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and Bucovina (Bucowina) Click here for the Bucovina page
Imagine walking the very same streets that your parents, grandparents or your great grandparents walked somewhere in Romania, Bucovina or Turkey, where they once lived. Imagine the sights ... the sounds ... and the smells that must have been there ... before you became a part of this world. Yes, there was a time when Jewish life compared more like the Sholom Aleichem stories we've all heard. A time when making a living and studying Torah were the only important goals a Jew could hope to (and pray to) achieve. Romania Located in southeastern Europe, Romania borders the Black Sea and is between Bulgaria and Ukraine. Today, there is a total population of 22.4 million. Romania included the Danubian Principalities of Transylvania, Banat, Maramures, Valahia (Wallachia), Moldova, Bessarabia and Bucovina. Today, all of these regions are in Romania and Moldova, with a portion in southern Ucraina (Ukraine). ROM SIG covers the Moldova and Transylvania areas and click on Links where you will find a list of maps for Romania, Transylvania-Eastern Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire 1882, and Romania- Moldova-Balkans 1882. In addition to many other helpful sites and a photo gallery, there is a link to the Jewish Community of Moldova. Modern Romania began in 1859 with Prince Alexander John Cuza (Alexandru-Ioan Cuza) of Moldova and Wallachia. As a nation, Romania began on January 24 to February 5, 1862 after the 1856 Congress of Paris declared the end of the Crimean War and decided that this area was to be independent, but under the Turkish suzerainty. . Bucharest is its capital city. A leading Israeli expert on the Holocaust in Romania, Jean Ancel, said that of the 760,000 Jews who once lived in Romanian-controlled territories during WW II, 420,000 were massacred. Yad Vashem has published a two-volume book by Ancel on the subject. There are today, about 6,000 Jews, mainly elderly, still living in Romania with fewer than 1,000 of them under the age of 35. Half of them live in Bucharest. The average salary is $100 a month and 40 percent of the population lives on little more than one dollar a day. If you are searching for Bessarabia, Bessarabien, or Moldova, this area is known as Moldova today - a region of today's Romania. Search Europe - An excellent site to find information about most European countries
Documentary: The Nobel Peace Prize winner and the world’s foremost author on the Holocaust experience takes a haunting journey to his hometown of Sighet, Romania for the first time in 20 years. Mr. Wiesel is made an honorary citizen of his hometown of Sighet, Romania, where he walks through the neighborhood in which he played and studied as a child. Despite mixed feelings, he sees a town unchanged since his deportation to Nazi concentration camps in 1944, except for one significant feature; not a single Jew lives in the entire village. Academy Award winning actor William Hurt reads passages from Mr. Wiesel’s renowned writings, including his first and most honored work, “Night,” published in 1958. Added features include interviews of two of the nation’s leading authorities on the Holocaust: - Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesental Center and its acclaimed Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles - Professor Bernard Goldberg, Director of The American Jewish Cultural Studies Program at West Los Angeles College. "Anthology of the Dorohoi Country Since The 15th Century" - after WW II, this county has been included into that one of Botosani. Romanian Title: "Generatii de judaism si sionism: DOROHOI (+Saveni, Mihaileni, Darabani, Herta, Radauti-Prut)" English Title: "Generations of Jewishness and Zionism: DOROHOI (+Saveni, Mihaileni, Darabani, Hertza, Radautz-Prut)" Redactor and Coordinator: Shlomo David. 5 Volumes, about 3,500 pages together, bilingual (Romanian + Hebrew). The Romanian halves (from left to right) and the Hebrew ones (from right to left) do mostly contain different info. There are Latin and Hebrew "Summary" lists. Submitted by Alex Finkelstein@mail.biu.ac.il on 11/23/02 "Gazetteer of the former Galicia and Bukowina", produced by Felix Gundacher of the Institute of Historical Family Research in Vienna, has a CD-Rom of maps from the 1880s. The Institute has a web site "Jewish Immigration from Romania" reference: RG76; IMMIGRATION, Series I-A-1, Volume 359, Reel C-10262, File: 426364 referred to on the on-line Canadian National Archives web site. "Jewish Heritage Travel" - authored by Ruth Gruber and published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in 1984. "Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories" - author Miriam Weiner
"Memorial to the Jews Deported from France 1942-44"- authored by Beate Klarsfeld, was published after 1978 in English and should be available from F.F.D.J.F 32, rue la Boetie, 75008 Paris, France or The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation 515 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10022. The book lists 3,000 Romanians on this list. "Romania, The Jewries of the Levant after the Fourth Crusade" - authored by Joshua Starr in 1949. On page 56, there are 7 names given. "Stefanesti: Portrait of a Romanian Shtetl" authored by Ghitta Sternberg and published by Pergamon Press in 1984. "The Who's Who of the Jews born in Romania" - a listing of people of to-day and the people from the past by professions and much more at http://www.alpas.net/uli/jewish.romania/who'swho_engl.htm General This ROM-SIG site contains the names of the shtetls (towns) of Romania including Romania, Moldova and Southwestern Ukraine: Moldova (Moldavia) Transylvania (Transylvania) Valahia (Wallachia) Banat Basarabia (Bessarabia) Bucovina Dobrogea Maramures. For each town, the county (judete), region and country is listed. If you click on the town name, you can get additional information. The towns, regions and countries included in the town list are the currently designations used. Changes in national boundaries occurred since pre-World War I times. Therefore, a shtetl may have been in one of the countries covered by the ROM-SIG that was in Russia, Hungary, The Ottoman Empire, or Austria in earlier centuries Note that Transylvania had one register for all religions denoting religion in a column, whereas Poland and Ukraine have separate registers for each religion. All of the Pinkasim translations are indexed at: All Romania Database 1848 Census Project "1942 Census of Jewish males born in Romania, 1881-1892". This new database can be found at This is our first database which uses the Romanian alphabet. Our Daitch- Mokotoff Soundex algorithm has been enhanced to account for Romanian diacriticals (i.e. the letter "t" with a cedilla has the "ts" sound"). Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP) - http://www.orthohelp.com/geneal/sefardim.htm Diplomatic Representation in the US: chief of Mission: Ambassador Mircea Dan Geoana, 1607 23rd Street NW, Washington, DC 20008. Phone: (202) 332 4846, 4848, 4851; Fax: 1 202 232 4748; Consulate (s) General: Los Angeles and in New York. Diplomatic Representation from the US: Chief of Mission, Ambassador James C. Rosapepe. Embassy: Strada Tudor Arghezi 7-9, Bucharest, American Embassy Bucharest, Department of State, Washington, D.C. 20521 (pouch) Phone; (40) 1 210 01 49 210 40 42; Fax 40 1 210 03 95; Branch Office: Cluj-Napoca East European Genealogical Society - site with a lot of information http://www.GateWest.net/~eegsi/ Embassy Addresses - Chancery of Romania is located at 1607 23rd Street NW, Washington, DC 20008; Phone 1 202 332 4846, 4848, 4851 FAX: 1 202 232 4748. US Embassy: Strada Tudor Arghezi 7-9, Bucharest. Mailing address: American Embassy Bucharest, Department of State, Washington, DC 20521-5260 (pouch) Phone: 40 1 210 01 49 210 40 42 FAX 40 1 210 03 95. A branch office is located in Cluj-Napoca Family Tree - Dr. Zisu Lebel's Genealogical Tree -
http://carpatho-rusyn.org/villages.htm Fusgeyers - a German term usually applied to the Romanian Jews who walked for hundreds of miles to Hamburg. They walked in groups, sometimes whole families walked together. History of Romania is available at a wonderful web site at http://home.sol.no/~romemb/history.htm#MIDDLE History of Romanians - very complete and informative site http://domino.kappa.ro/guvern/istoria-e.html Jewish Community Jewish History of Romania - there is a great deal of information about the History of the Jews of Romania at this site The Jews of Romania - is a virtual exhibition sponsored by Beth Ha'tefutsorth explaining Romanian Jewish culture, Jewish family life, Holocaust, emigration and community life through this fascinating exhibition featuring on-line by the Diaspora Museum. You will find interactive maps, beautiful graphics and audio/video files. There is a clickable photo gallery that showcases the Romanian Jewish experience through time. Linguistics - the letter "K" is a non-Latin one, but an Anglo-Saxon letter, therefore "deep" Romanian words shouldn't be written with a "K", but with a "C" instead according to Alex Finkelstein. He further states that the same observation is true about the letter "Y". This is a left over from the Austro-Hungarian period.
Maps Art Source International offers antique maps, prints and globes at Art Source International Global Gazetteer is a great web site. It is a directory of 2,880,532 of the world's cities and towns, sorted by country and linked to a map for each town. A tab separated list is available for each country. Maps covering the Romania/Moldova Region - Transylvania-Eastern Hungary - Austro-Hungarian Empire 1882 Maps of Romania ShtetlSeeker - locate your town (shtetl) - http://www.jewishgen.org/shtetlseeker/loctown.htm Music - "A Mazeldiker Yid: Old time Klezmer From East Europe" Klezmer still lives in the mountains of Romania where Di Naye Kapelye with Mihaly Sipos and Peter Eri of Muzikas compile a lively recording using folk instruments such as the cimbalom. Music is part of our heritage so listen at Professions - List of - Don Seligman has created a database of professions Research in Romania Professional Researchers - the Special Interest Group for Romanian Jewish Genealogy offers a wonderful informational site about dealing with professional researchers at Alexander Dunai - professional researcher dunai@iname.com (located in L'viv, Ukraine) Professional genealogical researcher, Professor of Jewish History at the University of Cluj-Napoca, Ladislau Gyemant, PhD communicates in English Phone 011 40 64 167256 or e-mail gyemant@zortec.ro Gheorghe Mireuta - professional researcher ram@sisnet.ro Ladislau Gyemant, PhD - professional researcher gyemant@zortec.ro Romanian Interest Site - Haifa Internet - Romanian Newspaper Links Romanian Web based Newsletter - Romania Special Interest Group (ROMSIG) - The countries known today as Romania and Moldova, as well as the southwestern portion of Ukraine and Southern Hungary are the areas of interest. Included in these countries are the areas formerly known as Bucovina, Moldavia, Bessarabia, Transylvania, Walachia and The Banat. The site includes Photos, links. "All Romania Database", which can be found at ROMSIG provides a 'full service' home on the web which includes a complete table of contents for each issue; an archive link; a database of all towns in Romania, Moldova and southern Ukraine, showing latitude/longitude, alternate names and all towns within a selected distance of a specified town - and more. Rosanne Leeson Leeson1@attglobal.net along with Paula Zieselman are Co-Coordinators of ROM-SIG and welcome suggestions or photos and materials to be added to the site. Romanian on-line Phone Directory (in English) Yellow Pages - Search Engines for Romania Sephardic Jewish Community of Romania Slavophilia - a comprehensive guide to Internet resources on Russia and Central/Eastern Europe Street Name Meanings:
Thanks to Alex Finkelstein Alex.Finkelstein@mail.biu.ac.il who provided the Street Name Meanings and other Romanian information. Struma Tragedy - this is the rickety old ship with 789 Romanian Jewish refugees (all of whom died including 103 children except for one that lived) that was sunk either by a Russian sub or a mine, near Istanbul in the Black Sea on February 23, 1942 (story is in English) The refugees left the port of Constanta, Romania (the last ship to leave Germany carrying refugees who were bound for Palestine) were trying to reach Turkey or Palestine, but didn't have Visas for either country although the fare was to include Visas for Palestine. The boat was in very poor condition and was denied entrance to Istanbul. The boat was being towed away from Turkey and into The Bosporus sea by a tug, since its engine was not working. There were only five survivors and three of those died in turkey. The British government of the day steadfastedly refused them visas to Palestine as illegal entrants of an enemy country. The local Turkish community helped feed the passengers during the 70 days that the ship remained in the port. The British authorities in Palestine had set tight limits on Jewish immigration. The British transferred the Struma's passengers, along with those of two other boats, to another ship, the Patria, intending to send them to detention in Mauritius. According to a story in the February 2003 issue of Hadassah Magazine, a Haganah bomb, meant to keep the Patriah from leaving for Mauritius, sank the ship. "Death on the Black Sea" about the Struma. A very comprehensive list of the passengers is included. You may purchase this book through my link with Amazon.com to your left on this page. Translation Service - a commercial site offering many language translating programs http://www.worldlanguage.com Translating Services - Click Here Just in case you didn't think of it, contact a nearby university or college's foreign language department. They may offer to write letters and translate letters into English. A nominal fee is usually charged. Traveling through Romania Personal Stories - very interesting site
Shtetls of Romania - To see which county your shtetl was in, check the searchable database at The Shtetls of Romania Judete is the present name for the administrative subdivision - In the near future, the about 40 'judete' (counties) are going to become 8 "regiuni" (singular: regiune) meaning regions, as a request prior to the acceptance of Romania into NATO and other European organizations.
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Books
