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The Jews in Bukovina have been an integral part of their community. Under Austria-Hungary, there was tolerance of Jews and inter-ethnic cooperation.
Bukovina was conquered by the Austrian Archduchy in 1774. It developed into one of the most diverse provinces in the Archduchy and later in the Austrian Empire; it was also the province with one of the highest Jewish populations. [1]
The first Austrian census reported a population of 526 Jewish families. As immigration from Galicia, Moldova, and Ukraine grew, the Austrian authorities began to deport the newcomers. [2] Some laws against Jews were revoked in the 1810s. [3] There was a gradual elimination of discrimination of Jews after the 1848 revolution, leading up to all laws against them being removed in 1867. [2] Many of the Jews in Bukovina, along with Germans, immigrated to North America in the late 19th and early 20th century. [4] Despite this, Austria's census reported over 12% Jewish population in Bukovina. When Austria-Hungary collapsed in 1918, Romania took control of Bukovina. [5] In the early 1920s, state posts began to require native Romanian language skills. This law served to legitimize further anti-Semitic legislation. [1] In the late 1930s under Romania, their citizenship was revoked in order with Germany's anti-Semitic policies. Like Germany's Jews, they were additionally sent to forced-labor camps. [6]
The Soviet Union occupied the northern part of Bukovina on 3 July 1940. Some communist and pro-Soviet Jews attacked ethnic Romanians and the retreating Romanian soldiers. [7] [8] As Romanian troops retreated from the area, they carried out a pogrom against the local Jews in Dorohoi. [9] The Romanian authorities saw the pogrom as a revenge for the crimes committed by the communists in the territories annexed by the Soviets. [10] Many were deported to Siberia from that region following the takeover, including a disproportionate amount of Jews. [1] A year later, the Axis invaded the Soviet Union and Northern Bukovina was reoccupied in June–July 1941. This reoccupation had a disastrous effect on the Jewish population, as the invading Nazi and Romanian soldiers immediately began to massacre Jews. The survivors were forced into ghettos, awaiting their transfer to work camps in Transnistria. 57,000 had arrived there by November 1941, [11] including about 3,000 from Dorohoi. [12] In October 1943, the law forcing Jews to wear the Star of David was revoked, and Jews were allowed to move freely around the capital city. By the time Bukovina was retaken by Soviet forces in February 1944, less than half of the entire Jewish population in the region had survived. [1] Most of them went to Romania after the war, where the more liberal policies allowed emigration to Israel. [11]
An organization of Jews from Bukovina, known as Landsmannschaft, was founded in Tel Aviv in 1944 by Manfred Reifer. Bukovinian Jews living in the United States helped to create the Museum of Bukovinian Jewry in 2008. [1]
In 1941, the new governor announced his decision that all the Jews of Cernăuți must be deported to Transnistria. After talks with the governor, the latter agreed that Traian Popovici, the new mayor of Cernăuți under Romanian administration, would be allowed to nominate 200 Jews which were to be exempted. Unsatisfied with the modest concession, Popovici tried reaching Antonescu himself, this time arguing that Jews were of capital importance to Cernăuți's economy and requested a postponement until replacements could be found. As a result, he was allowed to expand the list, which covered 20,000 Jews in its final version.
Traian Popovici is honored by Israel's Yad Vashem memorial as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, an honour given to non-Jews who behaved with heroism in trying to save Jews from the genocide of the Holocaust.
Bukovina is a historical region, variously described as part of either Central or Eastern Europe. The region is located on the northern slopes of the central Eastern Carpathians and the adjoining plains, today divided between Romania and Ukraine.
Chernivtsi Oblast, also referred to as Chernivechchyna (Чернівеччина), is an oblast (province) in western Ukraine, consisting of the northern parts of the historical regions of Bukovina and Bessarabia. It has an international border with Romania and Moldova. The region spans 8,100 square kilometres (3,100 sq mi). The oblast is the smallest in Ukraine both by area and population. It has a population of 890,457, and its administrative center is the city of Chernivtsi.
Chernivtsi is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the upper course of the Prut River. Formerly the capital of the historic region of Bukovina, which is now divided between Romania and Ukraine, Chernivtsi serves as the administrative center for the Chernivtsi Raion, the Chernivtsi urban hromada, and the oblast itself. In 2022, the Chernivtsi population, by estimate, is 264,298, and the latest census in 2001 was 240,600.
Gura Humorului is a town in Suceava County, northeastern Romania. It is situated in the historical region of Bukovina.
Traian Popovici was a Romanian lawyer and mayor of Cernăuți during World War II, known for saving 20,000 Jews of Bukovina from deportation.
The history of the Jews in Bessarabia, a historical region in Eastern Europe, dates back hundreds of years.
The Hertsa region, also known as the Hertza region, is a region around the town of Hertsa within Chernivtsi Raion in the southern part of Chernivtsi Oblast in southwestern Ukraine, near the border with Romania. With an area of around 304 km2 (117 sq mi), it has a population of about 32,300 people, 93% of whom are ethnic Romanians.
The history of the Jews in Romania concerns the Jews both of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is present-day Romanian territory. Minimal until the 18th century, the size of the Jewish population increased after around 1850, and more especially after the establishment of Greater Romania in the aftermath of World War I. A diverse community, albeit an overwhelmingly urban one, Jews were a target of religious persecution and racism in Romanian society from the late-19th century debate over the "Jewish Question" and the Jewish residents' right to citizenship, to the genocide carried out in the lands of Romania as part of the Holocaust. The latter, coupled with successive waves of aliyah, has accounted for a dramatic decrease in the overall size of Romania's present-day Jewish community.
The history of the Jews in Moldova reaches back to the 1st century BCE, when Roman Jews lived in the cities of the province of Lower Moesia. Bessarabian Jews have been living in the area for some time. Between the 4th-7th centuries CE, Moldova was part of an important trading route between Asia and Europe, and bordered the Khazar Khaganate, where Judaism was the state religion. Prior to the Second World War, violent antisemitic movements across the Bessarabian region badly affected the region's Jewish population. In the 1930s and '40s, under the Romanian governments of Octavian Goga and Ion Antonescu, government-directed pogroms and mass deportations led to the concentration and extermination of Jewish citizens followed, leading to the extermination of between 45,000-60,000 Jews across Bessarabia. The total number of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews who perished in territories under Romanian administration is between 280,000 and 380,000.
Hotin County was a county in the Principality of Moldavia (1359–1812), the Governorate of Bessarabia (1812–1917), the Moldavian Democratic Republic (1917–1918), and the Kingdom of Romania.
Kitsman is a city located in Chernivtsi Raion, Chernivtsi Oblast, in the historical region of Bukovina of western Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Kitsman urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. The town is about 20 km (12 mi) northwest from Chernivtsi on the road to Zalishchyky. Population: 6,049.
The Bukovina Germans, also known and referred to as Buchenland Germans, or Bukovinian Germans, are a German ethnic group which settled in Bukovina, a historical region situated at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe, during the modern period. They are part of the larger group of Romanian Germans since the early 20th century, when they were initially living in the Kingdom of Romania.
Gheorghe Flondor was Romanian politician who served as Royal Resident of Ținutul Suceava from February 7, 1939 to September 23, 1940.
Cernăuți County was a county (județ) of Romania, in Bukovina, with the capital city at Cernăuți. The area was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 and again in 1944, and has been part of Ukraine since 1991.
Storojineț County was a county (județ) of Romania, in Bukovina, with the capital city at Storojineț. The area was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 and again in 1944, and has been part of Ukraine since 1991.
Corneliu Calotescu was a Romanian major-general during World War II.
The Democratic Union Party was a political group in Romania, one of the political forces which claimed to represent the ethnic Romanian community of Bukovina province. The PDU was active in the wake of World War I, between 1919 and 1923, having for its leader the historian and nationalist militant Ion Nistor. It was formed by Nistor and other activists who wrote for the regional periodical Glasul Bucovinei, and, as a consequence, the party members were commonly referred to as Glasiști ("Glas-ists").
The Bukovina Governorate was an administrative unit of Romania during World War II.
The Bessarabia Governorate was an administrative unit of Romania during World War II.
The Jewish Community in Chernivtsi was the largest Jewish Community in all of Bukovina, in what is now Romania and Ukraine. At its peak in 1941, more than 45 thousand Jews lived in Chernivtsi.