A reliable survey of the position of the Jews in Rumania reaching here today reveals that only 500 Jews remain in Bessarabia where the Jewish population numbered more than 200,000 last year. In Bukovina, where more than 100,000 Jews lived, there are about 15,000 left, all of them concentrated in the city of Czernovitz.
Tens of thousands of Jews in Bessarabia were massacred by German and Rumanian troops while the remainder were deported to Rumanian-controlled territory in the Axis-occupied Ukraine. Many of the deportees died on the way and the others are starving in the reservations where they are kept. In Bukovina, according to the survey, more than 10,000 Jews were executed and 75,000 were deported to devastated towns in Transnistria.
“The deportations of Jews from Bukovina still continue,” the survey states. The Jews who are still in Czernovitz are not permitted to pray in synagogues or to maintain any schools for their children, They are not allowed to leave their homes except between 10 A.M. and 1 P.M. and are prohibited from leaving their ghetto even during those hours.”
The Jews deported from Czernovitz to Transnistria are usually sent in freight cars in groups of 1,100 to 1,800, the report discloses. They are permitted to take along with them no more than 500 lei per family which is changed at the rate of sixty lei for one German mark. The money, however, is spent by the victims at the assembly centers before they even start on their trip, since they are charged 300 lei for a jug of drinking water at these centers.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
