An Outline of the Suffering of Rumanian Jews

(September 6, 1940 - August 23, 1944)

On June 29-30, 1941, at the Central Police Station, in streets, and in houses the police along with Rumanian and German soldiers killed several thousand Jews in Iasi. (14) Of those who survived the bloodbath, 4,400 were directed to a concentration camp in Wallachia on board two trains. The ventilation holes of each cattle wagon were sealed, and 150-180 people were pushed inside. Carbide had been left inside the wagons. During the journey two-thirds of the evacuees died as a result of inhaling the poisonous vapour. The brutal torture of the previous day coupled with a lack of water had decreased their physical resistance.

In Podul Iloaiei 1,194 bodies were unloaded from the first train after a distance of 20 km., covered in 12 hours. (16)

From the second train in Tirgu Frumos (40 km.) 650 (17), in Mircesti (85 km.) 327 (18), in Sabaoan (95 km.) 172 (19), in Roman (110 km.) 53, in Inotesti (370 kms..) 40 dead bodies (20), and in the last station in Calarasi-Ialomita (563 km.) 25 dead bodies, 69 dying and 1,011 persons who were still alive were unloaded. (21) Of the latter, 128 died at the camp in Calaras.'

As the Rumanian and German units advanced between June 22 and July 30,1941 in Bucovina and Bessarabia, almost the entire Jewish population living in villages was executed. In Noua Suliata 800 people were killed; in Herta 100 [32] hostages were killed and buried in three mass-graves; in Ciudei the entire Jewish population was exterminated (approx. 500 people); in Vijnita 21; in Rostochi 140; in Edineti 500, in Vascauti 20; in Harbova all 10 Jews; in Banila pe Siret "only" a few were killed, but they were cut to pieces so that the axles of carts could be smeared with their blood; in Hlinita and Drosnita 90% of the Jewish population was killed; in Parlit 10 Jews were murdered under circumstances so horrifying that even the German army were shocked, and lodged a complaint with the Rumanian Chiefs of Staff; (22) in Briceni and Lipcani the number of murdered could not be calculated; in Teura Noua 50 Jews were killed in circumstances that caused the German army to protest again (23); in Cotman 10 Jews (including the rabbi); in Lipcauti 40 were killed; in Ceplauti the entire Jewish population of 180 was exterminated; in Zoniachie 139; in Rapujinet 37; in Marculesti first 18 (including the rabbi), and two days later 600 Jews were murdered.

In the towns there large-scale mass-murders were performed with extreme brutality. In Storojineti, on the day of occupation (July 3), 300 Jews were killed, two days later 15 more; in Chernovitz on the day it was occupied July 6) more than 2,000 Jews were killed, a further 300 were shot dead two days later, as was the chief rabbi; in Hotin Jews lived on the outskirts, and on the first day of the occupation of the town (July 7) almost every Jew was murdered (approx. 2,000 people). Massacres still continued in the town for three more days.

On July 17, in Kishinev, alongside the two roads on which the Rumanian army forced its way into the town, more than 10,000 Jews were killed.

On July 11, in Balti, which had been occupied on June 9,10 Jewish hostages were shot dead by the Gestapo; on July [32] 15 another 56, along with all the elders of the religious community; on July 16, 20 more hostages were murdered.

The above figures are examples only from areas where it was possible to carry out inspections. The number of murders was much higher.

One example gives a more exact picture of the truth. In Balti county, according to official statistics, the Jewish population was 31,916. After the Rumanian and German armies had occupied the entire county, the chief military judge of the army informed General Headquarters on July 17, 1941 (24), that there were only 8,481 Jews left in the county, and that they had been gathered into three concentration camps. As the above-mentioned facts prove - based on the data of the official censuses and counts - 166,497 Jewish men, women, children and elderly people had died in Bessarabia and Bucovina by September 1, 1941.

Even though a certain sense of order came about following the cessation of military operations, the killing and slaughtering of Jews continued.

On August 1, a German lieutenant and three soldiers selected 411 Jewish intellectuals from the ghetto in Kishinev and shot them 2 kms.. from the town. (25)

On August 7 and 8,1941 a further 525 Jews were selected from the ghetto in Kishinev and taken to the railway station at Ghidighic. Only 200 returned. They claimed that the others had been killed.(26)

On August 6, 1941 members of the Kishinev police division executed 200 Jews, and threw them into the river Dniester.(27)

On August 9, 1941 gendarmes from the Chilia Legion shot 451 Jews in the camp at Tataresti. (28)

From among the starving, exhausted Jewish marching [34] columns, which wandered hither and thither under the command of the Northern Bessarabian authorities, many thousands were shot dead or drowned. In one such marching column, consisting of 25,000, which had been taken across the Dnyester to the Ukraine, and then back to Bessarabia, 4,000 died in three weeks.

A group consisting of 300 Jews, escorted by a sergeant and two gendarmes from Volcinet, was either shot into the water of the Dnyester, or drowned while crossing the river.(29)

In the concentration camps of Bessarabia, where Jews were rounded up before deportation (Secureni, Edineti, Vertujeni, Marculesti), several hundred died daily.(30)

Along the roads where deportees were escorted, several thousands died of exhaustion, illness, hunger and the cold weather. (September 1941 was the time of the camps in Bessarabia, October and November for those in Bucovina, Dorohoi county and the ghetto of Kishinev). In one of the marching columns, which had started from Edineti on the night of October 15 in a village called Corbu, 860 Jews froze to death, among them there were many women holding their children in their arms.

A number of people were killed by the gendarmes who escorted the marching columns. Under the orders of the Rumanian military authorities, those lagging behind were to be shot.(31) Certain Jews were sold to villagers. These were then shot dead so that the buyers could receive the clothes of the victims. During their first winter in Transnistria, approx. 50,000 of the Jews deported from Rumania died of cold, hunger, exhaustion and infectious diseases (typhoid, petechial typhus, dysentery, etc.).

Most of them, however, were killed. Just a few examples:

[35] In Grozdovca, in October 1941 deported Jews were randomly executed in groups of ten every day by Rumanian soldiers.

On December 19, 1941, the military judge of the Sargorod-Moghilev district caught a glimpse of six young Jews on the highway and ordered them shot. The execution took place in the village cemetery. The following day two more Jews were shot dead under the orders of the same judge, one because he was said to have stolen two kilos of sugar, the other because he had supposedly sold meat on the black-market.

On March 9, 1942, German soldiers stationed in the villages of Mostovoi and Zavadovca took 772 Jews from the camp at Cihrin (Berezovca county) and shot them on the outskirts of the village. (32)

On March 16, 1942, a group of 16 German soldiers (the SS unit stationed in Nova Candelli village in Berezovca county) took 120 Jews from the camp in Catousca, and killed them by shooting them in the head at the edge of the village.(33)

On April 4, 1942, in Rabnita 48 Jewish deportees were executed on the command of the leader of the Gendarmerie Legion for stepping out of the ghetto.

Between May 27 and 30, 1942, on the collective farm in Suha-Verba (Berezovca county) German military police from Lichtenfeld killed 1,200 Jews. (34)

On September 29, 1942, in Rastadt (Berezovca county) an SS group, lead. by an officer, shot dead 598 deported Jews from Bucharest, and in their efforts to round the number off, 400 local Jews were also killed (35)

On October 10, 1942, 80 children, 40 women and old [36]persons were selected from the camp at Ciricov, taken to a nearby forest and shot dead.

On the same day in the Krasnopolsk camp 80 Jews were shot dead: women, children and old people.

On October 14, 1942, in the camp in Ga Gaisen 230 Jews -women, old people, children - were executed.

On October 16, 1942, an Oberfeldwebel with some German soldiers took 150 Jewish girls from the camp of Peciora, all of them were hurt, some were even raped. They were later taken to the woods between Bar and Vinita, where they were shot dead.

On November 6, 1942, 1,000 deported Jews were killed in Ga Gaisen camp.

On the same day almost all Jews deported to Brailov were slaughtered. Two hundred and fifty of them succeeded in escaping, but within a month they were captured and later shot dead on December 5.

On January 5, 1943, under the pretext that they had escaped from the ghetto, 72 Jews deported to Iampol were shot dead.

On March 16, 1943 in Rabnita prison 68 people were slaughtered from among the deported communists. All of them were Jews.

The above enumerated events are only randomly selected examples from the enormous amount of murders committed by the German and Rumanian armies in Bucovina, Bessarabia and Transnistria.

[37]

Under the Iron Guard government, the Iron Guard police, Iron Guard units, and the Iron Guard Workers' Association were among the many groups which abused, tortured and terrorised thousands of Jews throughout the entire country.

People were beaten with clubs, iron bars, pizzles and other specially employed instruments of torture; victims were forced to lie on the floor or a table while four ogres beat them with wet rope working in unison like smiths forging iron "with four hammers"; people were beaten with glass, which broke on their bodies, and were then forced to lick the blood off the hands of their executioners or off the floor. They were fed with soap and if they objected, it was pushed down their throats with a pizzle. They were locked into fumigating chambers, and kept there until they suffocated or were scalded. People were forced to take laxatives in enormous quantities (100 grams of sodium-sulphate mixed with vinegar and petrol). They were kept inside for 70 hours to float in their own excrement. People were tied to "shame-poles", where children threw stones at them, and pulled their hair, etc.

Later a large number of Jews were beaten and tortured in details en route to labour service. The beatings were ordered by the highest ranking officers.(36)

Jews were also beaten in the Targu-Jiu concentration camp, in the camps and ghettos of Bessarabia and Bucovina, in marching columns, and on the trains which evacuated or deported them.

Jews suffered acutely during evacuations by train, when 150 people were packed into every carriage. [38] They were transported for six days in the heat of July, and were not allowed a drop f water. Occasionally the doors of the freight cars were opened, and water brought in buckets. However, the water was not for them to drink, it was poured on the tracks before the very eyes of the parched passengers.(37)

From the first days of the fascist government until the final hours before the collapse of the regime, the Jewish citizens of Rumania were robbed unremittingly on an unimaginable scale. Many people took part in these robberies from those of the lowest strata to the highest, including the authorities.

1. Robberies Committed by Members of the Iron Guard

Members of the Iron Guard committed large-scale and brutal looting. Acts of looting were carried out by individuals and organised bands with the support and encouragement of authorities whose duty in every civilised country is to safeguard the property and lives of its citizens. The main methods of robbery employed by the Iron Guard were the following:

(a) Iron Guard Aid: Through terror and torture, this supposedly charitable Iron Guard institution, robbed Jews of cash and goods worth hundreds of millions of lei. Such incidents were widespread in Piatra Neamt, Buhusi, Targu-Neamt, Iasi. In Bucharest the Lord Mayor's Office of the third [39] "Albastru" district was especially renowned for this activity. Similar acts also occurred in Ploiesti, Targovite.

The institution, founded at the peak of the terror, had little difficulty in achieving its aim. The intimidated and broken Jews succumbed easily to the frightening clubs and revolvers pointed at them. All Iron Guard social institutions were founded on Jewish wealth: Iron Guard co-operatives, Iron Guard eateries, Iron Guard shops, etc.

(b) The Confiscation of Business Premises and Shops: This operation, which started in October 1940, and continued until January 1941, was headed personally by the Deputy Executive President of the Council of Ministers, and overseen by the Ministry of the Interior. These measures affected the entire country, and their aim was to deprive Jews of their trade and property, both landed and industrial.(38)

Through fear and torture they succeeded in putting their hands on almost every Jewish business in Transylvania and Oltenia, except for Timiosara, and two firms in Craiova. Businesses were acquired for five to ten percent of their market value, and in ninety percent of cases this money was not even paid. Shops and many commercial and industrial firms were snatched up in Bucharest and other parts of the country (Turnu Ma Magurele, Constanta, Giurgiu, Slatina, Caesti, Urziceni, Calarasi, etc.) It is impossible to estimate the scale of these robberies.

(c) Burglaries: While the above operations were in progress, another smaller-scale activity was also taking place to remove belongings from Jewish homes. Similar means of torture and fear were applied to rob Jewish flats. Everything [40] was taken, down to the last chairs and pillows, not to mention substantial amounts of cash, large quantities of jewelry as well as art pieces and libraries.

(d) The Iron Guard Revolt: during the three days of the uprising, synagogues, Jewish institutions, businesses, and flats were robbed and set ablaze in Bucharest.

The Jewish citizens of the country, once removed from towns and villages were robbed. /.../ Carters and members of the Gendarmerie took all the valuables these poor people were able to carry. In many areas, such acts of looting were completed by locals with the blessing of the authorities. Everything was removed from uninhabited Jewish homes, even window frames and the tin from roofs. In some places, even tombstones were taken from Jewish cemeteries so that they could be used as steps at the entrances of houses.

At a later stage the state itself joined in this robbery by passing a law ordering an auction of evacuees' property, which was regarded as abandoned.

The robbing of deportees, carried out with bestial rage and insatiable avarice by the authorities (National Centre for Rumanianization, the National Bank of Rumania, County Halls, City Halls, etc.), officials in charge of deportations (officers, police inspectors, Gendarmes, police constables, [41] etc.) and the local Aryan citizens, was more serious and more destructive in its consequences.

Jews were robbed everywhere: when the occupying troops marched in, in concentration camps and ghettos, during the long and lonely wanderings of marching columns, while crossing the river Dnyester, and finally, in the camps and ghettos of Transnistria.

(a) Looting flats: /.../ What had been left behind by the occupying troops, was confiscated by the authorities since Jews were only allowed to take with them to the ghettos or camps as much as they could carry on their backs, and many times not even that. Aryan citizens were strictly forbidden to buy Jewish property. This crime was punishable by death. (39)

The leftovers of official plundering were removed at stations passed by Jewish deportees on their way towards "their land of endless Calvary". Most of them arrived there only "with what they were wearing" (40)

(b) Stealing cash, gold and jewellery: one of the decisions of the Rumanian National Bank, with the consent of higher authorities, obliged Jewish deportees to deposit their cash (lei and foreign currency), gold and jewellery in the bank. In return they were given Soviet rubles or Reichkreditkassenschein marks, which had no coverage (and were only valid in occupied territories). (41)

Exchange rates were calculated arbitrarily and with hostility, and ridiculously small amounts were paid.

(c) Stealing aid sent to deportees: The authorities - acting on the orders of Ion Antonescu - for a long time forbade the sending of individual or collective aid, which could have [42] eased the plight of deportees. In spite of the danger, on many occasions people attempted to send food, clothing, money or other items in secret. However, not even one hundredth of the parcels reached the addressees; either because of the ill-will of the "benevolent" people who undertook to transport them and later stole them, or due to especially alert guards, who confiscated all parcels discovered.

The extortion of pay-offs and "gratuity" payments was a widely used means of acquiring Jewish wealth. People, however loose their contact with offices or organisations dealing with Jews or Jewish property was, found themselves in a position to make the best use of their situation for personal gain. Jews had to pay smaller or larger sums, amounting as a whole to billions of lei, in order to obtain various services. However, in most cases they had to pay to prevent, mitigate or avoid suffering. Money was taken from Jews by ministers, senior secretaries, officers of higher and lower ranks, court judges and members of the administration, both senior and junior. The amounts paid were appallingly high. The sum asked for exemption from work for a couple of days could reach as high as 50,000 lei. Sometimes 200,000 lei was asked for permission to travel from one town to another; if someone wanted to move away because of their fear of bomb attacks, the amount of money required for permission was occasionally set at one million lei. For a booklet, certifying the holders' exemption from [43] obligatory work, in most cases 500,000 lei was paid; the price for bringing home families deported to Transnistria was sometimes as high as 5 million lei.

There were, however, many instances when money was acquired, and promises remained unfulfilled.

The bodies of Jews killed on the first night of the Iron Guard revolt, and of those who died in the overcrowded freight cars of Iasi, or perished on the roads of Transnistria were robbed. Clothing was pulled off their corpses, and their golden teeth were broken out of their mouths. (43)

Occasionally one or two Jews were taken out of a marching column of deportees. They were sold for 2-3000 lei to villagers, who killed them for their clothing and personal belongings.

Under provisions laid down in the expropriation act, the following became the property of the state without any compensation:

(a) The property of Jews living in the provinces, i.e. plough-land, hayfields, grazing ground, uncultivated areas, lakes, vineyards, country-mansions, parks, orchards, livestock- and poultry-breeding houses, bee-keeping farms, vegetable-gardens, flower gardens as well as all animate(43) and inanimate items of inventory, and supplies of grain and foodstuff;

(b) Forests under Jewish ownership, together with buildings, equipment, tools and rail-tracks; all types of mills, even those used in towns; country oil-mills and country textile mills along with the adjoining land, animate or inanimate items of inventory, finished products and raw materials; distilleries, even if they happened to be in towns, with their land, buildings, equipment, animate or inanimate items of inventory, finished products and raw materials; timber mills including land, buildings, equipment, etc.;

(c) Ships, boats and other floating vessels;

(d) Real estate in towns, including adjoining land;

(e) Film studios and printing plants

(f) Livestock-breeding farms, bakeries, equipment for pastry production; any type of secondary industrial establishments belonging to mills; distillation plants, first and second class distilleries and refineries, boilers of all categories for spirit distillation; industrial firms producing medicine and medicinal raw materials; rights to subsoil utilisation in areas where the topsoil was Jewish property; timber - in forests, stock or under transportation - owned by either the owner of the forest or the exploiter; animate or inanimate items of inventory related to the above-mentioned, and assets, equipment, rail-tracks, etc.;

(g) Shares in travel and tourist businesses owned by Jews;

[45]

(h) Directives were issued to facilitate the reclaiming of mortgages taken out on Jewish-owned real estate long before they were due;

(i) Goods, a large number of temples, synagogues and cemeteries owned by Jewish religious communities;

(j) All industrial and commercial businesses owned by Jews in Bessarabia and Bucovina

Confiscated by force of law or administrative measures:

• medical equipment owned by hospitals and private doctors (especially dentists and radiologists);
• radio equipment;
• bicycles;
• skis and ski equipment;
• the batteries, telescopes and cameras in some villages;
• the commercial and industrial businesses of owners found guilty of holding undisclosed property;
• National, German and Italian flags made by Jewish merchants and real-estate owners on order, and displayed on 10th May 1941; these were confiscated by police officers who roamed the streets of Bucharest on lorries to reclaim them. (44)

[46]

From the moment the Iron Guard came to power, they seized without payment:

While the Iron Guard were carrying out robberies and violent acts, the authorities and certain private individuals hunted Jews out of a large number of areas in the country - mostly Oltenia and Wallachia. This situation, created by the Iron Guard, remained the same even after their fall. In places where the violence of the Iron Guard manifested itself on a greater level (Targoviste, Giurgiu, Turnu Magurele, Caracal) not even 20% of the Jewish population, as of 6th September 1940, survived. Jews were also chased out of Panciu at the time of the earthquake on 10th November 1940.

During the reign of the Iron Guard, members of the Gendarmerie also banished Jews, especially from villages in the counties of Bihor and Suceava.

[47]

For two weeks following the outbreak of the war, Jews were evacuated from villages and almost every country town by order of the Leader of the State (45) More than forty thousand people were made homeless. Almost half of them were transported several hundred kilometers away - under horrible conditions - where they existed in misery for more than two months. Their situation did not improve during the war years, only a very small number of them were allowed to return to their town of origin.

During the reign of the Iron Guard Jews were already being sent individually to the concentration camp at Targu Jiu. Internment continued on a much larger scale following the outbreak of war. Entire populations were interned in certain areas (Constan, Siret, Darabani), in others (Galati, Ploiesti, Husi, Dorohoi) every healthy man, and in more (Piatra Neamt, Focsani, Felticeni, Buzau) most men were interned. (46)

X. Ghettos

At the beginning of August, following the occupation of Bessarabia and Bucovina, the survivors in these regions were collected from he Jewish communities, and placed in [48] five centres. Their numbers on 1st September 1941 were the following(47):

• in the ghettos of Secureni and Edine (Hotin county): 20,909;
• in the Marculesti ghetto (Soroca county): 10,737
• in the Vertujeni ghetto (Soroca county): 24,000
• in the town of Chernovitz: 49,497. (48)

Between September 1941 and October 1942 one third of the surviving Jewish population of the country was deported beyond the Dnyester. The property of deportees was either confiscated, robbed or destroyed. The circumstances in which the deportation took place led to the death of large numbers en route. Half of those who arrived at the concentration camps and ghettos of Transnistria perished during the first winter. The survivors lived in the most miserable conditions imaginable; they were surrounded by illness, hunger and other hardships; they suffered the terror of never-ending harassment, and feared death every moment.

Even before the Iron Guard system, the creation of a legal status for Jews, ensured their exclusion from most possible posts.

[49]

(a) In The Field of Freelance Work

The right to practice was withdrawn - with few exceptions - from Jewish lawyers, engineers, architects, journalists, consultants and pharmacists. The law regulating the practice of medicine strictly limited the field of practice for Jewish doctors.

(b) In: State-run and Private Companies

With the application of the Iron Guard law ordering the Rumanianization of company employees, strong actions were taken to ensure the dismissal of Jewish officials from private companies. (49)

All Jewish public officials had already been dismissed as a result of their new legal status.

(c) Craftsmen

The certificates of trade, work-books, and contracts of Jewish apprentice craftsmen were invalidated by the Ministry of Labour with unduly Draconian - and in a large number of cases unlawful - directives.

Although some craftsmen were able to safeguard their right to work through concessions, such arrangements were illusory, since the apprentices in question had to spend almost all of their time in labour service anyway.

(d) In: The Fields of Commerce and industry

The sphere of economic activities involving Jews, which had been severely reduced as a consequence of their new legal [50] status, was diminished further as a result of a series of decrees. They were expelled from the boards of public limited companies; barred from commercial activities in villages; prevented from merchandising alcoholic drinks; prohibited from selling official forms in the Rumanian language; from trading in leather, iron, grain; from working in the tourist and travel industry, and film industry, etc. With the help of the law on company registration, it became possible to refuse registration to all Jewish firms. The most was made of this opportunity.

The autumn of 1940 witnessed the beginning of Jews used as "labour for public use" under the orders of county heads and mayors (later a separate decree referred to this as "obligatory labour"). It became a legal obligation in December 1940, and was organised under the supervision of the army from 1st August, 1941. (50) For the following three years, almost without respite (the only considerable break took place in the winter of 1941/42) more than 150,000 Jews - men and women - were forced to carry out difficult, and often completely exhausting work on roads, railway lines and quarries. They had to sweep streets, clear snow, remove the dead and wounded from debris following bomb attacks, defuse unexploded devices, etc. Although the law imposed obligatory work only for those between the ages of 18 and 50, administrative abuses extended the age limit in both directions, and children of sixteen and old people over seventy were also among those forced into labour.

[51] Jews driven into labour service found themselves constantly under the threat of severe punishment, ranging from corporal punishment to deportation - to Transnistria - of family members, and death. (51)

The Jews, who had been deprived of the right to work, and impoverished as a result of the above-mentioned litany of burdens and suffering, were also forced to bear financial sacrifices, some of which have already been enumerated in the first section of this chapter.

Throughout the four-year period, a complete series of directives was introduced, through both legal and administrative means. These competed with one another to increase the oppression and misery of Jews, and contributed further to their impoverishment.

The Iron Guard organised the boycott of Jewish enterprises, signs saying "Jewish shop" were put on them, and armed Iron Guard members blocked the entrances to shops to prevent people from going inside.

The Iron Guard government barred all Jewish students from state schools and universities.

It was forbidden for Jews to own radios; to employ Christian servants; shop at markets at certain hours; to walk [52] in the streets of various towns at certain times of day; to go to swimming pools or baths; to frequent certain restaurants; to travel from one town to another; to buy directly from peasants, etc.

In some towns Jews had to wear signs to distinguish them from other residents. This was the source of many serious incidents, paralysing the activities of those who might still have had a chance. (52)

The food stamps of Jews were marked to be valid for decreased portions, often twenty per cent of their original value. For certain foodstuffs, especially flour and corn products, Jews were not provided with any rations at all. For a long time Jews had to pay twice as much for bread as the rest of the population.

Those Jews living on expropriated Jewish property had to pay a higher rent at first than the other tenants; later they were legally barred from extending their tenure, and forcibly evicted without exception; including former owners, against whom expropriation laws had not been introduced. Jews living on the property of Christian owners were generally barred from extending their tenure until April 1943, and it was left to them to choose between an arbitrarily increased rent or eviction.

Centuries-old Jewish cemeteries (in Bucharest, Iasi, Buzau, Moineti, Siret, etc.) were destroyed, bones removed, and gravestones either discarded or used to pave roads and yards.

The responsibility for the cruel and terrible acts against the Jewish population lies with the Rumanian government, and personally with Ion Antonescu and his two governments, as well as part of the Rumanian nation, especially the small-town petit bourgeoisie, which included the administrative [53] apparatus, the army, the press, the judicial establishment, the clergy, teachers, guilds, free-lancers, and members of the business community.

1. With their relentless propaganda and manipulated press they contributed to the formation of an atmosphere which provided unlimited opportunities for bloodbaths and looting.
2. Their unholy decrees and administration tolerated and supported robberies, murders and other lawless activities committed by the Iron Guard regime.
3. Through their introduction of a law providing for the expropriation of property, they organised the theft of Jewish property.
4. They ordered the eviction of the Jewish population from villages and towns, thus forcing Jews towards the path of hopeless flight and annihilation.
5. They tolerated and encouraged the atrocities committed by invading armies, which resulted in the slaughter of 150,000 Jews.
6. With a devious communiqué they hypocritically instigated the bloodbath in Iasi on 29 and 30 June 1941.
7. They ordered the deportations in Bessarabia and Bucovina, during which two thirds of the Jewish population, who had survived the bloodbaths of these regions, perished. Aiding deportees was prohibited for a long time, and won the approval of the authorities only when the epidemics, which had begun to rage in the camps, threatened to endanger the rest of the population.
8. [54] The seizure of deportees' property was at first tolerated and later legalised.
9. Bloody retaliation was ordered and executed. Following an explosion in Odessa, which was claimed to have been sabotage, more than 20,000 innocent people, the majority of whom were Jewish, were killed.
10. Labour service was legally introduced and ordered. In the course of three years more than 150,000 people (men, women, children and the elderly) were forcibly dragged away for the purposes of compulsory slave labour.
11. Obligatory fees and contributions of considerable amounts were legally imposed on impoverished Jews to squeeze even more money out of them.
12. Almost the entire Jewish population was deprived of one of the basic human rights: the right to work.
13. Jewish students were barred from all the universities in the country; driven out of every state school and Christian private school; and an attempt was made to abolish Jewish schools altogether.
14. The spirit and practice of Hitler's laws were introduced into Rumanian legislation.
15. The traditional elders of Jewish religious communities were removed and replaced by a police organisation modelled on the German system introduced in occupied Europe. Its aim was to cleanse Rumania of Jews.
16. The death penalty was introduced for certain crimes if they were committed by Jews; this applied to children as young as fifteen. (53)
17. For four years Jews lived in an atmosphere of panic and terror, which mentally and physically eroded those who had managed to survive the bloodbaths.

[55]

II. The administrative apparatus of the country, with its traditional desire to persecute the weak, especially Jews, obediently executed the anti-Semitic commands and decrees of guilty state legislators. It often stepped outside the framework of these directives, or even acted against central orders so as to increase the intensity of this persecution by acting on its own initiative.

Among the most guilty members of the administrative apparatus were the governors of occupied territories (Bessarabia, Bucovina and Transnistria) (54), and county heads working as their subordinates;

The governors were guilty of and responsible for the organisation and execution of deportations as well as the misery, terror and starvation to which deportees were subjected.

Members of the first - Iron Guard - group of county heads were rivals in creating and sustaining an atmosphere of panic and terror, and contenders in the violent robbery of Jews. The members of the second group, almost without exception, were officers who diligently, and frequently with extreme zeal, executed the series of shocking measures introduced at the outbreak of war: evacuations from villages and towns; the arrest and internment of hostages; the compulsory display of distinguishing signs; the organisation of the first labour service squads; curfews; the restriction of shopping time at markets; restriction of movement, and the confinement of Jews to certain districts.

Mayors and police chiefs played major roles in the persecution of Jews.

III. The army had always been the bastion of anti-Semitism. Rumanian pseudo-democracy must be held accountable for supporting and spreading the hatred, with which the national elite regarded Jewish citizens and democratic, progressive tendencies.

Both the Iron Guard movement and the war itself helped strengthen this violently and barbarically manifested hatred, with its terrible consequences. A pretext was advanced that Jews supposedly insulted and offended the army during its withdrawal from territories given-up in 1940. The Rumanian army, upon re-occupation of these territories in the same year, wreaked foul revenge; with savage anger, over a period of weeks, more than 150,000 Jews - men, women, the elderly and children - were exterminated. With an insatiable thirst for blood, they launched attacks on innocent people. These were their military operations. An incredibly large amount represented itself in the band of uniformed criminals from the rank and file of the army, from chief commanders to privates.

The army played a detestable part in both the organisation and supervision of Jewish slave labour, and the planning and direction of deportations in 1941; in the preparation and partial execution of the mass deportations in the autumn of 1942, and in the application of several anti-Semitic measures in areas close to the front (distinguishing signs, expulsions from villages, travel restrictions, etc.).

IV. Even though members of the judiciary cannot be listed among those who would literally have been guilty of war crimes, and while some of them attempted to uphold the [57] fundamental principles of the law, when the persecution began, they showed a complete cessation of jurisdiction, and completely vanished from the scene at the time of the Iron Guard terror. However, they were tremendously alert and persistent - literally, and even more so - in the application of racist laws. Since the Iron Guard movement had a strong influence on it, primarily on the younger cadres, it played an important role in the development of this movement, especially with the fact that it guaranteed immunity for every unlawful act committed before 1940.

Large numbers of judges - and officers - were the beneficiaries of racist laws; they were primarily involved in the expulsion of Jews from their homes so that they themselves could become the new occupants.

V. The press completely and unreservedly placed itself at the disposal of the fascist dictatorship. The system protected it by silencing, through bans and intimidation, all newspapers and journalists displaying opposition, objectivity, or even reservations concerning the activities of the government. The press, in its entirety; with remarkable zeal, undertook the unholy role of poisoning public opinion. Through its constant perpetuation of smear campaigns and hatred, it incited people to rob and murder. Its creation of such a gloomy atmosphere aided the criminal activities of the government. While cataloguing the organs and journalists involved would be pointless, it would not be an overstatement, however, to accuse the press, between 1940 and 1944, of being the most important agent - a genuine fifth column of Rumanian Nazi and anti-Semitic propaganda.

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VI. Priests and teachers played an important role in poisoning the minds of the masses. From their pulpits and desks they propagated the hatred which later led to bloody massacres and horrifying robberies. Many priests and teachers personally took part in and were the beneficiaries of acts of robbery and murder.

VII. Societies and guilds, with few exceptions, along with free-lance workers, displayed their disgusting opportunism; they profited enormously from the boom created by political prosperity.

Directly following the fascist dictatorship's seizure of power in Rumania, almost all public and private bodies which represented any community in whatever capacity, professional, scientific, cultural, or other, attempted in earnest, beginning with the swift expulsion of Jews, to prove their ability to adapt to the new regime. Their number is an indication of how the Rumanian intelligentsia behaved on an institutional level.

The only professional body which still endorsed the activities of its Jewish members was the Board of Physicians. However, Jewish doctors were later ghettoised following their expulsion from the medical community. Medical practice was also strictly organised along racist ethnic lines; Jewish doctors were forbidden to treat Christian patients and vice versa.

VIII. The merchant class, a major beneficiary of the anti-Semitic regime and new boom, was at the forefront of the early stages of the persecution.

[59] The Iron Guard plunder was always shared in a brotherly fashion between merchants (the instigators hiding behind the scenes) and the bandits who committed the crimes. The first economic measures taken against Jews - always justified as the necessary safeguarding of Rumanian interests - were always debated and decided in the witches' den of Rumanian merchants. Following each new measure which excluded a certain group of Jewish merchants from commercial life or facilitated the continuation of their activities, benefactors appeared offering to protect the Jewish firms with their Aryan shields. The majority of these benefactors, who prospered at the expense of Jews, behaved despicably when the subject of returning some of the goods entrusted to them arose.

***

This was what the terror and persecution wreaked against Jews looked like in Rumania. It had its beginnings in the lunatic instincts of the enemies of mankind. It was initiated and ordered by the criminal leaders of the state, executed and supported by a section of the Rumanian nation. Even though this section of society was not the majority, if we take into consideration their mentality and the times they lived in, it was the most typical.

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