Iași Train Station

The station was built in 1870, with a beautiful loggia in a Venetian Gothic style. In 1877, the Russian Tsar Alexander II was received here with honours on the eve of the Independence War. In November 1916, the royal family of Romania arrived at the station, leaving behind the occupied Bucharest. On June 29th and 30th, 1941 around 4400 Jews were sent to the station and loaded into “death trains” headed to Târgu Frumos and Călărași, in inhumane conditions. This sad episode, which resulted in the death of 2700 people, is marked near the Yellow Ravine in the “Martyr Jews of the Pogrom of June 1941 Square”. Instead, the “Righteous Among the Nations Square” pays homage to locals who saved Jews, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. The station was damaged in 1944, then rebuilt in a Soviet style and brought back to its initial form in 2000. (PHOTO : USHMM, Serviciul Român de Informații)