Transnistria, Romania, did not exist on a map. Yet that is where ten-year-old Felicia Steigman and her parents arrived in 1941, after a cruel deportation and death march overseen by Romanian Nazi collaborators. After surviving three years amid squalor, devastation and death, they finally returned to their pre-war idyllic hometown, Vatra Dornei, only to find their suffering being silenced. Decades later, Felicia was determined to commemorate the forgotten cemetery of Transnistria in a way that could not be ignored.

Felicia Carmelly was born in Vatra Dornei, Romania, on September 25, 1931. In 1959, Felicia and her family emigrated from communist Romania to Israel. Three years later they immigrated to Canada, where Felicia earned her master’s degree in social work. Felicia founded Toronto’s Transnistria Survivors’ Association in 1994 and published the anthology Shattered! 50 Years of Silence: History and Voices of the Tragedy in Romania and Transnistria in 1997. Felicia Carmelly lives in Toronto.

Felicia Carmelly's profile page