Coordinates: 46°27′58″N 30°43′59″E / 46.466°N 30.733°E / 46.466; 30.733

The Odessa massacre is the name given to the mass murder of Jews in Odessa and surrounding towns in Transnistria during the autumn of 1941 and winter of 1942 while under Romanian control.

Depending on the accepted terms of reference and scope, the Odessa massacre refers either to the events of October 22–24, 1941 in which some 25,000 to 34,000 Jews were shot or burned, or to the murder of well over 100,000 Ukrainian Jews in the town and the areas between the Dniestr and Bug rivers, during Romanian and German occupation.

Odessa had a large Jewish population of approximately 180,000, or 30% of the total, before the war. By the time Romanians had taken the city, between 80,000 and 90,000 Jews remained, the rest having fled or been evacuated by the Soviets. As the massacres occurred, Jews from surrounding villages would be concentrated in Odessa and Romanian concentration camps set up in surrounding areas.

On October 16, the Germans and the Romanians captured Odessa following a two-month siege. On October 22, a delayed bomb set by the Soviets detonated in the Romanian headquarters, killing 67 people including General Ioan Glogojeanu, the Romanian commander, 16 other Romanian officers, and four German naval officers.

Odessa (Russian: Одесса, pronounced [ɐˈdʲesːə]) or Odesa (Ukrainian: Одеса, pronounced [ɔˈdɛsɑ]) is the third largest city in Ukraine, with a population of 1,003,705. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast.

The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement, was founded by Hacı I Giray, the Khan of Crimea, in 1240 and originally named after him as "Hacıbey"^{[citation needed]}. After a period of Lithuanian control, it passed into the domain of the Ottoman Sultan in 1529 and remained in Ottoman hands until the Ottoman Empire's defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1792. The city of Odessa was founded by a decree of the Empress Catherine the Great in 1794. From 1819 to 1858 Odessa was a free port. During the Soviet period it was the most important port of trade in the Soviet Union and a Soviet naval base. On 1 January 2000 the Quarantine Pier of Odessa trade sea port was declared a free port and free economic zone for a term of 25 years.

Nikolaus 'Klaus' Barbie (25 October 1913 – 25 September 1991) was an SS-Hauptsturmführer (rank approximately equivalent to army captain), Gestapo member and war criminal. He was known as the Butcher of Lyon.

Klaus Barbie was born in Godesberg, later renamed Bad Godesberg, which is today part of Bonn. The Barbie family came from Merzig, in the Saar near the French border. His patrilineal ancestors were likely a French Catholic family named Barbier who had left France at the time of the French Revolution.^{[citation needed]}

In 1914, his father Nickolaus Barbie was drafted to fight in World War I. He returned an angry, bitter man. Wounded in the neck at Verdun and captured by the French, whom he hated, he never recovered his health. He became an alcoholic and abused his children. He was later diagnosed with cancer of blood, spine and prostate.

Until 1923 when he was 10, Klaus, a shy and quiet youth, went to the local school where his father taught. Afterward, he attended a boarding school in Trier and was relieved to be away from his abusive father. In 1925, the entire Barbie family moved to Trier.