Why Transnistria Became the “Forgotten Holocaust” and How It Is Slowly Being Remembered Again
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Transnistria, meaning “beyond the Dniester”, was an artificial geographic term created during the Second World War, referring to a region in the Ukraine that was situated between the Dniester River on the west and the Bug River on the east, also extending southward to the Black Sea. During October and November 1941, thousands of terrorized Jews, mostly without food and water, were deported on foot or by wagon to Transnistria. Depending on whose numbers one uses, between 120,000 and 180,000 Jews were deported to Transnistria from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Of this group, only 50,000 would survive the war.
For years, the fate of the Jews in Transnistria was not emphasized in Holocaust remembrance, education, or commemoration. The reasons for this were manifold. They included problems of documentation; attitudes of Eastern European governments until the transition of the 1990s; priorities of major Holocaust memorial organizations until that transition; activities, primarily internally focused, of the survivor organizations from Bukovina, Bessarabia, and Transnistria; and, finally, the dynamics among Jewish survivors from Romania as they reassembled their lives in the first postwar decades. All this contributed to Transnistria becoming “the forgotten Holocaust”.
As the last Jewish survivors of the Transnistrian ghettos and camps reached their eighth and ninth decades at the beginning of the 21st century, various political, social, educational, and demographic factors coalesced, changing pre-existing dynamics regarding the memory of Transnistria. In this chapter, I focus on these factors, showing how and why this “forgotten Holocaust” is slowly being remembered again.
For years, the fate of the Jews in Transnistria was not emphasized in Holocaust remembrance, education, or commemoration. The reasons for this were manifold. They included problems of documentation; attitudes of Eastern European governments until the transition of the 1990s; priorities of major Holocaust memorial organizations until that transition; activities, primarily internally focused, of the survivor organizations from Bukovina, Bessarabia, and Transnistria; and, finally, the dynamics among Jewish survivors from Romania as they reassembled their lives in the first postwar decades. All this contributed to Transnistria becoming “the forgotten Holocaust”.
As the last Jewish survivors of the Transnistrian ghettos and camps reached their eighth and ninth decades at the beginning of the 21st century, various political, social, educational, and demographic factors coalesced, changing pre-existing dynamics regarding the memory of Transnistria. In this chapter, I focus on these factors, showing how and why this “forgotten Holocaust” is slowly being remembered again.
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9781003675648
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Link to article (paywalled), Imprints and Places: A Mnemonic Map of Bucharest
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Why Transnistria Became the “Forgotten Holocaust” and How It Is Slowly Being Remembered Again. . 2026: https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.4324/9781003675648
