The History of Anti-Semitic Persecution in Rumania 1940-1944

[27] The sweeping persecution and terror wreaked on the Jewish population within the borders of Rumania was as violent and devastating as that of the other countries under Nazi power or influence. The holocaust in Rumania differed only in details of modus operandi and absolute and relative numbers of victims compared to countries where the Nazi persecution manifested itself in the most horrifying ways (Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary and Germany). The Rumanian massacres lacked technological and scientific organisation: there were neither gas chambers nor crematoriums to dispose of the bodies; the hair, teeth and fat of the victims were not utilised for industrial purposes. Rumanian fascism employed its own unique methods of extermination, which differed from the classic ones known since the invention of rope and gunpowder. Here, people were beaten until they lost all their strength and succumbed; they were suffocated in carriages with sealed ventilating holes; certain victims were sold, (the selected ones were shot out of marching columns so that their clothing could be sold); Jews were cut into pieces so that the axles of carts could be smeared with their blood; the list of crimes continues.

[28] Considering the many historical examples of thievery, Rumania, above all other nations and eras, can boast of the most terrible acts of pillaging.

During the period in question, Jewish property, which had been rendered almost non existent, was at the disposal of all those who desired it, from the Rumanian state to the pettiest thief. The criminals plundered, both highwaymen and ministers - the latter using different methods - but both criminals. Charitable people were not above such acts either. Jews were robbed to harm them, and also to save them from harm. They were robbed so that they could be killed, killed so that they could be robbed, and robbed because they had already been murdered anyway.

The extent of persecution in Rumania is reflected by two figures:

*Hungary was under German occupation, Rumania was not. (Publ.)

[29] Some statistical data on the Jewish population:

The above figures show that from September 6, 1940, when the Rumanian fascist dictatorship seized power, to May 20, 1942, when the national census of inhabitants of Jewish origin was taken, the number of Jewish citizens living within the borders of what was then Rumania (excluding Northern-Transylvania) had decreased by 315,6414 It is also [30] true that at that time (May 20, 1942), of the Jews deported to Transnistria in the autumn of 1941 and the first half of 1942, tens of thousands were still alive. Even though an official count was never taken, a report issued by the Ministry of the Interior dated November 1943 (5) revealed that as of September 1, 1943 the number of survivors was 50,741. Several thousand died or were killed after this date, and it is for this reason that, upon reoccupying Transnistria in March 1944, the Red Army found only 40-45,000 Jewish deportees living there. (This figure is based on approximate estimates, and not on official data.) However, if we accept the figure for survivors (50,741) given by the Ministry of the Interior, it is clear that 264,900 of the Jewish citizens of Rumania (excluding Northern-Transylvania) are unaccounted for, i.e. 43% of the then Jewish population. (6)

The above data also indicates that more than half of the victims - 166,497 people - died before September 1, 1941 or to be more precise, between the outbreak of the war June 22, 1941) and September 1, 1941, when the occupation of territories previously handed back in 1940 ended, and when those Jews still alive, were officially counted. The remaining figure of 100,000 approx. were either killed by the Iron Guard or during the pogrom in Iasi. They may have died on the roadside en route to concentration camps, or actually in the camps themselves due to misery, cold, hunger, disease and Rumanian-German fascist brutality.

Finally, the above figures prove that 121,270 Jews in Northern-Transylvania also died.

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