B’nai B’rith International commends Moldova’s parliament for its recognition of the country’s Holocaust victims.

A report, published in 2004, estimated that 45,000 to 60,000 Jews were killed in 1941, in what is now the country of Moldova. The report also stated that 105,000 to 120,000 Jews died after being sent to Transnistrian region.

The compendium of Holocaust findings was overseen by the late Elie Wiesel, who chaired a commission of scholars and other experts, including B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin. The commission focused on the Holocaust in wartime Romania and on territory that constitutes present-day Moldova.

On July 22, the Moldova government denounced the “persecution and extermination of Jews.”

Shoah victims deserve the respect of being remembered and commemorated. With anti-Semitism on the rise, this is an important acknowledgement not only for the Jewish people in Moldova, but for Holocaust survivors and their families and for Jews around the world, reads a release issued by the the oldest Jewish service organization in the world.