Bârlad Ghetto

The Bârlad Ghetto (Hebrew: גטו ברלאד; Romanian: Ghetoul Bârlad) was one of the open ghettos in Romania during the Holocaust. The ghetto was active between 1940 and 1943, and in 1942, at its peak, it had 3,224 Jews. Jews from neighboring towns such as Puiești were brought to this ghetto.

Background

Since the beginning of Jewish presence in Bârlad in the second half of the 17th century until World War II, many pogroms were carried out against the Jews who settled there, and there were even organizations that incited protests against the Jews.

One of the pogroms was in 1868, and when Moses Montefiore learned of it, he sent a letter to Prince Carol I, who promised him that things would change, and the Jews who were harmed would receive compensation for the damage according to the assessment of the judges. However, this did not happen, and the pogroms against the Jews continued.

At the end of the 19th century, the economic situation of the Jewish population worsened due to persecutions, which mainly affected brokers and merchants. The Romanian merchants in Bârlad opposed the discrimination against their Jewish colleagues, and in 1898, they submitted a protest to the Ministry of Commerce in Bucharest against the decision of the local Chamber of Commerce to act to remove the Jewish brokers. In the fall of 1899, emigration from Bârlad increased, and the total number of Jewish emigrants from Bârlad between 1899 and 1902 reached 600.

In 1907, an antisemitic circle was founded by teachers, priests, and political leaders, the purpose of which was to incite its students to attack Jews.