remembers the former Jewish life. After the collapse of the Soviet Union a small memorial was erected for the city's murdered Jews in Ternopil. It is located near the mass graves holding the bodies of the victims of the 1942 mass shootings. In the city centre a plaque remembering the hundreds of Jews who were murdered there is mounted on the building of the university's medical school.
Image: Ternopil, 2005, Memorial on the site of mass shootings, Stiftung Denkmal
Ternopil, 2005, Memorial on the site of mass shootings, Stiftung Denkmal

Image: Ternopil, 2014, On the Jewish cemetery, Christian Herrmann
Ternopil, 2014, On the Jewish cemetery, Christian Herrmann
Name
Pamjatnyk schertwam holokostu u Ternopli
Open
The memorial is accessible at all times.