On the eve of the war, Jews accounted for more than 70% of Shargorod's population. With the outbreak of hostilities, part of the male population of the city was drafted into the Red Army. Due to the rapid advance of the German troops, the evacuation was not carried out. By the time of the seizure of the city in July 1941, 1.8 thousand Jews remained here. The city fell into the Romanian zone of occupation known as Transnistria.

The Romanian authorities used the captured Ukrainian lands to resettle Jews from Romanian lands. Therefore, in November 1941, another 5 thousand Jews from Bukovina and Bessarabia arrived in the city.

In the area of ​​Lenina and Marksa Streets, the Romanian authorities created a ghetto where Jews were resettled. More than 330 private houses were allocated for the settlement, in which there were more than 840 rooms. In addition, Jews were housed in public buildings within the designated area.

The houses in which the Jews lived were supposed to have special metal shields with six-pointed stars. The ghetto was open. On the streets, Jews were obliged to wear distinctive signs on their clothes. In terms of the number of prisoners, the Shargorod ghetto was the third in Transnistria and the most organized.

In Shargorod, local and arriving Romanian Jews set up a community council of 25, a Jewish militia of 2 local and 15 Romanian Jews, led by an experienced officer. A bakery, a canteen, a grocery store, a hospital, pharmacies and a sanitary and epidemiological station operated in Shargorod. It operated its own court, treasury, as well as a system for the distribution of products and essential goods.

Due to the fact that the Romanian Jews brought money and valuables with them, the leaders of the council negotiated with the authorities by giving bribes. As a result, a raid warning system and a mechanism for helping those who were sent to forced labor were established.

Due to the high population density, lack of water and lack of hygiene in the winter of 1941-1942, the ghetto was engulfed in a typhus epidemic. Of the 27 doctors who worked in the ghetto, 12 died. To combat the epidemic, the community council was able to organize the cleaning of wells, medical assistance, the production of soap and the repair of the bathhouse. As a result of the epidemic, 1.4 thousand people died, but the majority of the Jewish population managed to survive. By the spring of 1942, the epidemic had subsided.

Thanks to the organized work of the community and interaction with the Romanian authorities, the latter did not carry out extermination aktions, and most of the prisoners of the Shargorod ghetto managed to survive.