Sokiryany

BESSARABIA

BESSARABIA (Coat of Arms)

Bessarabia (Basarabia in Romanian, Бесарабія in Ukrainian, Бессарабия in Russian, Бесарабия in Bulgarian, Besarabya in Turkish) is a historical term for the geographic entity in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the East and the Prut River on the West. This was the name by which Imperial Russia designated the eastern part of the principality of Moldavia ceded by the Ottoman Empire to Russia in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812. The remaining Moldavia united with Wallachia in 1859 in what would become the Kingdom of Romania. In 1918, slightly before at the end of World War I, Bessarabia declared its independence from Russia and after three months united with the Kingdom of Romania. After the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940 at the beginning of World War II (see Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), and (after changing hands in 1941) again in 1944, Bessarabia was annexed to the USSR, where its core part was reorganised as the Moldavian SSR, to which parts of the previous Moldavian ASSR were added. At the same time, some smaller parts of Bessarabia, in the south (Budjak) and north (northern half of the Hotin County), were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. In 1991, the Moldavian SSR was renamed the Republic of Moldova, and on 27 August the latter declared independence from the USSR. (in Wikipedia).

According to the Routes to Roots Foundation, until 1941, Bessarabia was part of the Russian Empire/Soviet Union. The murder of 49 Jews during the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 had led to protest demonstrations in London, Paris and New York, and a letter of rebuke from Theodore Roosevelt to the tsar. In 1918, the region became part of Romania but remained strongly anti-Semitic. The city of Kishinev was a focal point of Jewish culture and political life, while Jewish agricultural communities thrived throughout the province.

JEWS OF BESSARABIA ON THE EVE OF THE WAR

Sokyriany (Сокиряни), also spelled Sokiryany, Secureni, Sokyrjany, Sokyriany and Sekiryany, is a town in northern part of the former Bessarabia, Russia. Nowadays the city is located in the sothwest part of Ukraine, on the Chernivtsi Province (Chernivets'ka Oblast) on the border with the Moldavian city of Oknitsa (Окница).

Sokiryany's Transit camp, for 30,000 Bessarabian Jews, was established in July 1941 and evacuated on October 3, 1941, when all the Jews in the camp were deported to Transnistria.