This virtual yizkor book is dedicated to the study of the Jewish History of the town of Leova, Moldova

LOCATION: 46°29' N, 28°15' E - 100 km SW of Chisinau (Kishinev) on the Prut River
OTHER NAMES: Leova [Rom, Mold, Yid], леово (Leovo) [Rus], Leowa [Ger], Leowo [Pol], Leva, Levo

Children bundled up in winter clothing pose on a horse-drawn
cart with a man near a wooden fence (Leova, 1920)
(Written in Yiddish) "This is how Shaye used to bring the children to kindergarten."

Photo provided by YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

LEOVA MAPS

• Leova Port Map (1932): Description | 1932 Port Map (1.3 MB) - Special thanks to Mrs. Yocheved Klausner for her assistance in translating this document.
• Leova City Map (1935) (304 KB)
• Leova City Map (June 6, 1941) (3.2 MB) - This map was drafted by Otto Wolff, a German Jew from Leova.  In 1940 Otto and his family joined an estimated 93,000 German colonists who were evacuated from Bessarabia to repatriation camps in German held territory.  Shortly after the Wolff family arrived at the repatriation camp in Reid im Innkreis, Austria, Otto was taken away from his family and forced to draw this map. Hear the whole story from Otto's son
• Leova City Map (November 20, 1941) (4.6 MB) - Professionally drawn map of Leova from the Moldovan State Archives.
• Leova City Map (1965) (1.2 MB) - This map shows some of the Soviet street names that were used between the end of WWII and 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Moldova declared independence.
  
• Leova City Map (2004) (163 KB) -This map shows the street names that have been used from 1991 to present.  Though the names are again Romanian, only a few streets  were reassigned their pre WWII names.
  
• Aerial Photo comparison - Leova 1944 and 2009 (1.4 MB)
• List property in Leova owned by Jews (with street addresses): Original Romanian (1.0 MB) | English Translation (29 KB) - About one year after the Germans and Romanians invaded Russia, the Romanian administration that governed the town of Leova, put together the following report of how they were exploiting the real estate properties owned by citizens collectively defined as "evacuated". The term "evacuated" refers not only to Jews who either fled or were victims of the Holocaust, but also to Leova residents of German heritage who were voluntarily evacuated between September and November of 1940, and to those who were deported to Siberia and Central Asia by the Soviet authorities in 1940-1941. This report, dated July 31, 1942, lists the name of the former owners of the each real estate property, the street address, the name of the new tenant and the annual rent the new tenant was paying.

The 1930 census, the last one completed prior to the war, counted 2,326 Jews living in Leova, about 1/3^rd of the entire town population. In June 1940 the Romanians handed over Bessarabia and Bucovina to the USSR as part of the terms of the Molotov Ribbentrop pact. As Romanian troops left Bessarabia, soldiers committed many atrocities in their wake, however the Jews of Leova were unharmed. However, just a month later the Soviets started deporting citizens of their newly annexed territories to Siberia, including Zionist leaders and wealthy Jews. In June 1941 some Jews in Leova sensed war was coming and fled east, into Russia and Central Asia. Other able bodied men joined the fight against the Germans by enlisting in the Soviet Army. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, those Jews who stayed in Leova and hoped for the best almost all perished. Most adult men were killed on the spot while women and children were interned in a "transit camp" where they were subjected to death marches and starvation.

The following documents add some more detailed information on the fates of the Jews of Leova:

• The List of People from Leova Persecuted by the Soviet Regime 1940-41:  Original Romanian (3.4 MB) | English Translation (27 KB) - During the brief Soviet occupation of Bessarabia between June 1940 and the beginning of the war in June 1941 many Bessarabians were persecuted under the Stalin regime.   This document  lists the names  and sentences of Leova citizens, both Jews and Gentiles persecuted by the Soviets between 1940 and 1941. This information is from the book Cartea Memoriei: Catalog Al Victimelor Totalitarismului Comunist - Vol. 3. Special thanks to the author, Elena Postica, for granting permission to republish this list.
  
  
• The List of Jews from Leova Interned in Cahul Camp: Original Romanian (7.5 MB) | English Translation (289 KB) - Those Jews who managed to survive the initial German attack but were unable to avoid being captured were handed over to the Romanian  Gendarmes who marched them in "transit camps" .  Many more died or were killed on these "death marches".  This document, obtained from the archive of US Holocaust Memorial Museum,  lists the names of 389 Jews, most from Leova and surrounding villages, who were interned in the Cahul Transit Camp. The testimony of Yevdokiya Savelievna Lipovich below provides a compelling account of Cahul Camp.


• Jews from Leova registered as refugees in Russia and Central Asia (1941-42): Many people from all part of the Soviet Union fled east ahead of the advancing Nazi Army. This document lists the names of more than 400 Jews from Leova who registered as refugees in Russia and Central Asia.  Most endured very difficult living and working conditions but were out of reach of the Germans.


• Soviet World War II Military Database: Instructions for non-Russian speakers on how to search the Pamyat-Naroda.ru website for Soviet World War II Military Records on Leova residents.


• The Ethnic German Community in Leova: As one of the conditions of the 1939 Molotov Ribbentrop nonaggression pact between Germany and Russia, in late 1940 the ethnic Germans residing in Bessarabia were offered resettlement in Germany. Fearing Soviet oppression, almost all (93,000) agreed. A member of one of the approximate 20 ethnic German families residing in Leova, Pavel Wolff, was interviewed for this website, and acknowledged that his family was Jewish. In his testimony below he describes harsh conditions they endured during the evacuation and after they arrived at repatriation camps in Germany and Austria.


• Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (SESC) Report Concerning the Massacres of the Jewish population of Leova Region by the Fascists: It is not possible to get an accurate list of all who fell victim to  the Germans and Romanians but in 1942 the Soviet Union launched the "Extraordinary State Commission to investigate German–Fascist crimes on Soviet territory".  The document presented here was created by the Extraordinary Commission from testimonies of neighbors, witnesses, and survivors.  - Special thanks to Gary Goldberg and Janet Furba for translating these documents.
  
  • Original SESC Summary Report: Original Russian (370 KB) | English Translation (32 KB)
    
  • Abridged report with additional analysis: Original Russian (146 KB) | English Translation (12 KB)
  • The List of Jews Persecuted from Leova in 1941: Original Russian (7.5 MB) | English Translation (101 KB)
  
  
• Citizens of Leova that died during WWII while fighting Fascism: Many men from Leova joined or were conscripted into the Red Army and fought against the Nazi's.  Some survived, many did not.  This monument, erected in 1970 in the Leova town center, lists the names Leova citizens who died during World War II while serving in the Soviet military.


• Lists of conscription-aged Jewish men from Leova: The Romanian occupiers put together these two lists. The designation "Disappeared" in the Notes column means only that the Romanian provisional city government did not know their whereabouts. Cross referencing the names on these lists with other resources available on this website reveals that several of the men listed were serving in the Russian Army during the war, and several others were registered in refugee camps in Eastern Russian and Central Asia.
  
  • Class of 1941: The men on this list appear to have been born around 1919.
    
  • Class of 1944: The men on this list appear to have been born around 1922.
    
  
  
• Aerial Surveillance Photos of Leova - May 25, 1944 (2.5 MB) | Between April and August 1944 (2.2 MB) - These two photos come from the U.S. National Archive collection of German WWII documents.  They apparently were taken before and after a bombing run, as the May 25th photo shows a bridge over the Prut River.  In the second photo the bridge is no longer present.


• Forced confession of Paulina (Perla) Merer - Original Romanian (1 MB) | English Translation (0.1MB) - January 24, 1942 coerced statement.