Jews in Chisinau victims of anti-semitism

Victims of a Chisinau pogrom. In 1942, a Romanian newspaper proudly declared the city to be "Judenrein"; cleaned of Jews

CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - Jews in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, are dying out. Victims of a long and continued campaign of anti-semitism, the few remaining survivors hold on to traditions and religious beliefs which are unpopular and frequently persecuted in today's racially intolerant Moldova. Jews in the area now commonly refer to Chisinau the "City of Slaughter", Be-Ir ha-Haregah.

Before the onslaught of Romanian nationalism, Chisinau was a city which was once 50% Jewish. But in Jewish history, Chisinau - which was then called Kishinev - is best remembered as the place of one the first and most violent pogroms.

Barely surviving, what was left of the Jewish population in the city only lasted until World War II. Romanian and German troops sent the Jews from Chisinau to a large extermination area outside of Moldovan/Romanian state borders which was previously part of Ukraine and which Romania gave the artificial name of "Transnistria" (meaning "on the other side of the Nistru river", using the Romanian word for the river Dniester).

During the Second World War, Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany and helped Germany kill off most of the remaining Jews from Chisinau. Under the fascist leader Antonescu, Romania - including its Moldovan province - wanted to be a racially pure state for Romanians only. The regime's propaganda held that all Jews from Bessarabia had to be killed as enemies of the Romanian state.

In a paradox which Jews outside Romania are still trying to come to grips with, Romania spared the lives of some of its Jews from Romania proper while brutally exterminating every single Jew from Moldova / Bessarabia. Apparently some in Romania felt that the Jews from Chisinau were "communist" or Soviet sympathizers, whereas Jews from the rest of Romania had a more "capitalistic" outlook. That explains why some of the Jews from the rest of Romania were spared their lifes but the Jews from Bessarabia were brutally removed and killed.

City of Slaughter

The famous Jewish poem Be-Ir ha-Haregah ("In the City of Slaughter") by Chaim Nachman Bialik was originally prompted by an attack on the Jewish community of Chisinau. The city of slaughter was the name which local Jews gave to Chisinau. It is increasingly in use today among the few Jews who are still left in the area.

Today, few traces are left in Chisinau of the city which was once fifty percent Jewish. So effective was the Romanian holocaust that any symbols of Jewish history have today been scrubbed clean from the surface of Moldova's capital.

One of the leading Jewish schools is now converted into a pharmacy. Houses that once housed Jewish merchants have been torn down. And in a city which before the Second World War had seventy synagogues, there is now only one single synogogue left: A small, run-down tiny synagogue standing alone and abandoned in a small side street.

Nearly hidden from public view today, it is hard to believe that Chisinau was once a leading center for Jewish culture. By the end of the 19th century, the Jews made up approximately half of Chisinau's population of 125,000.

The growth of Jewish culture and population happened under Russian influence. Historians confirm that in the time of Moldova as an independent country, Jews were mistreated and often killed in order to prevent their communities from growing.

" - By the time, of Russian rule in 1812, there was a permanent Jewish presence in Moldova, with an estimated 20,000 Jews living in the area. There were 16 Jewish schools with 2,100 students and 70 synagogues. The region became a center for both Yiddish and Hebrew literature. In 1836, the Jewish population had grown to 94,045 and, by 1897, there were 228,620 Jews living in Bessarabia," says historian Ariel Scheib.

" - Between 1836 and 1853, a vast number of Jews entered agriculture and 17 Jewish agricultural settlements were formed. By 1897, the majority of Jews were once again involved in commerce and industry. During this period, Hassidim flourished among Jews of this region," explains Scheib.

Holocaust in Transnistria

Under Romanian rule, and assisted by eager nationalist Moldovans, thousands of Jews died in mass shootings, deportations, ghettos and concentration camps on Bessarabian and Ukrainian territory. A large number of the Bessarabian Jewry was deported to Transnistria - which had been an autonomous republic and part of Ukraine - or massacred by the Einsatzkommandos assisted by Romanian troops.

The Jewish community of Chisinau was nearly annihilated, with the Nazis and Romanians murdering 53,000 out of the 65,000 Jewish inhabitants of the city. In Transnistria, local residents opposed the invaders and their concentration camps. However, in Moldova, many Moldovans eagerly collaborated with their German and Romanian troops and assisted in rounding up Jews to be sent to Transnistria on the non-Moldovan side of the Dniester river.

A Romanian newspaper, Bukarester Tageblat, proudly declared in the beginning of 1942: “In 1941, 11,888 Jews lived in Kishinev that disappeared from there and today only 75 people are left”. The pro-Nazi newspaper did not explain what it meant by using the word "disappeared". But later that year - in the middle of May 1942 - Chisinau was declared to be "Judenrein".

The term Judenrein was a Nazi term which literally meant "Cleansed of Jews" and which denoted an area where all Jews had been either murdered or deported. By applying it to Chisinau, the Romanians and Moldovans designated the city as an area free of any Jewish presence. The term had a stronger connotation than merely "Judenfrei" ("free of Jews") since Judenrein demanded that any trace of Jewish blood be removed as an impurity.

Moldova has a long and active history of virulent anti-Semitism, including widespread local collaboration in the Holocaust. Even today, many Moldovan Jews still experience anti-Semitism in their country; everything from vandalism to Holocaust denial. Anti-Semitic incidents are common. In 1999, a Holocaust memorial in the capital was desecrated, and other incidents of street beatings and bigotry against Jews occur frequently. During Passover in 2002, two teenagers destroyed almost 50 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in Chisinau. The police arrested these teens but then set them free with an offical excuse that their crime was not anti-Semitic.

The life for Jews in Tiraspol, the capital of the unrecognized republic of Pridnestrovie, is better. Since the 17th century, this city has always had a thriving Jewish presence. By 1897, the Jewish community equaled 27 percent of the total population of Tiraspol. During the subsequent Romanian invasion and the Holocaust, nearly the entire Jewish community perished in Nazi concentration camps. After World War II, the Jewish community began to grow once again and there is now a thriving Jewish presence in Tiraspol.

Substantial Jewish communities also exist in Bender and Rybnitsa, two of Pridnestrovie's larger cities. The local Jewish population supports Pridnestrovie's quest for independent statehood with diplomatic recognition. According to recent surveys, an overwhelming majority of local Jews in Pridnestrovie do not want their 'de facto' independent republic to unite with neighboring Moldova.

See also:
» Jewish communities support Pridnestrovie's independence
» Transnistria, the artificial name for "the Romanian Auschwitz"
» Romania whitewash of Transnistria invasion angers Holocaust survivors