Historical Review

During the first week of the war started by Nazi Germany and its allies against the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, the most horrifying pogrom in the recent history of mankind was committed in Rumania. The large number of victims, the barbaric methods of torture and killing, the immeasurable robbery and destruction, the active participation in the pogrom in Iasi of every representative of the administrative authorities entrusted with the protection of citizens' lives and property on a local level, signify the culmination of those evil efforts which had been poisoning the minds of Rumanians for three quarters of a century; on a universal level, it opened history's most tragic chapter. It served as the sign giving the go-ahead for bloodbaths not only in Antonescu's Iron Guard dominated Rumania but throughout Nazi, fascist Europe, which was to claim six million Jewish lives in the following three years.

By 1941 the Teutonic extermination of Jews had not yet begun. The plans for crematoriums and gas chambers were only rough sketches in the most inhumane minds ever to appear on the face of the earth. Therefore, Iasi, the horrifying symbol of persecution, robbery and bloodbaths has no equivalent; Odessa, Golta, Katyn, Kiev, Maidanek, [122] Auschwitz, Belsen, etc. could be listed as comparisons, but Iasi preceded these by months or even years. If we were to look for parallels of sorts in the past we would have to turn back a large number of pages in the history books: we would have to take a giant leap back in time.

The roots of the pogrom in Iasi lie deep beneath the rotting system of Rumanian pseudo-democracy. This was not an outbreak of isolated passions, neither was it some sort of momentary lapse of reason. It did not come about through autogenesis in the beastly depths of some criminally disposed beings. It did not start on "that Sunday", June 29, 1941; nor did it start three days earlier, when the first murders were committed; not on June 22, when the war broke out; nor on September 6- one year earlier - when Ion Antonescu and his Iron Guard came to power, not even on December 27, 1938, when Charles II abandoned political hypocrisy, and left the fate of the country in the hands of the anti-Semitic government of Octavian Goga and A. C. Cuza. The roots of the pogrom in Iasi as well as the crimes, robberies and suffering inflicted up until August 23, 1944 can be found in the distant past, which - sometimes inadvertently, but in most cases intentionally - facilitated the uncurbed practice of spreading hostile propaganda as well as aiding tacitly tolerated incitement and an endless catalogue of unpunished abuse.

The officially anti-Semitic form of government, which started in 1867 and exerted an unswerving influence for half a century, and which forced on the nation the introduction of one hundred and ninety-six laws limiting the rights of Jewish citizens: inhumane expulsions from villages; [123] depriving people of their basic human rights (the right to citizenship, education, work, the right to occupy positions in the civil service, the right to undertake free-lance jobs, etc.); illegal expulsions; acts of hooliganism by the Anti-Semitic League; persecution during the war for a Greater Rumania; Jewish regiments in the first frontlines; the 1922 generation with its ominous moral and financial campaigns; disturbances and beatings at universities; the robbing and looting of Jewish synagogues and cemeteries; unpunished murders; Oradea, Borsa; the Numerus Valahicus; incitement in and expulsion from the Law Society; the Goga-Cuza government; the revival of an anti-Semitic form of government; the pogroms of June 1940; the jettisoning of Jews form moving trains; the legal status of Jews in August 1940; Antonescu and the Iron Guard system with its robberies and murders; discriminatory legislation, which raised the robbery and, finally, the Iron Guard revolt, which led to suffering and destruction, to the level of state dogma, - these were merely signposts on the endless road paving the way to annihilation.

Following these antecedents came World War II. As soon as the first day, or even before, the two Antonescus, along with their ministers and generals, decorated themselves with the wreathes of unremitting anti-Semitism, the leaves of which constituted a series of aggressive and oppressive measures. The eviction of Jews from small towns and villages, their cross-country transportation in closed freight cars under the pretext of ensuring the safety of territories behind the front line; the taking of Jewish, and exclusively Jewish, hostages, and their incarceration so that they could pay with their lives for any acts of terrorism or [124] sabotage; the sticking up of millions of posters inciting people to kill Jews and communists; the removal of their legal protection by forcing them to wear the medieval yellow star. These were the Rumania's fascist leaders following the outbreak of war. Their effect was not long coming. Under the skies of Rumania an atmosphere of suspicion, contempt and hatred was activated against anything Jewish. The Jews of Iasi were the ones to experience this the most acutely.

In Iasi people's consciences had been saturated and devoured by this poison for more than three quarters of a century. In the hometown of Xenopol and Vasile Conta, Nicolia Ionescu, Ciaur Aslan, A. C. Cusa and Cornileu Codreanu, the bastion of the National Christian Defence League, the cradle of the Iron Guard movement, it was only natural that the microbes could find the most suitable culture-medium and the most prudent and unassuming in the country, and transform them into a mob simmering with hatred.

The geographical and strategic location of the town contributed to the mob's restlessness. Close to the front, 16 km from the river Prut, the inhabitants of Iasi were conscious of being within the firing range of Soviet cannons, and aware that they were easy targets for Soviet aircraft. In addition, the idea of the heavy and destructive fighting spreading to the areas surrounding the town, or to the town itself terrified them. When it became known that the German-Rumanian attacks had been repelled by the skilfulness and courage of the Soviet infantry and armoured divisions near the Sculeni abutment, the restlessness turned to panic.

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Rumours, reports and alerts started to emanate from every local authority office - carefully rationed - attributing the shortcomings on the front line and the success of the Soviet airforce, in control of the air-space over Iasi, to the town's Jews. Within a short period of time, the unaccountably large number of corps officers, warrant officers, police superiors and ordinary officers were suggesting to the entire population of the town that the Jews were transmitting information to the enemy by radio, and signalling to Soviet pilots - who were Jews from Iasi themselves anyway - with bulbs built into chimneys, or with linen and clothing hung on clothes lines, to let them know where the targets were and which ones to attack, and finally, that they were hiding and supporting Soviet parachutists who were preparing to occupy the town.

The lunacy of this panic was complemented by the delirium of unbridled hatred. This was the moment when the signal for the pogrom was given.

The atrocities against the Jews, which began on Thursday afternoon and were repeated on Friday and Saturday morning, during which seven Jews were killed, many injured and several businesses looted and destroyed, subsequently culminated in the violence and destruction of the great pogrom, which began on Saturday night.

On that night, at around 9.00 p.m., following the signals from a German aircraft, heavy shooting started from guns and automatic weapons in almost every quarter of the town. At the same time, German and Rumanian military patrols, ordinary policemen, solitary soldiers or civilians recruited [126] from among the bourgeoisie, starting from the mob from pubs and dens all the way up to merchants, clerks, or intellectuals, forced their way into Jewish shelters and homes, carried out searches, tortured those inside, committed murders, and then collected most of the Jews, or at least every man, and dragged them to several collection sites. Most of the victims were taken to Police Headquarters, where by the morning 2,000 people were crammed, the number rising to 5-6,000 by midday, as a result of the continuous influx of new arrivals.

All day on Sunday, until twilight, those dragged to Police Headquarters were beaten and tortured with unprecedented cruelty. In the end, roughly one third of them were murdered. Without pity, shots were fired from all kinds of weapons into the group of people wailing with fear and pain. Pistols, carbines and automatic guns were positioned in front of them or behind them in the yard of Police Headquarters, at the doors and windows of the building as well as in neighbouring property. The torture and murder was carried out with the passive participation of all the military and civil authorities.

Everybody was there, from army division commander and county head to the last sergeant of the Gendarmerie or police officer...

Simultaneously with the bloodbath organized in the yard of the Police Headquarters, a great number of Jews were killed on Sunday in flats, cellars, yards and in the streets. The slaughter in the streets continued into the second or even third day.

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On the same night, on the initiative of local military authorities, and with the approval of senior governmental bodies, the approximately 4,500 survivors were taken in marching columns, amid barbaric acts of torture, to the railway station and put on two trains for the purposes of evacuation and internment in Podul Iloaiei and Targu Frumos, in the same county.

They were crammed in overcrowded carriages (at times as many as one hundred and fifty people in one box car), the doors were shut and, in many cases, even sealed, the vents were stuffed, there was no food, little air and no water, and they were fired upon any sudden movement. Consequently, almost two thirds of the evacuees died during the journey.

The exact number of the victims of the pogrom in Iasi will never be known. Even if this figure did not reach 12,000, as is believed by many, it is definitely over half of this number. During the trial, the number was put at 8,000.

Naturally, the fascist judiciary of the time did not take one single step to punish the beasts guilty of so many crimes. From among Antonescu's countless military and civilian judges and prosecutors, - who had not hesitated to sentence to death workers who, for one day, failed to show up for slave labour in "the public interest", or children who dared believe in a better future - not one could be found who, formally at least, would have been prepared to initiate legal proceedings for the purposes of punishing those responsible for the Iasi bloodbath.

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One of the first initiatives of the democratic faction of the Rumanian government after August 23 (August 23, 1944, the day Rumania switched sides) was concerned with the punishment of war criminals; the first among them were those who had prepared, organised and executed the pogrom in Iasi. However, the tireless efforts of Rumanian democracy came up against obstacles to justice and jurisdiction laid in the their path by the last remnants of fascist reactionary forces. Serious crimes concerning the highest circles prevented the People's Jury from fully carrying out its tasks. Wrapped in their crimson cloaks, these people were able to scheme and procrastinate freely in the labyrinth of legal volumes for almost three years.

It was only in June 1948 (...) that the sentencing of those responsible could commence with sincere intentions.

Fifty seven defendants were summoned before the Criminal Court (which included three people's judges) to answer for their terrible deeds; these included a general, formerly the commander of an army corps, and five colonels. The morally immaculate hearing continued for nearly two weeks, during which time the accused were unable to refute the incontrovertible evidence the prosecuting magistrate, whose aim it was to expose the entire truth, had gathered against them.

The final chapter of this tragedy ended with a sentence which was as much deliberated as it was just and severe.