Train Carrying 20,000 Jews Deported from France Arrives in Bessarabia; Many Dead

Twenty thousand Jews who were deported from France in filthy, sealed cattle cars without adequate supplies of food and water, have arrived in Rumania, according to a reliable report received here today from Bucharest. They were immediately sent to the “Jewish reservation” in Transnistria, the Nazi-occupied part of Ukraine which is at present under Rumanian administration.

German and Rumanian officials were awaiting the arrival of the Jewish deportees at the railway station in Kishinev, capital of Bessarabia, to supervise their further transportation to Transnistria. They were amazed at the state of the Jewish victims when they opened the sealed carriages in which the deportees were held for more than two weeks on route from France. They found a large number of the Jews dead, their corpses already in a state of decomposition. The corpses tumbled from the cattle cars as soon as the sealed doors were opened.

Those of the deportees who reached the Kishinev station still alive were starved and sick and horrified traveling with corpses for many days. Many of them were dying of exhaustion. The train arrived with a sign posted on each car reading: “Explosive war materials – transit to Russia.” At no time during the entire trip were any of the cars unsealed to permit the unfortunate deportees to get fresh air or see the light.