Tag #149551 - Interview #102205 (David Wainshelboim)

Kishinev was a rather big town, when I was a child. It had a Moldovan, Russian, Jewish, Greek, Armenian, Bulgarian, Polish population. We lived in the Jewish area in the central part of the town. Jews were involved in crafts and trades. There were also Jewish doctors and lawyers. According to some data Jews constituted about 80,000 before the Great Patriotic War [Editor’s note: In 1930 the 41,405 Jews living in Kishinev constituted over 36 percent of the total population numbering 114,896. Under Soviet rule, from July 1940 to July 1941, the number of Jews in the city increased to an estimated 60,000.]. There were up to 65 synagogues and prayer houses in the town. Besides religious establishments there were Jewish schools for boys and girls, children’s homes for orphan children and children from poor families, elderly people’s homes, a Jewish hospital and a developed charity network. Young Jewish people were fond of Zionist ideas.