"Some burned alive, others groaned in the ground." Terrifying stories about the murder of the Jews from Mărculești village

 Shoes… Thousands of shoes piled up near the Auschwitz concentration camp. Thousands of shoes that were worn, in which children ran, danced brides. There, on an area of 40 square kilometres, thousands of Jews were mercilessly killed. At a distance of over a thousand kilometres, a mass killing centre of Jews is accurately reproduced in smaller proportions. The transition camp in Mărculești, Floresti was the place where almost 20,000 Jews were gradually and cruelly annihilated by starvation, cold and forced labour.

Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland

Hundreds of Jews locked in a synagogue to burn alive

On the outskirts of the city lies a pasture, bordered by the river Răut. Once upon a time, a synagogue was built here. The last service took place in 1939. "It took ten men to hold a religious service in the synagogue," says Mrs Maria, who looks sadly at the reeds that dot the river. Each step taken in the often and long-leafed sedge becomes smaller and slower. Something won't let me move forward. Mrs Maria tells me it would be time to go back. "Although it happened 80 years ago, we still remember, and we don't come here very much, that's how their fate was, poor people. But they were good people, I don't know any Jew who would have taken revenge on those who obeyed them".

The nightmare of the Jews from Mărculești started on a Friday. Hundreds of Jews, including children, were locked inside the synagogue on the banks of the Evil River to be burned alive. Some people managed to escape and hide in the reeds on the river. But they did not escape the cruelty of the soldiers who shot them in the back. Soon, the water of the river turned red, mixing with the innocent blood of the first exterminated Jews, says Svetlana Nagrineac, the director of the "Vasile Alecsandri" gymnasium in the city.

"At Antonescu's command, a transition camp is set up in a hurry, in the open field, near the Răut river, they simply fenced it with poles and barbed wire. It was raining, it was cold, many died of hunger and cold. Most were shot. Some natives threw them a piece of bread or some clothes ”.

Jews arriving at the concentration camp were mocked and humiliated. Their golden teeth were pulled out and beaten to the last breath. The food they received was deliberately mixed with sand, and all food was spoiled.

Heartfelt people from the neighbouring villages, when they went to the fair, slipped some food to the Jews. Weak and dry hands grabbed a piece of bread trembling and greedily, this was heard from the surviving Jews, the local people.

Jews deported from Mărculești village

"Then the values of our nation were seen. When the Jews were killed, the poorest brought them clothes and food, and the others started stealing them from their homes and households ", says Ion Prodan, a resident of Mărculești village.

The earth was moaning with people still alive. Several wells were filled with corpses

In 2010, a monument in memory of the victims of the Holocaust was inaugurated in Mărculești. In Romanian, Russian and Hebrew it is written "We will never forget the Jews killed by the fascists in 1941-1944 just because they were Jews".

The mayor of Mărculești commune says that in the 19th century, the town was a real shopping centre, and each household had a booth at the gate. In 1910, in the Mărculești Jewish Fair, there was a telephone station with an annual income of exactly 520 rubles.

"Trenches were dug at the memorial site, where Jews were buried. In these trenches were shot those who rebelled or were sick, being also here and buried, many of them still alive. The earth was moaning and moving, but no one was burning. We have a lot of wells that are no longer working because they have been filled with corpses. In addition to the Jews who were in Mărculești, those from Romania, from Chernivtsi, were also brought. From here in Mărculești, the Jews were taken on foot to Cosăuți. From there they were already crossing the Dniester, more were drowning than they were crossing it ", says Svetlana Nagrineac, director of the" Vasile Alecsandri "gymnasium.

The mayor of Mărculești commune says that in the 19th century, the town was a real shopping center, and each household had a booth at the gate. In 1910, in the Mărculești Jewish Fair there was a telephone station with an annual income of exactly 520 rubles.

Ion Vîrlan, mayor of the commune of Mărculești

The shops with goods from the Orient, the cafes in the centre, the craft workshops mentioned by the mayor, speak of an almost mythical Mărculești locality, a disappeared universe, which has nothing in common with today's reality.

Now, the main street in Mărculești is more deserted. It houses the main public institutions: the town hall, the district police office, the public library and a restaurant. Many houses were left deserted, ruined and ruined.

„The Jewish Colony from Cot-Mărculești had: a four-grade primary school, an eighth-grade Jewish high school (seven classes were compulsory), and an accounting school. There were 26 grocery stores, six vegetable oil factories, two hotels, two wine depots, seven bakeries, 24 tailors, a shoemaker, two hairdressers, a club for the poor and one for the rich. 36 shops (footwear, haberdashery, cloth and fruit and vegetables), two candle factories and two oil mills. At the same time, three banks were active in the Cot-Mărculești Fair, the bank "Bessarabia" and the bank "Unirea" and "Comerțul Basarabiei". In addition to all these commercial units, there were two doctors, a dentist and two pharmacies at the disposal of the locals ”, says Ion Vîrlan, the mayor of Mărculești commune.

Ion Prodan is waiting for the end of the lunch break of the workers from the store with construction materials to fill up. He is behind the wheel of a cultivator with whom he works in the field and talks to a villager about household problems. He was disturbed by the fact that we interrupted their discussion, but he changed his face when he found out that we wanted to talk about the fate of the Jews from Mărculești. "The Jews were golden people. Yeah, look! How many hours does an abed last? It was a thing for them! ”

Mr Ion also told us that the Jews were the most thrifty. The people who worked for them whitewashed their houses and trees twice a year. They were also good merchants, and the goods they sold were of good quality. 

"They were not bad people, but Hitler was an idiot and he shot them in vain. They loved people with short tongues, and you got along very well with them. They had money and lent it to everyone. They did not make fun of the native population. But they had to flee and had no one to sell their houses to. After they left, the gypsies found them. Afterwards, a crowd of gypsies settled, who settled in the homes of those who left. They were very honest people. They also sold "fresh water" and when I asked them why they didn't put more water and less syrup, to have more to sell, they constantly said that they didn't want to ruin their merchandise and reputation. Instead, when they poured it into the glass, they tilted it a little and did not fill it to the end", says Ion Prodan, from Mărculești commune.

Ion Prodan, residents of the commune of Mărculești

The Jewish cemetery in Mărculești - an open-air museum

All the people's testimonies would seem torn from a horror movie, but it's not like that. Right in front of the school is the Jewish cemetery, dilapidated, swallowed by thorns, the most visible evidence of the pogrom. Hundreds of tombstones remind us of the horrors the Jews went through. Local authorities are still struggling to find funds to restore it. The villagers say they do not want the cemetery to be demolished. They hope that the authorities will find money to turn it into an open-air museum.

Tombstones in Jewish cemeteries usually consist of a pedestal and stone. The decoration is very discreet, composed of a border for the formula "here rests" in Hebrew, present on each tombstone. However, most of the tombstones are represented as a composition of symbols that have a decorative role, but at the same time, which also shy away from the Jewish identity of the deceased.

The former mayor of the commune remembers that in 2005, a family of Jews settled in Israel came to the commune to exhume the bones of their parents and repatriate them.

Who knows, maybe someone else is coming…

There are no concrete data on the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust, but before the war, there were about 300,000 Jews in the Republic of Moldova.

In the summer of 1941, there were 49 concentration camps and ghettos on the current territory of the Republic of Moldova.

For more photos, click here.

The article was written by Valeria Gnacuc for nordnews.md and published on May 26, 2021.