Climăuți

In 1930, Climǎuți was home to 33 Jews, out of a total population of 2,096. At the time, the town was part of the Kingdom of Romania. In June 1940, in the aftermath of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Bessarabia was annexed by the Soviet Union, and Climǎuți became one of the towns of Soviet Moldova. On June 22, 1941, Romania, which had allied itself with Nazi Germany, entered the war against the Soviet Union and quickly regained control of Bessarabia. In July 1941, following the establishment of Romanian rule in Climǎuți, several local residents, some of them Jews, were detained (apparently, as suspected communists). Additionally, several dozen Jews from Climǎuți, along with some Jews from elsewhere, were arrested and imprisoned in the house of Brenstein, a local resident. In the same month, more than 500 Jews from Otaci, Dondușeni, and other towns were brought to Climăuți and locked up in the building of the former town shop and in Sergey Ovchinnikov's courtyard. At the end of July, the group of Climăuți Jews who had been kept under arrest in Brenstein's residence were massacred on the outskirts of the town by Romanian gendarmes, who were assisted by some local non-Jews. Those Jews who managed to survive detention in Climăuți were later deported to Transnistria. The fall of 1941 saw further killings of Jews by Romanian gendarmes in the area of Climăuți. Those victims were deportees to Transnistria who had lagged behind the convoy. Climǎuți was liberated by the Red Army in March 1944.