mortality in the ghetto escalated to such a degree that the "Judenrat" was forced to bury the dead in a common grave. Between August 1942 to June 1943 there were 5 "selections" that depleted the Jewish population of the ghetto by sending the Jews to Belzec extermination camp. A few hundred Jews from Tarnopol and its vicinity attempted to survive by hiding within the town limits. Many were denounced to the Germans, including some 200 people shortly before the Soviets liberated the area. A number of Jews survived by hiding with the Poles. A monument in memory of the Holocaust victims was built at Petrikovsky Yar in 1996. On September 19, 2012, the monument was desecrated, in what seems to be an anti-Semitic act.