The Jews of Săveni: A Dorohoi County Shtetl and the Deportation to Transnistria

Săveni, a small market town in northern Moldavia between Dorohoi and the Prut, was a true shtetl until the Second World War: in 1930 about 1,800 Jews lived there. In 1941 it belonged to Dorohoi County, which had been attached administratively to Bukovina, and so its Jews were deported to Transnistria, unlike the Jews of neighbouring Botoșani County. Today no Jews live there; a large cemetery remains, and the building of the Great Synagogue, which has become a restaurant.

A shtetl in northern Moldavia

Yad Vashem’s Pinkas HaKehillot Romania has an entry on Săveni in its section on the Regat, the Old Kingdom of Romania, but the entry has not been translated into English. According to JewishGen’s cemetery survey, the town had 934 Jews in the 1899 census and 1,764 in the 1930 census. Jewish Heritage Europe, citing JewishGen KehilaLinks, gives a figure of about 1,800 for 1930.

Saul Rotariu, whose grandparents lived in Săveni and who went to cheder and had his bar mitzvah there, described traditional Jewish life to the Centropa archive: five or six places of prayer on different streets, services in the morning before work and in the evening, and prayer houses kept close to people’s homes. Only two were proper synagogues, one large and one small; the others were houses converted into prayer houses. His grandfather, Iancu Rotaru, was a blacksmith; his aunts and their husbands were strap-makers, clerks and craftsmen.

1941: Dorohoi County and the deportation to Transnistria

Between the two world wars Săveni was one of the towns of Dorohoi County. According to the Pinkas HaKehillot, in 1938 the county was attached administratively to Bukovina, and it was returned to Moldavia only in 1944. The consequences were deadly: the Jews of Bukovina were deported to Transnistria in the autumn of 1941, and the Jews of Dorohoi County were deported with them; according to the Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, Antonescu ordered their deportation soon after September 1941. The Jews of neighbouring Botoșani County, who also suffered forced labour and expropriation, were not deported as a community.

According to the Pinkas HaKehillot, when war with the Soviet Union broke out in June 1941 many Jews of the small towns around Dorohoi, Săveni among them, were expelled to the county seat. On 8 November 1941 the Jews of Săveni and Mihăileni were brought to the railway station, where about 6,000 people were gathered, 50 to 60 to a freight wagon. According to Rotariu’s testimony, his family was taken by cart to the station and from there by freight wagon to Mogilev on the Dniester, and “they didn’t give us food.” His little sister, Haia, died of starvation in 1941. Both sets of grandparents died in Transnistria.

According to the Pinkas HaKehillot, 10,368 Jews were deported from the whole of Dorohoi County. The first group left Transnistria on 20 December 1943, and by the end of that month 6,053 of them had returned. The Rotariu family came back through Dorohoi, lived there until 1946 and only then returned to Săveni, where they found the grandparents’ house destroyed.

After the war: a town without Jews

Most of the Jews who returned to Săveni left in the following years, the majority for Israel. A visitor from abroad who came in 2004 found the synagogue boarded up, with a metal Star of David on its dome. A neighbour told him the street was still called “the Jews’ Street”; the key-holder was a Jewish barber. In 2013 a local Jew, Aronel Cojocaru, told Jewish Heritage Europe that only two Jews were left in the town. According to the JewishGen survey, no Jews live in Săveni today.

The Great Synagogue: from house of prayer to restaurant

The list of synagogues of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania records a synagogue in Săveni at Strada I.C. Frimu 48 and dates it to the 20th century. It is not marked in the list as active. According to JTA, the Great Synagogue of Săveni was returned to the Federation in 2004. In 2013 the Federation described it as “in a condition of pre-collapse.” The town authorities demanded that it be repaired or demolished, and the Federation put it up for sale, but cancelled the sale when offers were low and it feared buyers would not preserve the building. All its interior fittings had already been taken to Bucharest.

In 2019 Jewish Heritage Europe and JTA reported that the building had been sold after all and was operating as a Romanian restaurant called Iris. According to JHE, most traces of the synagogue have been removed, though the women’s gallery appears to survive, and there is no sign on the building recalling its original use. Its date is disputed: the Federation and JHE in 2013 speak of the early 20th century, while JHE in 2019, citing the Center for Jewish Art, dates it to 1847 and calls it the Furriers’ (Cojocarilor) Synagogue.

The cemetery

The Jewish cemetery of Săveni appears in the Federation’s 2007 list of Jewish cemeteries. According to the JewishGen survey of 2001, it was founded in the 19th century and lies on a hillside in the town, covering about 200 by 400 metres. Between 500 and 5,000 stones remain, more than three-quarters of them toppled or broken, with Hebrew and Romanian inscriptions, portraits and iron decoration, and there is a memorial to Jewish soldiers. The last known burial was in 1993. The cemetery is walled with a locked gate, and at the time the key was held by a local caretaker.

Visiting

• Former synagogue: Strada I.C. Frimu 48, according to the Federation’s list. The building is privately owned and is a restaurant, which is not kosher. It can be seen from outside.
• Cemetery: locked. No visiting hours are published; visits by arrangement only.
• Arrangements: there is no community in Săveni. Jewish Community of Botoșani, Strada 1 Decembrie 54, according to the Federation.
• On the way: Săveni lies north-east of Botoșani and east of Dorohoi, and can be combined with Dorohoi, Darabani and Botoșani.