ATAKI (also Otaci), village in northern Moldavia (Bessarabia), on the River Dniester, opposite Mogilev-Podolski. During the Moldavian rule in Bessarabia (before 1812) Ataki was among the few settlements in the region where there was any trading activity and a regular market day. By the second half of the 18th century there was in Ataki a relatively large Jewish community. Its members traded in the village and had connections with other towns in Bessarabia and in the Ukraine. In 1817, 353 Jewish families were living in Ataki (out of a total of 773). The community grew during the first half of the 19th century, with the influx of Jews into Bessarabia, and in 1847 there were 559 Jewish families registered in Ataki. In 1897 the community counted 4,690 persons (67.2% of the total population) and in 1930 there were 2,781 Jews there (79.4% of the total population). A Jewish kindergarten and school run by the *Tarbut organization were established in the 1930s. In June 1940 Ataki together with all of Bessarabia was annexed to the Soviet Union and included in the Moldavian S.S.R. In the beginning of the German-Soviet war Ataki was taken by German and Romanian forces. The latter accused the Jews as being pro-Soviet and probably killed many of them.
[Eliyahu Feldman / Shmuel Spector (2nd ed.)]
No information is available on the fate of the Jews of Ataki during World War II. But situated as it was on the route taken by the deportation transports to *Transnistria , many thousands of Bessarabian and Bukovinan Jews were murdered at Ataki and thrown into the Dniester River. Probably the remaining
Jews of Ataki were also murdered and deported to Transnistria. So far as is known, no Jews subsequently lived there.
[Jean Ancel / Shmuel Spector (2nd ed.)]
BJCE; M. Carp, Cartea Neagrā, 3 (1947), 155.
Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.