Jews of Bucovine

The Juifs of Bucovine correspond to the populations which settled in Bucovine at the time of the Austrian domination of 1775 to 1918, forming Jewish communities Yiddish in the Rumanian territories roumanophones orthodoxe.

A dynamic community

The first Jews of Bucovine arrived from Poland in 1650 for the trade of alcohol and the textile becoming by there the principal rivals of the powerful Armenian community.

As from 1775, the Bucovine become a possession of the Habsbourg after a short Russian occupation, Jewish colonization will intensify, the new arrivals benefitting from the abolition of the border between Galicie and Bucovine called for a time still Moldavie Austrian . The census of the Austrian governor of Splény attests presence of 2650 Jews in 1775 (3,9% of the population), in 1848 one counts 11.580 of them, into 1910,102.919.

The relative prosperity of the community because of its incredible dynamism in the world of the trade contributed certainly to increase the tensions with the other ethnicities: in 1910 on a total of 10312 tradesmen bucoviniens, 8452 were Jewish is more than 80%, while out of the 9322 craftsmen whom Bucovine counted, 5091 was of confession Jew (55%).

In 1930, the Jews represented a little less than 11% (13,2% in 1910) of the population of Bucovine concentrating mainly in the urban centres in which they very often represented the first ethnicity.

In the only town of Suceava, become today the capital of the Bucovine of the South the Germans of mosaic religion - official name of the Jews of the Empire Austro-Hungarian - accounted for 45% of the population of the city and did not have less than 18 Synagog S, only one survived the urban rehandlings carried out during the years 1970-80 whereas the essence of the community had already fled the country in the years 1950 front the brimades of the new mode in place.

Persecutions due to the Rumanian anti-semitism

The major event which marked the Jewish minority of Bucovine is the rise of the Rumanian anti-semitism in the inter-war period.

They will be first of all victims many pogroms which will know their apogee in 1941, when the fascistic movement of the Garde of iron applies, in the name of the defense of orthodoxy and the fight against the Bolchevism, to pursue, persecute the population Jew, and to carry out the most eminent members of its intelligentsia.

Although allied with the Nazi Germany, the Romania will refuse to set up the Final solution on its territory. However, the Jews will know the test of the deportation on the territories conquered on Soviet and managed by Romania, baptized Transnistrie . Transnistrie which enters 1941 and 1944 will be dedicated to becoming an immense ghetto for Juifs and Rumanian Tziganes.

If the Jews and the Tziganes all were not off-set in Transnistrie, one evaluates between 105.000 and 150.000 the number of Jewish victims.

The victorious entry of the Soviet troops in Romania in 1944, the seizure of power by the Communists in 1947, and the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, pushed the Communists to authorize the immigration of the Jews, towards the State of Israel.

The Jewish emigration after 1948

About half left in the first year which followed the creation of the State of Israel (1948-1949).

In 1956, Romania counted nothing any more but 146.264 Jews, whereas they were 735.032 in 1940, and that, according to projections, it should have reached 746.104 individuals. One evaluates with about 500.000 departures, the Jewish emigration between 1945 and 1956.

According to the Rumanian census of 1992 there would be nothing any more but 9670 Jews in Romania (24.667 in 1970) including 296 in Bucovine of the South, i.e. 0,3% of the population Jew of Bucovine in 1910.

External bonds

drawn from the article: '' Minorities in Bucovine '', of Frederic BEAUMONT.

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