Romanian Jewry during the Holocaust: Filling in the Gaps: Military and Civilian Behavior Towards Jews during the Holocaust in Bessarabia and Transnistria

The Ghetto Fighters’ House invites you to a new Talking Memory series:

Romanian Jewry during the Holocaust:  Filling in the Gaps

Join us for the second program on

Military and Civilian Behavior Towards Jews

during the Holocaust in Bessarabia and Transnistria

Guest Speakers:

Adrian Cioflâncă

Romanian Killing Units: The Case of the Police Companies on the Eastern Front, 1941-1942

Dr. Diana Dumitru

Civilian Behavior toward Jews during the Holocaust in Bessarabia and Transnistria

Greta Barak

Gershon Knispel’s Art Series “The Death March of the Romanian Jewry”

The second program in the series will focus on the military and civilian behavior towards Jews in Bessarabia and Transnistria during the Holocaust. Adrian Cioflâncă, director of the “Wilhelm Filderman” Center for the Study of Jewish History in Romania and a member of the Collegium of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, will discuss the role of police company attached to the Romanian Cavalry Corp, which was an elite unit that took part in the Blitzkrieg during the Barbarossa Operation. He will also discuss his documentary film, Memories from the Eastern Front that reveals a handsomely bound and carefully labelled photo album that bears silent witness to history as it traces the path of the 6th Regiment of the Romanian army during 1941 and 1942.

The presentation of Dr. Diana Dumitru, current Ion Ratiu Visiting Professor in Romanian Studies at Georgetown University, will delve into the painful Jewish-gentile interactions in the aftermath of the Holocaust in Bessarabia (since 1940 the Moldavian SSR), particularly focusing on the legacies of the of gentile collaboration with murderous Romanian authorities during World War Two. Using oral history interviews, archival material, and published memoirs, the study sheds light on the sensitive and perilous context surrounding the revelation of neighbors’ involvement in murder, betrayal, and plunder of Jewish inhabitants during the Holocaust.

Greta Barak, an archivist at the Ghetto Fighters’ House, will talk about Gershon Knispel’s Art Series “The Death March of the Romanian Jewry” that is located in the museum’s art archives. A leading Israeli artist, Gershon Knispel decided in the late 1990s to represent a chapter of the Romanian Jewry during the Holocaust, namely the fate of the Jews from Bessarabia.

The series is in participation with A.M.I.R. (The Association of Romanian Jewry in Israel), Romanian Cultural Institute in Tel Aviv, the Wilhelm Filderman Centre for the Study of Jewish History in Romania, the Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania, Classrooms Without Borders, Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Center, and the Rabin Chair Forum at George Washington University.