Cosăuți, Deportation of Roma in Moldova – Translated

Village Name: Cosăuți (town, Soroca district)

Region, Country: Republic of Moldova

Deportation Date: June – August 1942

Excerpt from Testimony:

“[…] They were the first to arrive at this barn [near Vradiovka]. There were no animals in the barn,
only hay. The Roma from Romania would sneak out of the camp. They would crawl under the barbed wire surrounding the barn. They would go through villages to sell goods. The Roma stayed in this barn until the end of the war. They did not receive food rations. The father of the interviewee would secretly go to the market to buy food. They would sell their valuables. They were supervised by Romanian and German gendarmes. Many people died in the camp. The villagers would bring carts to bury the dead. His grandfather, Ivan, died in the camp. He sneaked out to go to the market, but was caught and shot. The family could not recover his body.”

Romanian Archives (if available):

In the May 1942 census, the Police of Soroca city identified 19 nomadic Roma (3 families), 2 vehicles, and 3 animals in the area. All were proposed for deportation to Transnistria (ANI, fond.IRJ, file 259/1942, f. 33). It is possible that the family of the interviewee was on this list. Another archival document mentions a census conducted by the Chișinău Regional Police
Inspectorate in the major cities of Bessarabia before August 13, 1942. In Soroca, four mobilizable
Roma were identified, named Pleșca (Nicolae, Teodor, Ilie, and Petru). Some had already been
handed over to the gendarmes to be sent across the Dniester River (ANI, fond DGP, file no.185/1942, f. 139).

Historical Note on the Roma:

Soroca city is home to one of the largest Roma communities in the Republic of Moldova. Located on the banks of the Dniester River, about 150 km from Chișinău (DGB 1904: 194–195). The 1897
census carried out by the Tsarist authorities recorded 15,351 people in Soroca, including 12 Roma
(PVPNRI 1897, III: 241–242). After Bessarabia (now the Republic of Moldova) became part of Greater Romania, the 1930 census in Soroca recorded 15,001 inhabitants, including 66 Roma (RGP 1930, II: 422–423). Some of these Roma worked as blacksmiths (Roma “ciocănari”). According to
the testimony of the interviewee, some blacksmiths had homes in Soroca but traveled from village to village at certain times of the year to sell their products.

Historical Note on Deportation:

Initially, nomadic and semi–nomadic Roma from Soroca were censused by local police agents in May 1942. In the summer of 1942, local police and gendarmes rounded up the nomadic Roma from the city and surrounding areas, organized them into columns, and escorted them to the border with Transnistria. The interviewee mentioned that, during the deportation, Roma families (such as coppersmiths and bear trainers) were added to the column, while the Jewish deportees formed a separate column. The march lasted nearly two weeks, with the following route: Cosăuți – Iampol –
Moina. The deportees suffered from hunger (they were forced to sell coins and gold jewelry to the locals in exchange for food). During the march, many Jewish deportees were executed by German guards and buried in mass graves.