JEWS OF BESSARABIA ON THE EVE OF THE WAR
Map and text credits:
Atlas of the Holocaust, rev. ed. by Sir Martin Gilbert (New York:
William Morrow, 1993).
Published in Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova and reprinted here with permission from the publisher, Routes to Roots
Foundation.
Until 1941, Bessarabia was part of the Russian Empire/Soviet Union. The murder of 49 Jews during the Kishinev Pogrom of
1903 had led to protest demonstrations in London, Paris and New York, and a letter of rebuke from Theodore Roosevelt to the
tsar. In 1918, the region became part of Romania but remained strongly anti-Semitic. The city of Kishinev was a focal point of
Jewish culture and political life, while Jewish agricultural communities thrived throughout the province.
