The Dark Chronicle of Chișinău: Commemorating 83 Years Since the Ghetto’s Establishment

83 years ago, from July 24 to July 26, 1941, the Chișinău ghetto was established, marking one of the darkest chapters in the history of Chișinău’s Jewish community.

In our territory, shortly after the invasion on June 22, 1941, 49 camps and ghettos were created by order of the Romanian dictator Antonescu. The ghettos were mainly established in large cities with significant Jewish populations. The Chișinău ghetto was the first of its kind in Romanian-controlled territory. According to the Romanian administration, at the beginning of August 1941, there were 11,500 people in the Chișinău ghetto.

The residents of the Chișinău ghetto perished from diseases, including those caused by terrible overcrowding, hunger, forced labor, and mass executions. According to even the Romanian administration, an average of at least 15 people died per day in the ghetto, not counting those executed. In a report to Antonescu in August 1941, the destruction of 2,000 ghetto residents was noted. Mass executions of ghetto residents took place in Visterniceni (where there is now a monument dedicated to the victims of fascism).

In October 1941, the deportations of Chișinău ghetto residents to Transnistria began. As a result of these deportations, the vast majority of displaced persons died on the way and in the camps of Transnistria. When the Red Army entered Chișinău in 1944, only six ghetto prisoners remained alive.