The jews of bessarabia the holocaust period

 

 

brought the Jews to a lower status where it was possible to attack them without fear of 

punishment.  The official Romanian propaganda accused the Jews of being 

Communists and so they became the collaborators with the Soviet enemy when the war 

broke out in 1941. 

It is essential to emphasize the close connection between the pogrom in Iasi at the end 

of June 1941 and the massacre in Bessarabia.  The German and Romanian troops that 

took part in the massacre were soon transferred to Kishinev where they continued their 

actions.  From Kishinev they were sent to Tighina (Bendery) and to Akkerman where 

again they performed their horrible deeds. 

The Romanian soldiers and the civil service personnel that were sent to Bessarabia 

were given exact instructions from the leaders about how they should act towards the 

Jews.  It was emphasized to them the Jews were traitors and disloyal.  The soldiers and 

government clerks were ordered to gather the Jews of Bessarabia in ghettos and to use 

cruel methods on them.  In the speeches of Count Jon Antonescu and his people it is 

obvious that there was distinct Nazi influence.  They imitated Hitler himself.  

ROLE OF THE ROMANIANS IN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWS 

There was an atmosphere of Jew-hatred and there were massacres by the German 

soldiers.  The Romanians units contributed to the slaughter of the Jews of Bessarabia.  

These units of the “Secret Service for Information” were organized along similar lines to 

that of the Einzatzgruppe of the Nazis. 

In the introduction to the first volume of Romania it was described how these units 

operated in Iasi.   Few details are given in the trial following the pogrom in that town.  

It can be surmised that in the secret archives of Romania there is more information 

that is derogatory about many Romanian soldiers.  They were given a free hand in their 

dealings with the Jews along the orders to the German soldiers.  There were no 

consequences to any of the murders, robberies and abuse. 

The first Romanian troops to enter Bessarabia were those who came to Noua-Sulitsa on 

July 2, 1941.  800 Jews were killed under the pretext that they had fired at the army.   

On July 8 the commander of the gendarmerie in Bessarabia, situated in Kishinev, 

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ordered all Jews still residing in villages to be arrested.  This is how Romania took over 

Bessarabia.  There are very few official documents remaining.  Three days earlier 

Edinets was conquered.  Within two days 500 Jews were murdered there and many 

women and girls were raped.  Some of them committed suicide.  There are three large 

common graves there which are a testament to the massacre. 

On July 8 1000 Jews were killed in Markuleshty and a few days later the same occurred 

in Floreshti, Gura-Caminca, Kaushany and Gura-Caminca.  On July 12, 300 Jews were 

slain in Climautsi (Soroka District) and on July 11, 12 Jews who were hostage died in 

Lipkany, 40 in Lenkautsi (Khotin district), 160 in Cepelutzi (Khotin). 

In the trials of war criminals that took place in Romania a few more villages are 

mentioned:  Nigoreni- 16 Jews were arrested in July 1942.  They were all residents of 

the village.  Some were killed by strangling so that gunshot would not be heard.  The 

order to kill was given by the assistant commander of the gendarmerie in Orgeyev, Lt. 

Konstantin Popoy.  He had been the governor of the area in the times of Goga-Koza.  

In July 1941, in the village of Dereneu (Orgeyev district), 40 Jews were shot in an anti-

tank trench and they were buried there.  A similar even happened in the village of 

Colibka where 18 Jews were shot by the gendarmes.  In the village of Ghirisheni 22 

Jews were killed.  In Kalarash 250 Jews who had remained were brought to the forest to 

be shot.  They were buried in a trench that had been prepared.  This was done by the 

gendarmes by order of Col. N. Carcass.  These atrocities only represent a small part of 

all the horrific deeds committed in other places in Bessarabia. 

CONCENTRATION OF THE JEWS IN GHETTOS 

The documents and orders found indicate a great confusion within the Romanian 

authorities.  The order to arrest all the remaining Jews was not entirely clear.  It was 

also unclear what was to be done with those arrested.  In some places they were put 

into camps.  In Balti such a camp was prepared about 12 km from town in the Rautel 

forest.  Here the Jews were placed in rundown shacks surrounded by a barbed fence 

and some of them died of hunger. 

In a report from July 17 by General Jon Topor to his superiors we find that Jews were 

sent to various concentration camps.  Falesht received 1500 Jews; Balti-1235 and 

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another 500 to come; Limbeni-Noui -700 Jews.  In the report it is noted there is no 

food for these people and there are not enough soldiers to guard them.  Topor 

suggested that they be sent further inland. 

On July 22, 1941 General Topor informed the gendarmerie command in Kishinev that 

he was ordered by the assistant to the Secretary of the Interior to send these Jews to 

work so there would be a way to feed them.  In the meantime the Germans executed 

their own destruction plans.  There is testimony about what happened in the Falesht 

district.  Several Jews from the village of Skompia (Balti district) escaped to Falesht and 

there they met a unit of Romanian horsemen.  The commander gave them a letter and 

advised them to return to the village.  Soon the Germans arrived and forced them to 

dig trenches.  They were buried alive- some with their heads down and others with 

their heads up.  They all died after terrible torture.  The local residents were brought to 

watch.  In a nearby Jewish cemetery there were two trenches in which the Germans 

buried 300 Jews who had been shot.  Witnesses tell about terrible acts such as the 

splitting of babies while they were still alive, raping of women and cutting off their 

breasts, etc.  Many Jews were buried alive in order to save ammunition.  In the chicken 

slaughtering area, Jews were hung on hooks and skinned alive. 

All this happened in July in the first stage of the conquest of Bessarabia.  On August 1 

all Jews still alive in Khotin were sent across the Dniester. 

At the beginning of August, after the first wave of killings, all the Jews were put into 

camps.  In mid-August, when caravans of deportees passed from Storozhinetz, 

Bukovina to Ataki, there was not one Jew left in the settlements of Riscani, Nuoa-

Solitza, Lipkany, etc.  

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