Bolhrad Jewish Cemetery

The cemetery of Bolhrad was founded no later than the second half of the 19th century. It appears on Russian maps published in 1923 with data from the 1870s. The cemetery is operational today.

It is known that the Jews were subjected to efforts of expulsion from Bolhrad town under Ottoman rule from 1856 to 1878. In the second half of the 19th century, the Jewish community had a cemetery and a Talmud Tora. In 1897, 1,196 Jews (10% of the total population) resided in Bolhrad. In 1903, the Birkut Holim society began functioning, as did a Jewish library in 1904. By 1910, three synagogues were operating in the town. From 1918 to 1920, self-defence detachments were created. The Jewish community provided guns for the self-defence units active in Tarutino, a village north-east of Bolhrad. From 1920 to the 1930s, a Hebrew school and separate departments of Jewish parties and movements were operating. In 1930, the Jewish population had increased to 1,222 individuals. Romanian forces occupied Bolhrad on July 20, 1941. During the first days of occupation, 400 Jews were murdered. On September 2, 1941, nearly 140 men were shot and 363 women and children were interned in the camp. In October 1941, they were deported to Transnistria. A monument to the victims of the Holocaust, including a Hebrew epigraph, was erected in 1959.