The Holocaust (The History of the Jews in Romania, 4) by Radu Ioanid

Author:Radu Ioanid [Ioanid, Radu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789653380486
Amazon: 9653380486
Publisher: Tel Aviv University
Published: 2002-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

It is difficult to arrive at an accurate figure for the number of Jews murdered by the Romanian and German armies in Bessarabia and Bukovina because it is unclear how many were deported from the two provinces between July 1940 and June 1941 by the Soviets and how many of them had withdrawn with the Red Army or with the Soviet civilian authorities. The last Romanian census prior to World War II (1930) gave a figure of 756,930 Jews—at that time the third largest Jewish community in Europe. Of these, 205,958 lived in Bessarabia, 7.2 percent of the regional population; and 107,975 lived in Bukovina, 10.9 percent of that region’s population. Hence, approximately 315,000 Jews lived in Bessarabia and Bukovina in 1930. According to estimates from the Romanian Central Institute of Statistics, 278,943 Jews were included in the population of the USSR as a result of its occupation of Bessarabia and Bukovina.306 The difference of 36,000 may reflect the number of Jews who lived in Southern Bukovina (which remained Romanian), as well as certain demographic modifications (e.g., migrations, differences between births and deaths). In Dorohoi District, later incorporated in Bukovina, there still lived fifteen thousand Jews. Tens of thousands of Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina were killed during July and August 1941; on September 1, 1941, officials counted 126,634 still alive.307

According to the estimates of Matatias Carp and Jean Ancel, during July and August 1941, about 150,000 Romanian Jews were killed in Bessarabia, Bukovina, Herta, and Dorohoi.308 As Carp acknowledged:

We might object that those figures are not an accurate reflection of reality since they do not take into account the number of Jewish refugees during the beginning of the war. According to corroborated information, the number of those who tried to save themselves by fleeing was very small. There were several hundred in Cernăuti, several thousand in the region of Chişinău, and almost the same number in southern Bessarabia through the city of Cetatea Albă.”309

Carp cites in support of that assertion the swiftness of the advance of German-Romanian troops, as well as two Romanian documents attesting to the August 9–17 capture of about 14,500 Jews trying to escape the Soviet troops.310 On the other hand, for a postwar Romania heavily controlled by the Soviets, Carp was unable to publish any information on the number of Jews deported by the Soviet authorities. For instance, in early June 1941, wealthy Jews from Cernăuţi were deported to Siberia. Those known to have engaged in or were suspected of Zionist activities were arrested and deported.311 More precisely, during the night of June 12–13, 1941, approximately three thousand Jews were arrested and deported, among them the former presidents of various Jewish communities and many others who had been politically active. Even after the outset of war, on June 22, 1941, further arrests and deportations devastated the Jewish population: some ten thousand more fell into the hands of the Soviet police.312

Ancel’s examination of the evidence has led him to conclude that “the number of Jews deported

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