The Jews of Târgu Frumos: A Moldavian Market Town and the Grave of the Death Train

Târgu Frumos, a market town on the Bahlui River between Iași and Roman, was revived in the 18th century by Jewish settlers, and by the end of the 19th century Jews made up almost half its population. On 1 July 1941 the death train that left Iași after the pogrom stopped at its station, and hundreds of bodies were taken off and buried in the Jewish cemetery. The mass grave and the memorial over it are today the core of the town’s Jewish heritage.

A Town Rebuilt

According to Yad Vashem’s Pinkas HaKehillot Romania, a Jewish-owned inn already stood in the town in 1755. In 1763, when the town was in decline, the prince of Moldavia granted a charter promising tax exemptions to new settlers, most of whom were Jews. The charter was confirmed again in 1815, and more Jews arrived. They traded in grain, butter, honey, hides and flax at the weekly fair, and in the early 19th century they also held posts on the local council.

The community grew fast: 280 Jews in 1803, 1,258 in 1859 (31% of the population) and 2,123 in 1899, or 45.6% of the inhabitants. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, parliament refused for thirty years to recognise Târgu Frumos as a town, because Jews could not acquire real estate in a village, and recognition would have given them that right.

Synagogues and Rabbis

According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the town had the Great Synagogue of the merchants, founded in 1813, the Cobblers’ Synagogue of 1883 and the “Poor’s” Synagogue. All three stood for some years after the community dispersed. The town’s rabbis included Rabbi Shalom Taubes (1825–1888), author of the responsa She’ilat Shalom, who later moved to Botoșani. After him served Rabbi Eliezer Frisch and his son, Rabbi Efraim Frisch, who succeeded him in 1909.

The Peasant Revolt and the Interwar Years

During the peasant revolt of 1907, peasants looted Jewish homes and shops and the synagogue. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the homes of 59 families were damaged, and many Jews fled to Bukovina and Iași. Between the wars, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the town’s Jews traded in grain, cattle, timber, groceries and drink, and worked as tailors, cobblers, potters, bakers, furriers and smiths, alongside small manufacturers and doctors. In the same years antisemitism grew and many left. The Pinkas and the Encyclopaedia both tell of an attempt by students from Iași, followers of A. C. Cuza, to stir up riots in the town, an attempt stopped, according to the Encyclopaedia, by a Jewish self-defence group. In 1930, 1,608 Jews lived in Târgu Frumos.

1 July 1941: The Death Train

Târgu Frumos remained in Romania throughout the war, and its Jews suffered under the racial laws of the Antonescu regime. As early as autumn 1940 men aged 18–50 were sent to forced labour, many to the Tudoreni-Rechita camp near Botoșani.

After the Iași pogrom of the night of 28–29 June 1941, thousands of survivors were crammed into two sealed freight trains that left on 30 June. One of them, bound for Călărași, stopped at Târgu Frumos, where bodies being taken out of the wagons were photographed on 1 July. According to the Wiesel Commission, only 1,011 passengers reached Călărași alive. According to the Pinkas, the surviving passengers were taken to the synagogue, where policemen robbed them of their money, abused them and beat some to death. Local Jews from the labour units were ordered to dig a mass grave in the cemetery. About 650 Jews of Iași were buried in Târgu Frumos this way. Yahad-In Unum gives the figure 654, with the testimony of a local Roma man who dug the grave.

1944 and After

The local community ran an infirmary in one of its synagogues and, according to the Pinkas, supported 89 needy families. In spring 1944 the front reached the town. According to the Pinkas, after a Soviet unit entered on 8 June 1944 and was pushed back 36 hours later, Romanian soldiers killed about 15 Jews hiding in a cellar. Most of the town’s houses were destroyed in the fighting. In 1947 about 530 Jews lived there, but most moved to the big cities or emigrated to Israel. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the last Jew in the town died in 1998.

Visiting

• The Jewish cemetery: enclosed by a wall with a locked gate. According to a survey made in 2000 it holds hundreds to thousands of gravestones, the oldest from 1818, and a marked mass grave of the death-train victims.
• The memorial: over the mass grave. According to the survey of the US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, the cemeteries and memorials to the death-train victims at Podu Iloaiei and Târgu Frumos were restored in 2006.
• Arrangements: no hours are published. The cemetery belongs to the Jewish Community of Iași, according to the Federation’s list, and should be contacted in advance.
• Nearby: Iași (the Great Synagogue and the sites of the 1941 pogrom), Podu Iloaiei, Hârlău and Roman.