Memorial to the Victims of Fascism

This deeply moving memorial stands on the site of a large burial place of civilians — victims of the German-Romanian occupation during the Second World War. According to various estimates, approximately 18,500 civilians from Chisinau, Tiraspol, Rybnitsa, Grigoriopol, Dubossary, Balta, Krasnye Okny and surrounding villages were buried here — a staggering number that speaks to the devastating scale of fascist atrocities carried out on the territory of the Moldavian SSR.

In 1949, a typical Soviet monument was erected at the site of the executions, followed in the 1950s by the construction of a broader memorial complex. The initial project for this complex was developed by Semyon Shoikhet, a celebrated architect from Dubossary whose work on memorial architecture is found at numerous significant sites throughout the region.

In 2017, the memorial was enriched with the addition of a sculpture titled “Requiem,” depicting the silhouette of a praying Jew draped in a tallit — the traditional scarf used during Jewish prayer ceremonies. The pedestal beneath this figure bears a haunting three-word question inscribed in Russian, English and Yiddish: “For what?” — a simple yet devastating inquiry that encapsulates the incomprehensible injustice of the lives lost at this site, and ensures that every visitor leaves carrying something of the weight of this history with them.

Address: 22a, Z. Kosmodemyanskaya str., Dubossary