 |
High on a hill overlooking the village of Ieud, this old Jewish cemetery is a reminder that Maramures once had a substantial Jewish population. In 1924 there were about 800,000 Jews in Maramures, Bucovina and Bessarabia. At that time Romania was one of the few places in the world where Jews could own land and have their own communities. Even after World War II there were still about 450,000 Jews in Romania. Stalin, who was notoriously anti-Semitic, turned the government against the Jews. Later, Nicolae Ceausescu effectively sold Jews to Israel for the price of an exit visa (about $3,000). By 1989 300,000 had left and only 12,000 Jews remain today. |