The Ghetto Fighters’ House: Talking Memory series Romanian Jewry during the Holocaust: Filling in the Gaps

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

Romanian Jewry during the Holocaust:  Filling in the Gaps

June 25th : The Iasi Pogrom in Romania 

Opening Remarks:

Yigal Cohen

CEO, Ghetto Fighters’ House

Guest Speakers:

Greta Barak

Archivist, Ghetto Fighters’ House

Wartime Commemoration of the Iasi Pogrom: Yitzhak Benditer’s Synagogue Memorial Plaques

H.E. Dr. Radu Ioanid,

Ambassador of Romania in the State of Israel

The Iasi Pogrom:  One of the Most Brutal Chapters in the History of Romanian Jewry during the Holocaust

Lyonell Flis, Holocaust child survivor of the Iasi pogrom will give testimony

The first program in this series will focus on the pogrom of Iasi that took place on June 29, 1941.  Greta Barak from the Ghetto Fighters’ House will present a memorial tablet from the museum’s archive that commemorates the names of the worshippers at one of the synagogues in Iasi (Jassy) who were massacred in the pogrom that took place there.

Dr. Radu Ioanid, Ambassador of Romania in the State of Israel, will give a presentation on why the Holocaust in Eastern Europe is still a forgotten one, including the pogrom in Iasi. As he will show, this pogrom was a major outbreak of violent anti-semitism, yet it was neither isolated nor fortuitous; rather, it was part of a long series of mass murders committed by Romanian fascists. The pogrom was organized by the SSI (the Romanian Intelligence Service) in co-ordination with the General Staff of the Romanian Army. At least 6,000 Jews were murdered in the town of Iasi and another 2,600 perished in two death trains. The perpetrators were Romanian soldiers, gendarmes and police mobs from Iasi, and German soldiers. The Iasi pogrom was followed by the systematic deportation and extermination of the Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina, and by the extermination of Ukrainian Jews from Transnistria.

The program will conclude with the personal testimony of Lyonel Fliss, a Holocaust survivor who lives in Johannesburg today. He was 6 years old at the time of the pogrom in Iasi. His relatives were murdered there and on the death trains. Last year, he received the highest medal of honour from the Romanian government.

The series is in participation with A.M.I.R. Organization, 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.