An Account from Transnistria: The Diary of Lipman Kunstadt, a Social Critic from Within

This chapter centres on social critique in the diary of Lipmann Kunstadt, who was deported from, Rădăuţi Romania, to Djurin, in Transnistria. The diary, kept from April 1942 to September 1944, comprises five hand written notebooks in Yiddish. As secretary of the Jewish council in Djurin, Kunstadt was familiar with the council’s policies and the problems of the population that approached the council for solutions. The chapter focuses on: 1.social and economic relations among deportees from different regions of Romania and between them and the local Jews;2.the personalities of the Jewish council and the council’s strategies to protect and improve the lives of the diverse groups in the ghetto. Djurin under Romanian rule had a mixed population of Ukrainians, Ukrainian Jews, and deportees from Bessarabia and Southern Bukovina—a complex social environment of people who often had no common language. Pursuant to its radical policy, the Romanian government established a system of ghettos and camps, in which masses of Jews perished. The Romanians’ notorious corruption enabled the Jews to manoeuvre between the deadly policy and the local military command. The diary describes life in Djurin within the broad perspective of Transnistria and the war.