Encyclopaedia Judaica
Jews in Constanta (until 1878: Küstendje;
Konstanza)
Turkish rule - Romanian rule - WW II with
expropriation, deportation and forced labor - center for
emigration to Palestine
from: Encyclopaedia Judaica
(1971), vol. 14
presented by Michael Palomino (2008)
CONSTANTA (until 1878 Küstendje, Rum. Constanta), Black Sea
port in S.E. Rumania;
within the Ottoman Empire until 1878. The Ashkenazi
community of Constanta was founded in 1828. After a while a
Sephardi community was established. The Jewish population
increased with the development of the town. A Jewish
cemetery was opened in 1854.
In 1878, after northern Dobruja passed to Rumania, Rumanian
nationality was automatically granted to the Jews in the
region, Constanta included. As former Turkish subjects, they
found themselves in a more favorable situation than the
other Jews of Rumania, the overwhelming majority of whom
were deprived of rights.
The Rumanian authorities, however, attempted to expel
individual Jews from Constanta. There were 957 Jews living
in Constanta in 1899 (6.5% of the total population), most of
whom were occupied in commerce and some in crafts, with two
schools for boys, and Ashkenazi and a Sephardi one.
[[There is no indication of emigration 1881-1923 to the
criminal "USA" in the article, but it can be admitted, that
Constanta was
the
central port for South East European Jewish emigration in
these times already. The emigration movement is indicated
in:
Migration
]].
In 1930, the Jewish population numbered 1,821 (3.1%) in the
city and 1,981 in the province.
Holocaust Period and After.
[Macedonian refugee gangs - hunger march to Cobadin -
forced labor - plundered and expropriated houses and,
misused synagogues]
[...] When *Antonescu rose to power, a German military
mission arrived in Constanta and took over the port. Jews
were forbidden entry into the port area and those living in
the lower town were evacuated to the upper part.
On December 13, 1940, armed gangs of Macedonian refugees
from the Dobruja region, attacked the Jewish shops and
forced the owners to sign documents stating that they were
giving them up.
Horia *Sima, then deputy prime minister and leader of the
*Iron Guard, attended this action in person. The few Jewish
shopowners who offered resistance disappeared without trace.
[...] In 1941 there were 2,067 Jews in Constanta. [...] When
war broke out against the Soviet Union (June, 1941), 1,600
(col. 914)
Jews were arrested and forced to make their way on foot to a
former German military camp at Cobadin, a distance of 28 mi.
(45 km). Five weeks later the group was dispersed and taken
to four different camps. Men and women alike were sent on
forced labor in Dobruja and Bessarabia. The young people
over 18 were deported to Transnistria. On August 1, 1941,
the camps were disbanded and their inmates returned to
Constanta, but not to their own homes, which had been
plundered and taken over by German troops.
Twice a day they had to report to the police and the men
were subjected to forced labor. The Jewish cemetery was
destroyed at the orders of the municipality and its
tombstones used as milestones. Two synagogues were turned
first into storehouses for wood and later used as camps for
Russian prisoners of war.
[1939-1944: Constanta is a
central port for Emigration to Palestine]
Throughout the Holocaust period Constanta port was an
important outlet for emigration to Erez Israel. Constanta
was practically the only port in East Europe that remained
open for Jewish emigration after the German conquest of
Europe, as the Rumanians refused to accept the program for
the Final Solution (see *Rumania, Holocaust). The port
served Jews not only from Rumania, but also from bordering
countries: Poland, Hungry, Czechoslovakia, and even Germany.
Among the famous refugee ships which sailed from there was
the
Struma which
was sunk in the Black Sea (see *"Illegal" Immigration).
The Germans [[and their collaborators]] pressed for the
cessation of emigration a number of times, and it was
stopped for a time, but was allowed to resume.
[After 1944: further
emigration]
The Jewish community which returned there after the war
diminished as a result of emigration. In 1956 it numbered
586. There were 60 Jewish families in Constanta in 1969 with
a synagogue and a rabbi.
Bibliography
-- M. Carp: Cartea Neagra, 1 (1946), index
-- Pe marginea prapastei, 1 (1942), 194, 231-3, 242;
-- PK Romanyah, 232-5
[TH.L.]>
Source
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Constanta, vol. 5,
col. 914-915
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