The annexing of Bessarabia by the USSR on June 26-28, 1940 and its transformation into the Moldavian SSR, the subsequent returning of this territory to Romania during 1941-1944 and, ultimately, its re-annexing in August 1944 have created a confusing outlook on the issue of identity and treatment of Moldovan War Prisoners from the Romanian army during Second World War. On one hand, the Romanian state viewed them as Romanians and citizens of Romania, while, on the other hand, soviet authorities treated them as Moldovans and Soviet citizens. Although, at fi rst, few Romanian prisoners descending from Bessarabia declared themselves as Moldovans, subsequently, towards the end of the war, their number has risen signifi cantly to the order of thousands. The preference towards said identity was due to opportunistic reasons, out of the desire of being treated as soviet citizens and not being identifi ed as Romanian citizens. This confusion also persists in the soviet registration documents, in which these people were registered diff erently as Romanians, Moldovans, Bessarabians, coming from Romania, Bessarabia or the Moldavian SSR. Subsequently, this issue was complicated by the evolution of the Moldavian SSR under the USSR, which, in general, mentioned the contribution of the Moldovans in the victory over fascism and was made to embarrass the acknowledgement of Moldovan prisoners of war within the Romanian army, a tendency which has regretfully continued under the Republic of Moldova’s period of independence. Thus, the article is an initial eff ort and a fi rst attempt to bring the theme of such prisoners to the attention of the public and to generate a debate around the issue of the Moldovan POW.