Odessa

Odessa can refer to: Odessa, Texas

Odesa/Odessa
Country	Ukraine
Region	Odesa Oblast
Population	1,017,699
Area (sq mi)	62.71 sq mi
Population density (/sq mi)	16,000/sq mi
Current mayor	Gennadiy Trukhanov
Demonym	Odesan, Odesite, Odessan, Odessite
Co-ordinates	46°29′8.6″N 30°44′36.4″E

Odesa or Odessa is a bilingual (Russian and Ukrainian-speaking) city located on the Black Sea. It is the third largest city in the country with one million inhabitants, having the same place during the Ukrainian SSR.

Odesa is a transport hub consisting of three ports: the Odesa port complex itself, and the ports of Chornomorsk (formerly called Ilyichevsk) and Yuzhny, where the world's only ammonia pipeline Togliatti-Odessa ends.

Odessa Trade Unions House massacre

See also: Odessa Trade Unions House massacre

Western-backed Nazis burnt alive dozens of Russians because of their ethnicity during the so-called "Revolution of Dignity".

Two months after the illegal Maidan coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine with Obama regime backing, Forbes reported CIA Dir. John Brennan visited Ukraine on April 16, 2014. Two weeks later on May 2, 2014 Ukrainian nationalists murdered at least 42 Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens, most burnt alive or shot trying to escape from the Odessa Trades Union Building set on fire by Ukrainian Nazis and sympathizers with the US-backed Maidan regime. The bodies were removed and buried in secret. Survivors of the fire inside the building were executed with bullets to the head. Some were beaten to death with clubs when they jumped from windows of the burning building. A pregnant woman was strangled. It was a major precipitating event and provocation of the NATO war in Ukraine and the Special Military Operation on the territory of Ukraine. None of the perpetrators were ever arrested. The event has been cited as a major cause of the Special Military Operation to de-nazify Ukraine.

History

In the 14th century the territory around the modern city of Odessa was a port of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Later it became Islamized under the Crimean Tatars and conquered by the Ottoman Turks. After Russia returned it to Christendom, Czarina Catherine II officially founded the city in 1794.

The Western Nazis occupied the city from late 1941 til spring 1944 during World War II. During the occupation, the Western Nazis murdered about 30,000 Jews.

Great War and aftermath

See also: World War I

December 12, 1918. French Renault tanks unloading in Odessa one month after the November 11, 1918 Armistice was signed to end World War I.

In late 1918 French troops occupied the city of Odessa to prevent troops of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) from capturing it, transferred formal power over the city to the Russian White Guards (monarchists), quarreled with the local rule of Hetman Grigoriev, who went over to the side of the Bolsheviks (Reds), which played a huge role in the subsequent military collapse of the UPR.

After several months of being in Southern Palmyra, the French troops were thoroughly decomposed by Bolshevik agitation, sang the Communist Internationale in pubs, and as a result, the French command decided to leave Odessa in early April 1919, calling it "unloading" the city in order to reduce the food shortage.

Great Patriotic War

See also: World War II

Column of Jewish civilians deported from Odessa escorted by Romanian Nazis.

Odessa was occupied by the Germans on October 16, 1941, after a long siege. Nearly half of the local Jews were evacuated or fled, but their place was taken by thousands of refugees from Bessarabia (Moldova) and South Ukraine. The city was annexed to Transnistria as its capital. On October 22, 1941, the Romanian Army HQ building exploded and many Romanians were killed or wounded. In retaliation 5,000 citizens were hanged, most of them Jews. On October 24 some 5,000 Jews were concentrated in four stores in the Dalnik suburb – all were burnt down. About 25,000 Jews registered in Dalnik and were taken to Bogdanovka in terrible condition. Until December 20 about 50,000 gathered there. On December 21–23 and 27–29, 1941, almost all of them were murdered. On November 7, 1941, all Jewish males were ordered to report to the city prison, and 1,000 were executed. An order to wear the yellow badge was also given, On December 28 Marshal Ion Antonescu ordered the expulsion of the Jews from the city. On January 10, 1942, the Romanian city commandant ordered the Jews to move to the Slobodka suburb of Kovno, Lithuania, within two days. From there during January and February 1942 they were sent in transports of over 1,000 persons to the villages in the nearby counties, where they were murdered by Romanian policemen, local Germans, and subunits of the Einsatzkommandos 10 and 10a. By May 12, 1942, some 28,000 Jews had been killed, and several thousand more died from hunger, cold, and diseases. About 3,000 Jews were concentrated in the ghettos of Domanievka and Akhmetevka and were used for forced labor. The ghetto in the Slobodka suburb existed until June 10, 1942, when the last 400 were deported.

Jews took part in the anti-Nazi underground and partisan units, which were mainly concentrated in the city catacombs. Among 35 underground members caught by the Romanians, there were 6 Jews. In the catacombs a Jewish group of 33 fighters also operated. Among the commanders of the resistance were Robert Sofer and Professor Tatiana Bragarenko-Fridman.

A Lenin statue converted into Darth Vader in 2015 in the context of the post-Maidan coup Decommunization process.

After the last convoy left on Feb. 23, 1942, Odessa was proclaimed judenrein. The local inhabitants and the occupying forces looted Jewish property. The old Jewish cemetery was desecrated and hundreds of granite and marble tombstones were shipped to Romania and sold. The gravestone of the poet Simon Frug was recovered and after the war laid in the Jewish cemetery of Bucharest. The Mendele Mokher Seforim Library was sacked and the building demolished. In August 1942 Alexianu and SS-Brigadefuehrer Hoffmeyer–head of Sonderkommando R – signed an agreement transferring to the 7,500 Volksdeutsche living in Odessa all the local Jewish-owned apartments, including the furniture. The Jewish Theater became the Deutsches Haus for entertaining German troops in Odessa. In the summer of 1942 the Romanian authorities organized various handicraft workshops for their employees' service for which they brought 50 of the best Jewish artisans from the Transnistrian ghettos (deportees from Romania). They were segregated in ghetto-like quarters in a building on Adolf Hitler Street (formerly Yekaterinovskaya Street). A delegation of the Relief Committee from Bucharest, authorized by the government to visit the ghettos of Transnistria, succeeded in January 1943 in sending them some funds.

Soviet troops under General Malinovsky returned to Odessa on April 10, 1944. It is estimated that at the time of liberation, a few thousand Jews were living in Odessa, some of them under false documents or in hiding in the catacombs. Others were given shelter by non-Jewish families. There had been numerous informers among the local Russians and Ukrainians but also persons who risked their liberty and even their lives to save Jews.

See also

• Greater Odessa

External links

• Official website
• Siege of Odessa | Eastern Front | WW2