Approximately twenty-five percent of the 70,000 Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina interned in the Mohilev area of Axis-occupied Russian territory have died, according to an uncensored appeal from the city of Mohilev which reached here today.
“The problem of the remaining Jews will be solved easily if no help is forth-coming soon, the appeal says. “We shall all die of hunger. But this is apparently what our oppressors wish.” In addition to the tens of thousands of Rumanian Jews confined in concentration camps in the Mohilev area, thousands of Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina are also held in camps in the Tiraspol district, which, together with the Mohilev region, is incorporated in the Transnistria province set up by Rumania in occupied Russian territory along the Dniester river, the appeal discloses.
Epidemics have taken a high toll among the Jewish internees in the Mohilev and Tiraspol sections, the appeal reports. The city of Mohilev has suffered badly from bombardment and from a flood. Food is scarce. Bread is a luxury sold at 200 lei a loaf. One single potato costs 20 lei. The local non-Jewish population lives mostly by bartering, but the Jews have nothing to barter since all their belongings were taken from them by Rumanian soldiers when they were driven into exile.
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