Pittsburgh Romanian Studies

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“Memory, History & Identity in Bessarabia and Beyond”

University of Pittsburgh,

October 21-22, 2005

Communism, Judaism, and Anti-Romanianism in Romanian Bessarabia: Holocaust Memory in Moldovan National Identity Construction

Dmitry Tartakovsky,

Department of History,

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Abstract:

Holocaust memory continues to have an impact on national identity in the present-day Republic of Moldova. The debate over Holocaust interpretation has intensified in recent years, with new works on the subject by Paul Goma, Iziaslav Levit, Vladimir Solonari and most recently and perhaps most controversially, by Sergiu Nazaria. Inseparable from the Holocaust debate is the history of the Jewish minority in interwar Romania, and in particular, the legacy of Bessarabian Jewish involvement in the communist movement. The argument that Bessarabian Jews were Soviet sympathizers and inherently outside of and against the Romanian nation remains, within Moldovan nationalist historical circles, the primary lens through which the tragedy of the Holocaust is understood. This paper will contribute to the debate by contextualizing the question of Bessarabian-Jewish communism, both real and constructed, within the larger debate of Holocaust memory in Moldova, by relying largely on previously unpublished archival documents from the Moldovan National Archive concerning an important Jewish cultural organization in interwar Bessarabia, the Jewish Cultural League, and its relationship with the Romanian Siguranţa,. Furthermore, the paper will address the Holocaust’s role in the construction of Moldovan national identity. As the example of Nazaria shows, views on topics of national importance that disagree with the collective can problematize one’s national membership.