The Jews in Edienț during the Holocaust

The community of Jews in Edineț

Attested since the time of Alexander the Good, the current city was founded in 1820, and among its first inhabitants were Jews, alongside Ukrainians, Russians, and Moldovans. In the middle of the 19th century, in 1859, a Jewish vocational school was opened in Edineț, an indication that there was a community in the locality at that time. At the end of the same century, 4,230 Jews lived in Edineț. In 1930, the number of Jews in the city was 5,341, representing 90% of the total population.

The occupations of the Jews were in the fields of trade, crafts, and liberal professions, such as those of doctors or pharmacists, where they were the majority. In 1878, there were eight houses of worship in the city, a funeral home, and a Jewish cemetery. In the 1930s, several Jews were involved in the political life of the city, which for a time even had a mayor of Jewish origin.

At the end of the First World War, the withdrawal of tsarist troops was preceded by a pogrom of several days, and in the interwar period, several violent incidents took place in the city. Following them, some of the Jews were shot, being accused of revolting against the Romanian authorities. At the same time, some of those incidents took the form of acts of public humiliation. Thus, in 1920, several Jews were forced by a captain of the Romanian army to salute a hat he was wearing on a stick, and in 1925 a Jewish merchant was taken to the police station where he was beaten.

After the city of Edinet came under Soviet rule in late June 1940, following an ultimatum sent to Romania by the USSR on June 26th, 1940, wealthy Jews were arrested and deported to Siberia.

The entry of the Romanian army into Edineț, on July 6th, 1941, was followed by violence against Jews under the pretext that they were communists or communist sympathizers. 500 Jews were killed in those days. Their killing was followed by robberies committed by the civilian population, at the instigation of the Romanian military. In addition, numerous rapes took place. In a few days, no Jew was allowed on the streets. After a week, they were asked to gather in the central square and on the bridge from Bălți. From these two places, they were deported across the Dniester.

There was a transit camp in Edineț. On August 25th, 1941, there were 11,762 Jews, originally from Chernivtsi, Storojineț, Rădăuți, transferred from the Secureni camp. In one week, their number reached 12,248. The camp was arranged on the territory of five streets in the city, being surrounded on the outside with barbed wire. The deportees lived in the homes of local Jews, evacuated from the city, or outdoors. They lived in overcrowded spaces, without food or water.

A few months later, in October 1941, the evacuation of the camp began, and all the Jews interned in Secureni and Edineț were ordered to be “crossed” across the Dniester. According to the provisions, they would be given food for three days on departure, which meant a quarter of bread daily. However, their transport took much longer. The interns were divided into two groups: one was taken to Mărculești and from there to Transnistria, and the second was directed to Cosăuți and Atachi, with the final destination also being Transnistria. According to the orders, those who were ill or no longer had the strength to move were shot on the spot. Liviu Beris, a survivor of those marches, recounted in one of his interviews such an execution: “It was the end of October, the beginning of November 1941, it was cold, the rains started and then they took us to the Dniester, only on foot and also in these columns, convoys, those from Herța. Now when someone was falling, he didn't really have to fall to the ground, only to fall behind, and it was that mud, he was shot. […] It was the first time I saw something like this in my life. That old man was left behind during that forced march. He was shot by a gendarme and then I saw that after the gendarme left, the peasants rushed to undress the corpse, after which he was thrown like carrion, naked. Sometimes this image appears to me at night. And then all the way to the Dniester, this horror was repeated, which happened to anyone who fell behind. But what struck me was this organized robbery. After that, I found out how the peasants knew what and how it would happen. Because before we left, they were summoned for compulsory work, to dig pits from place to place along the entire route, as proof that the executions were prepared in advance”.

After the evacuation of the camp, a new camp was improvised in the building of a former seminary, where Jews from Bukovina were brought for several offenses, including evasion from forced labour.

***, Edinets, in Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Romania, Volume 2, accessible online at https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_romania/rom2_00323.html 

Petru Clej, Interviu cu Liviu Beriș [Interview with Liviu Beriș], accessible online at http://www.inshr-ew.ro/liviu-beris-interviu/ 

Primăria orașului Edineț [Edineț City Hall], Strategia de dezvoltare socio-economică a orașului Edineț pe perioada 2015-2020 [Socio-economic development strategy of Edineț city for the period 2015-2020], Edineț, 2014, accessible online at http://www.amac.md/public/files/usaid/materiale_lgsp/strategic_plans/cohort_2/3_lgsp_edinet_ro.pdf