2018, 38th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, WARSAW, 5-10 August

Related to: General Bessarabia, 

Welcome to Bessarabia corner at Warsaw Conference!

We invited to the conference a guest speaker

Serghei Daniliuc, resident of Moldova,
photographer, researcher and
a good friend of Bessarabia SIG!

Please see the abstracts and slides used at the presentations in pdf format and power point format. Last updated at August 21, 2018

SHARE Fair - Sunday, August 5. This is the place where every region (SIG) has a table and people are asking questions, get a sense about the regions, where our ancestors lived. Also there are several companies, museums, archives who can help in genealogical research.
Bessarabia SIG had a table with maps, resorce material for our region. Some people did not know where Bessarabia was, others we met many times in different parts of the world. Thanks a lot to Myra Waddell who helped at our Bessarabia Table.

Moldovan Archives: What information we can find in addition to Vital records and Revision Lists - Monday, August 6 Yefim K.
Bessarabia SIG translated more than 300,000 Vital records and Revision lists from the Moldovan Archives. Most of the records we received are from FHL, Salt-Lake City. Recently found that there are many different types of records available at the Moldovan Archives in Kishinev, such as Land records, School records, Police interrogations, Border patrol records, and more. We have samples some of the records and will present them to our members.

We have to start new projects of getting additional records from Moldovan Archives. It will require people to contact the Archive Administration in Moldova, coordinate new records, translate material, develop new databases for different documents/records, and more.

There are also documents on Bessarabian Jews at St.Petersburg and Moscow archives, Russia. We may also be able to get some of them. The question we should answer is what records are most important for us personally and as a group to acquire.

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Bessarabia SIG Meeting - Monday, August 6.
The meeting is open to anyone with roots or interest in the region historically known as Bessarabia, an area now comprising the Moldova Republic and parts of Ukraine. At the end of the 19th century and before the War, Bessarabia had significant Jewish presence. The Bessarabia SIG was organized at the end of 2011 to help people in their Bessarabian genealogical research.

Here are the topics we are going to discuss at the meeting:

• Progress Report
• Participant's comments on work of Bessarabia SIG, and on particular projects
• New ideas of what our SIG can do better
• Conversation with our guest Serghei Daniliuc

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Jewish Shtetl in Moldova without Jews: How the Jewish Past can be remembered. - Wednesday, August 8, Serghei D., Yefim K.
Causeni – a small town in the modern Moldova Republic. Once a Jewish shtetl, it had many synagogues, heders, stores and workshops, old and new cemeteries.

In the 20th century – a century of bloody and devastating wars – much has changed. Many Jews have been killed in the Holocaust, many fled the town at the beginning of the Second World War on the territory of the Soviet Union, and a few remaining left later in 70s-80s.

Jews do not live in Causeni anymore and the memory of them and their contribution is gradually fading away.

As a result of research work, a number of Jewish artifacts were found in last 10 years in and around town: the Mass Grave, where Jews were killed by Romanians and Moldovans in 1941, several pieces of gravestones, and more. What can we do to preserve the memory of Jewish life in shtetl?

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Jewish Cemeteries in Bessarabia/Moldova: Current Status and Future Projects - Wednesday, August 8, Serghei D., Yefim K.
I am from Causeni, Moldova, which once was a place where Jews used to live. The town had two Jewish cemeteries, both are destroyed. I became interested in Jewish Cemeteries in the region when I started to work with JewishGen/Bessarabia SIG with Yefim Kogan to research and photograph tombstones. I started in 2012 and this year worked on Vadul-Rashkov, Rashkov, Belgorod-Dnestrovskiy. There are total of 73 cemeteries in the region and I believe I was on 35 of them. There are many problems working at the cemeteries: the roads are in bad condition, parts of the cemeteries cannot be accessed, and in some before photographing I had to use chainsaw and axe.

Yefim Kogan at JewishGen is starting series of projects to clear paths and clean up cemeteries from bushes and trees. The first such project is going to be in Brichani, followed by Lipkani, Ataki and others.

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