In Europe's Shadow by Robert D. Kaplan

Author:Robert D. Kaplan [Kaplan, Robert D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-02-09T05:00:00+00:00

That was only four months following Ceauşescu’s downfall. The Traian now boasted the latest fixtures and amenities, with remodeled bathrooms and a brand-new lobby in a pseudo-European global style. The service was of an international standard, even though it was not a chain hotel. Whereas in 1990 there was a depressed and decadent aura to the place, now it was simply sterile. The Hotel Unirea, next door, which I had once described as a “veritable flophouse,” was now all gussied up in a Day-Glo garish style, with a rooftop restaurant.19 Jassy was far from having become a trendy destination, stranded as it was in Romania’s northeast, hard up against the border with Moldova, a country undermined by Putinism as well as by tensions between Romanians and Russians. There was still no Hyatt, Hilton, or Sheraton here. Cuza’s city was very much a work in progress, an indication, yet again, of Romania’s challenging geography. For Jassy to truly come into its own and more demonstrably retire the demons of the past, Moldova, which dominates Romania’s long eastern border along the Prut—only ten miles from here—would itself have to normalize. And that was unlikely so long as Russia remained an illiberal state.

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JASSY’S GREAT SYNAGOGUE WAS a furious construction site. I counted two dozen workers in hard hats, every one of them banging or drilling or scurrying around. Nobody was standing around chatting or drinking coffee, as construction workers are apt to do. The original building dated to 1580, and the latest one had its foundation damaged in a 1977 earthquake. Though almost the entire edifice was underneath scaffolding, the multitiered dome and Star of David, as well as some of the magnificent brickwork, peeked through. The project was being funded by the Ministry of Culture, with encouragement from the European Union. Next to the synagogue was a short marble obelisk of very recent vintage engraved with a burning menorah. The words in Romanian, English, and Hebrew read: “In memory of over 13,000 Jews, innocent victims of the Jassy Pogrom of June 28–30, 1941, during the Ion Antonescu regime. We will not forget!” Local traffic whirred all around, oblivious to the words. I was aware how alone I was.

The Jewish cemetery of Jassy occupies one of the highest spots in the city. It is quite literally vast, crowded as it is with graves for hundreds of yards in different directions. An old woman with a dirty ball cap, who seemed a bit deranged, helped by a gang of dogs, guarded the cemetery. It was so overgrown with weeds that, except for certain areas, it left a scandalously derelict and frightening impression. A virtual army of gravestones—wide rows and rows of them—marked the burial sites of local Jewish military heroes who died fighting for Romania in World War I. Adjacent were four long rows of massive cement slabs with Stars of David, symbolically marking the graves of the victims of the Jassy Pogrom. As a plaque read: the victims were starved and suffocated in

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