History vs. Apologetics by David Cymet

Author:David Cymet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2010-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Romanian Genocide in Transnistria

The Romanian army joined the German eleventh army in the attack against the Soviet Union in June 23, 1941. The two armies crossed the Prut River and recaptured the provinces of Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Northern Moldavia that Romania had lost to the Soviets in 1940 and rapidly reached the Dniester, the border with the Ukraine, on July 10, 1941. They crossed the river and moved forward into Southwestern Ukraine (renamed Transnistria by the Romanians), on their way to Oddesa, Crimea, and the Caucasus.

While Ohlendorf and his Einsatzgruppen were murdering in the Ukraine, the Romanians took the lead in the annihilation of the Jews in Southwestern Ukraine and spared the Einsatzgruppen much of the work. The brutality and greed displayed by the Romanian gendarmes and military was in no way inferior to those of their German counterparts, although they lacked their planning and coordination skills. They carried out killings leaving unburied bodies everywhere. While the German military praised their killing, they were critical of the lack of organization, as attested in military correspondence.

As soon as Bukovina and Bessarabia came under Romanian control, the Romanians readied themselves to eliminate Jews from the recovered provinces. Based on his meeting with Hitler on June 12, 1941, Antonescu brought up at the cabinet meeting of July 8, 1941 his immediate plans of clearing Bukovina and Bessarabia from its approximately 180,000 Jews by deporting them to the Ukraine, followed later by the deportation of all the Jews from Old Romania (the Regat). In his plan Jews were to be deprived of their property and livelihood, in preparation of their deportation and murder.69

Major pogroms followed immediately after the invasion in the recovered provinces of Bessarabia and Bukovina in such places such as Chernovitz (July 5-6, 1941), Edinets (July 6, 1941), Beltz (July 11, 1941), Kishinev (August 1, 1941), and many others. The pogrom in Iaşi organized by the Romanian Secret Service and the German Foreign Affairs Office of Counter-Intelligence during June 27-30, 1941 in Old Romania, stands out with its unspeakable brutality. The official toll given by the Romanian government indicates a total of 13,266 dead, but according to the Jewish community of Iaşi the figure surpassed 15,000. Around 6,000 Jews were rounded up and brought to the police headquarters courtyard in Iaşi on Saturday June 28, 1941, while others were forced to dig large ditches in the Jewish cemetery. More than 8,000 Jews were executed next day in cold blood by the Romanian police while another 5,000 Jews were rounded up for deportation. Robbed and beaten with rifle butts they were herded into closed freight cars and sent off in the scorching sun of July without any water or food.

People died or went mad during the trip. A train with 2,500 people aboard arrived after traveling for seven days to Călăraşi with only 1,011 people alive; another train going to Podul Iloaiei with 1,900 people arrived with 700 people alive. The official police report of the trip to Podul Iloaiei expressed regret that 1,900 Jews boarded the train and “only 1,194 died.

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