Historical Review

World War II represents the greatest degree of degradation in human civilisation. Each war contains the damned germ of human barbarity. It is only natural that such a protracted confrontation of such dimensions, this universal war, which had forced powers vying for precedence to confront each other like enraged enemies, awakened age-old instincts which, once out of control, destroyed and annihilated without mercy. World War I had already shown the horrifying examples of the vile depths to which twentieth century man was capable of sinking: here we are primarily referring to the Teutons. It is enough to mention the relics of culture destroyed in Louvain and Reims, the persecution suffered by the inhabitants of occupied territories: deportation, the murder of POWs, the introduction of poisonous gases in Belgium and Northern France; the list is endless.

It was to be expected that a new confrontation capitalising on the latest scientific developments would, in its cruelty and barbarity, surpass anything ever recorded in the history of war. Every piece of writing by experts published during the relatively calm period of 1920-1939 predicted the cruel nature of the war to come with a sense of horror, or sometimes haughtiness. None of these publications, [218] however, was endowed with an imagination capable of forecasting the horrifying reality experienced by mankind between 1939 and 1945.

The main victims of the barbarity which broke loose were European Jews living on territories under the occupation or influence of Germany.

In the percentage ratings the Jewish people are No. 1 in the list of war victims (63% of the 9,500,000 European Jews were killed). Taking into account the total number of victims, they lie in second position behind the Soviet Union; from the point of view of suffering endured, however, theirs surpassed the suffering of any nation at any time.

It is superfluous to refer at this point to the geographically insignificant names which now instil fear, i.e. Drancy, Belsen, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Maidanek, etc.; these will constitute individual chapters in history from now on. First among these is Transnistria.

There is no such dominion, province, county or district indicated on one single map or Geography textbook of Ukraine, Czarist Russia or the Soviet Union. Transnistria, as a geographical entry, had not existed prior to July 1941, and, of course, will never exist in the future. As the scene of an endless series of indescribable suffering, and the burial ground of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Transnistria will remain one of the terrifying chapters in history.

For three years part of the Ukraine, the rich and fertile soil north of the Black Sea as far as the Dniester and the Bug, [219] was known by that name. The Rumanian government of Ion Antonescu was entrusted with governing and exploiting it.

Centuries of Jewish life and suffering had been linked to this land. The mystical spirit of Bal Shem, whose armchair from the synagogue in Shargorad was devoutly protected by deported Jews even when they were threatened with death from every direction, lingered over the area. It was from here that Shalom Alechem selected a great number of his protagonists, one of whom, Tobias, the milkman, was born and lived in the narrow street which still bears his name. The Biluists, the pioneers of the Jewish renaissance, passed through this land. It was also here, in the large city of Odessa, that one of the strongest Jewish intellectual centres was established; Haim Nachman Bialik, Achad Haam, Mendala Mocher Sfurim, S. M. Dubnov, M. Usiskin and the outstanding groups of thinkers and writers centred around Hasiloach and Haolam came from here.

Decades of bitter Jewish suffering are also connected with this same region. At the end of the nineteenth century the Czarist oligarchy used pogroms and anti-Semitic persecution as a pillar against democratic ideas and movements, which were on their way towards successful fruition. From 1881 onwards, the western, and particularly the south-western part of Russia was a continually stirred cauldron of barbaric anti-Semitic hatred. In Podolia (from part of which the damned Transnistria was formed sixty years later) the pogrom in Odessa was organised, and was followed a year later (April 10, 1882) by the great pogrom in Balta, during which hundreds of Jews were beaten, tortured or [220] murdered. In 1900 there was another pogrom in Odessa, and a couple of years later (in 1905) one of the bloodiest slaughters of Jews was organised in the same city. And, finally, it was in this region that the Jews also had to suffer the 1917 Petljura pogroms (Odessa, Balta, Krivoje-Ozero, etc.).

The dawning of the new age proved to be bright and hopeful after this period. For almost a quarter of a century, the Jews between the Bug and the Dniester lived as human beings among human beings.

The Jews on this side of the Dniester lived in a more depressing atmosphere, a superficial and relative tranquillity, constantly interrupted by the bloody and violent manifestations of hatred through mobs encouraged by the highest powers of Rumania. The criminal war instigated by Adolf Hitler and Ion Antonescu revived and infinitely multiplied the agony of the past. This territory was subjugated, renamed Transnistria, and earmarked as the graveyard of local and Rumanian Jews. Most of these appalling plans were carried out. Today, the soil of Transnistria envelops the entire Jewish population of Odessa, found there by Ion Antonescu's army in October 1941, as well as a substantial proportion of Jews from villages and towns in the province. The bones of two thirds of the Jews deported from Rumania in 1941 and 1942 can be found at the same place, following the murder of half of the Jews - before September 1, 1941 - living in the provinces affected by deportation (the counties of Bessarabia, Bucovina and Dorohoi).

It took until the spring of 1944 for this horrible outcome - about 350,000 dead - to be realised through murder, [221] massacres, execution campaigns, methods of barbaric persecution, torture, looting and the conditions maintained in camps (misery, disease and hunger). The methods of murder varied extremely, and the selection included almost everything invented by the human mind from ancient times until Hitler's day.

Starting from June 1940, and lasting until March 1944, the Jews of the counties of Bessarabia, Bucovina and Dorohoi, and later the Jews of Transnistria, perished as a result of being shot to death, poisoned, hanged, drowned, slaughtered, burned, and starved to death as well as from infectious diseases, the withholding of treatment, the total weakening of the body, and torture resulting in either the death or suicide of its victims. It must be emphasised that gas chambers and upgraded crematoriums did not figure among the methods of homicide, and neither were there "scientific" experiments, i.e. vivisection, infection with viruses, the study of the resistance of the human body to extreme temperatures, etc. In connection with this, it should also be mentioned, however, that Rumania is a latecomer to civilisation, and lags behind when compared with the weight of German culture in Europe.

Although signs of German Nazi methods, i.e. the cynicism and fraudulence of planning, the secrecy of preparation, and the brutality of the execution, can be observed, all the actions aimed at the deportation and extermination of Jews were the work of Rumanian fascism. It is also true that some of these unfortunate people fell prey to German barbarism. It is part of the truth, and must be emphasised, there were some differences in methods, and boundaries in time that Rumanian authorities of higher and lower rank did not step over, or at most only sporadically so. However, [222] the suffering of the approximately 450,000 people, of whom 350,000 died, was not the result of German demands and pressure. The bloodbaths in July and August 1941 in Bessarabia and Bucovina, which claimed the most victims, were organised by the conquering armies. Among them was the XI German army of General von Schobert. However, his authority extended only to the border of Balti county. At the other parts of the front, from Ceremus to the Danube it was only the soldiers and officers of the Rumanian army who were active. The murderous perambulations in Northern Bucovina and Bessarabia, the setting up of camps in Edineti, Secureni, Vertujeni and Marculesti, as well as the deportation of the autumn of 1941, were requested by the Rumanian army, approved by the highest civilian authorities, and executed by the Police and Gendarmerie. The system of looting and terror preceding the deportation as well as the events in Transnistria were organised and also executed by the Rumanian authorities (governorships, county head offices, police headquarters, and Gendarme Offices). The continuously depressing and constantly threatening atmosphere was brought about through the initiative of the highest ranks of the Rumanian leadership. This was further aggravated by artificially created hatred which appeared with the outbreak of the war.

The will of the Germans was the directing force behind the tragic events in Transnistria on only two occasions: during the great campaigns of massacre in 1942 and 1943, and in the deportation in the autumn of 1942.

German military and political successes reached their pinnacle in 1942, but the great turning point, which marked [223] the beginning of the collapse of the entire fascist system, also occurred in the same year. When the Teutonic reign extended from Brest to Voroniezh and from Narvik to Tobruk; when the German armies were triumphantly approaching the Caspian Sea, the Volga and the Nile; when the Hitlerian mentality deeply engraved itself on European thought spreading throughout the continent, and encouraging the barbaric and sick psychosis of racial superiority, the national-socialist leadership decided to realise one other point of its plan: the complete extermination of European Jews. This plan also applied to Jews in Rumania.

Large-scale operations were begun in the autumn of 1942 in France, Belgium, Holland, Slovakia, and especially in Poland, Byelorussia and the Ukraine. The closest extermination campaign to the borders of Rumania, which annihilated the entire Jewish population of this region, took place in the province of Kamenetz Podolsk (Stanislaw, Horodenka, Kolomea). This campaign extended as far as the border with Transnistria; in addition to a few thousand local Jews in the province of Bar-Jaltuska, many formerly deported Rumanian Jews were killed. For the latter the execution campaigns along the river Bug (Galsin, Krasnopolsk, Nemirov, Mihailovka, Tarasivka) were the most painful. Here, some of the victims were selected by the Germans from the camps next to the quarries in Peciora and Ladizhin (3,000 a day), and from the ghettos set up in Tulchin, Bershad, etc. Theoretically, this territory was exclusively under Rumanian authority. However, as a result of the anti-Semitic delirium, and, especially, the inferiority complex of the Rumanian authorities, German demands for the mass extradition of Jews did not meet with any resistance. It [224] cannot be categorically stated that this happened in the framework of a preplanned action, in which the Rumanian authorities transported the Jews there, and SS troops and the Todt squads murdered them. However, events took place exactly according to this scenario, which makes complicity obvious. The highest ranks of the Rumanian authorities (the Governorship of Bucovina) transported the Jews there, the lower Rumanian bodies (county head offices, police headquarters, Gendarmerie Legions) handed them over, without any objection, at the request of the Germans, who in turn exterminated all of them in the framework of campaigns - lasting until the spring of 1944 - organised according to national-socialist methodology.

There was one other part of Transnistria where German supremacy was able to prevail unhindered as a result of the same inferiority complex: this was Berezovca county in the province of Mostovoi-Vasilonovo-Rastadt, where an important General Command of an SS unit was operating. The Rumanian authorities considered this place to be the most appropriate for the survivors of Odessa and the deportees from the Old Kingdom (historical Rumania) and Transylvania. It cannot be supposed on this occasion either that there existed an earlier Rumanian-German agreement. However, events occurred within the same criminal framework. On January 7, the Governor of Transnistria ordered the internment of Jews from Odessa - approx. 20,000 people - to the ghetto in Slobodtka. Later, in January and February, the Rumanian Gendarmerie evacuated them to the province of Mostovoi. Starting in March, the SS troops continuously took them over and executed them in groups of a few hundred in the framework of actions lasting until autumn. [225] Similarly, the Rumanian Leader of the State, Ion Antonescu, at the end of July 1942 ordered the deportation of a group of Jews consisting of a few hundred from the Old Kingdom and Transylvania to Transnistria; all of those who had asked for an entry visa from the Soviet Embassy in 1940. In early September the Ministry of the Interior sent them to the province of Mostovoi, where they were immediately requested, received and executed by SS troops.

Events took a totally different turn during the second German attempt in the autumn of 1942, which was aimed at the application of the national-socialist plan in Rumania. The Hitlerians had taken for granted the extermination of all Jews under the authority of the Rumanian government.

Nazi pressure, which had its effect on offices behind padded doors, and later manifested itself arrogantly and cynically in the foreign and German press of Bucharest, did not meet with any resistance at first. Moreover, it had Antonescu's approval from the very outset, and was looking for opportunities to co-operate with Rumanian institutions in a position to carry out operations: the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Ministry of the Interior. However, after the first groups had been despatched, and when everything was ready for the mass deportation from Transylvania and Banat, German plans collided with the characteristic Rumanian bureaucracy, indecisiveness, torpor, petty interests and a certain amount of altruism, and the campaign had to be postponed at first, and later completely abandoned.

This miracle has been much talked about. However, [226] only simplistic and superficial statements have been made alleging, that while in Europe Jews were totally or almost totally exterminated, in Rumania nearly all of them survived. This statement is true, but only as a premeditated assessment, which takes into account exclusively the Jews in the Old Kingdom, Transylvania and Banat.

According to the above assessment, only 10% of the Jewish population was murdered. However, if an honest study were made, considering the numbers of Jews under the jurisdiction of the Rumanian state between 1941-1944, the number of those killed would exceed 50%, which far from being miraculous, is outright disastrous.

Historical facts must be disclosed. If a percentage rate cannot form the basis of such a study, absolute numbers must be taken into account. When Rumania was liberated from fascist tyranny, there were approx. 300,000 Jews alive within Rumanian borders, and approx. 68,000 beyond the borders. This is the miracle.

Different factors played a role in this. The most important of these are the following:

1. Rumania was not occupied militarily by Germany;

2. The Rumanian economy could not function without the services of Jews;

3. The character and temperament of leading Rumanian figures was inconsistent; they hesitated and were easily influenced;

4. The Rumanian public accepted fascist ideas only sporadically and temporarily, and the methods of fascism even less so.

[227] In greater detail:

1. According to their status, the sovereign states which accepted, or were forced to accept the "new European order", can be placed in two different categories:

a) Militarily occupied states; among them, France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Poland, Byelorussia, the Ukraine, and later Italy (from September 1943), and Hungary (from March 1944).

b) States under German political influence: Rumania, Finland and Bulgaria (Denmark was somewhere between these two categories).

In the states listed in the first category, national-socialism was able to introduce measures directly, which were carried out by its own collaborating authorities, or by national bodies under the control of, or financed by the Gestapo. No agreement whatsoever was required for the execution of deportation and extermination campaigns, such measures could not be met with any resistance. The pogrom was carried out without delay, postponement or hesitation, and without mercy. Thanks to brave individual efforts, widely and benevolently supported by national resistance campaigns, there were some exceptions. In Italy and Hungary the persecution of Jews took on more restrained and milder forms at first, and turned into mass executions only following actual German military occupation.

Rumania and Bulgaria were almost vassals under German political influence. However, they retained a [228] certain veneer of sovereignty, and were able to show resistance in economic and racial policy spheres. At times they were even granted concessions in matters of racial policy in return for economic concessions. Consequently, the persecution and extermination of Jews in Rumania was restricted to Rumanian initiatives, with the Germans intervening only occasionally. That these reached extreme proportions and led to mournful results is due, on the one hand, to two decades of the psychological preparation of a sick generation, supported in its wanderings by Rumanian pseudo-democracy, and on the other hand, to the incitement to hatred by the dictatorial leadership of the Rumanian state at the start of the "holy war". In Bulgaria, where these circumstances were not present, Hitlerian, anti-Semitic persecution caused enormous suffering, but claimed few victims.

2. The Rumanian national economy was greatly indebted to Jewish entrepreneurs for their mentality, competence and energy. There is a certain amount of truth in the then anti-Semitic statement that the proportion of Jews in leading economic positions, among specialists in technology and industrial workers, was high. However, within their sphere of activities, they did not extort but were creative. With the exception of the agricultural sector, in which they were not allowed to operate before the emancipation of 1919, in every sphere of economic life - in financial life, in industry and trade - Jews were the pioneers, who sometimes suffered the risks of taking the initiative, while at times enjoying the fruits of their persistence. It was only natural that, given this situation, economic life could not dispense with them, and could not have functioned without [229] them. This fact was not yet sensed by the Rumanian leadership during the Iron Guard delirium. However, shortly before and during the war, it was, especially after the rapid evacuations from Bucovina. Without admitting the truth, and while legislation to remove Jews from economic life continued, the Antonescu government kept some of them on in their economic posts, and hesitated when it came to making a final decision on their total extermination.

3. The Rumanian leaders in whose power it was to decide whether Rumanian Jews should live or die, were the following: Ion Antonescu, the Leader of the State; Mihail Antonescu, Vice-President of the Council of Ministers, but in reality, the Premier, and General C. Z. Vasiliu, Deputy State-Secretary of the Police and Public Order.

All three committed serious crimes against their country and against Jews. At the same time, in addition to their crimes, they did not possess the qualities required by peoples' leaders in decisive historical moments. Primarily absent in them was the belief in an ideal and the consistence in holding onto one.

Ion Antonescu was just as much of a lunatic as Mussolini and Hitler. However, he possessed neither the leadership qualities of the former nor the iron will of the latter. He was an evil man who hated people. He was especially irritated by Jews, not because he held particular convictions, but because through anti-Semitism, he was able to vent his inherent hatred. He did not like the Germans, either. He allied himself to them, sacrificed the blood of the [230] country, its values and honour, served them with sinful loyalty, only because it was with their assistance that he was capable of fulfilling his arrogant ambitions; his pretence and passion for power.

He was a superficial man, endowed with only very limited intellectual potential. He was vain and quick-tempered. Consequently, he could be influenced both positively and negatively. He would often make contradictory decisions.

At his trial, Ion Antonescu said the following: "Thanks for the fact that there are Rumanian Jews still alive is owed to Marshall Antonescu." In the very least, this statement needs to be supplemented. It expresses historical truth only to the following extent: out of the Rumanian and Soviet Jews in his charge, Ion Antonescu left 350,000 alive after murdering nearly more than 350,000.

Mihail Antonescu was a fortunate careerist, positioned at the peak of the pyramid by circumstance, but because he was uneducated and lacked the spiritual qualities necessary for his station, it was his fate to plummet directly into the path of the firing squad. He was not as loyal as Ion, but slyer. He would even have sold his soul to the Germans, and served them astutely for as long as he believed in their invincibility. When he realised that they were vulnerable, he slowly distanced himself from them.

What he said during the war, and also in his confession following liberation, namely that he had never been an anti-Semite, might be true. In this case, his actions [231] during the war, when he was one of those who provoked the barbaric and murderous hatred which led to the organisation of bloodbaths at the time, seem even more despicable and burden his conscience even more heavily. He was unable to redeem himself later, when (after his visit to the Vatican in the autumn of 1943, during which he realised the prospects for the future) he attempted to ease his conscience and diminish his responsibility. He withdrew some anti-Semitic measures, prevented others from being enacted, and even saved the lives of many Jews, especially those who escaped from Hungary to Rumania.

General C. Z. Vasiliu (Picky), the vigilant Minister of the Police, was an average man with ordinary human shortcomings and weaknesses. An immoral, greedy womaniser, he formulated his feelings and attitudes towards Jews in an attempt to balance his loyalty to Ion Antonescu with his own interests. He was not as sinister as his predecessor, General Popescu (Jack), whose actions were soon forgotten after his death. At first, he seemed to justify the hope attached to him by those persecuted, when he took office in January 1942. A few months later, in the autumn of 1942, he became an unmerciful executioner of Nazi plans aimed at the complete extermination of Rumanian Jews.

4. The Rumanian public, which, during both the era of pseudo-democracy and the dictatorship, was confined to the views of the municipal petit bourgeoisie, to whose formation the masses of workers and peasants had not contributed to any extent, went through an interesting and particular transformation between September 6, 1940 [232] and August 23, 1944. The public greeted Ion Antonescu with enthusiasm, tolerated - usually indifferently but also with a certain amount of disgust - the Iron Guard delirium; it did not want the war, but neither did it much oppose it. The traditional but exclusively political aspect of anti-Semitism would never have become so aggressive and lamentable (even though a generation gone astray had been inciting it for twenty years, stimulated from outside and encouraged from inside), irrespective of which political group took over the leadership of the country.

The war took the public by surprise at a time when anti-Semitic inclinations had not yet turned into outright hatred. This transformation was to occur now. From June to November of 1941, hostile manifestations increased. Nobody loathed the idea of bloodbaths - the representatives of the petit bourgeoisie even played an active part in them. They organised economic and social boycotts, watched with distaste as the marching columns of Jewish evacuees with spades and pick-axes on their shoulders were led away to public service; they insulted and physically abused those wearing yellow stars, and reacted indifferently or even enthusiastically to the deportation campaigns of the autumn of 1941. This outflow of hatred was genuine, and reached its pinnacle in October 1941, when Antonescu launched his entire propaganda machine in order to justify crimes already committed and provide encouragement for those yet to come. At the time, public opinion was prepared to give credit to any gossip; hesitation was entirely abandoned, and hatred took over in almost everyone.

[233] Two months later, the Jews forced to shovel snow, were greeted with bread and hot meals. However, the decline of hatred was slower than its rise. In any case, it proved to be enough for the public not to remain totally indifferent to the campaign aimed at complete extermination. The manifestation of good-will on the part of the population resulted in a hesitant and delaying approach from those who took part in the ordinary, but nevertheless historic meeting of the Council of Ministers on October 13, 1942. The Allied Armies did the rest a month later at El Alamein, Algiers and Stalingrad.

However, while "the miracle" was happening on both sides of the Carpathian Mountains, in that country blessed by God, but cursed by human evil, in that enormous camp enclosed by the wide and deep waters of the Dniester and the Bug, the painful tale of Jews deported from Rumania drew to its fateful close. Approx. 120,000 people were dragged there. The land of Transnistria was to become their den, its soil their food, and its earth their grave. From the first day to the last, the murderous scorning of Jews continued.

"We brought you here to die. We would still like to ask you to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.", said the physician sent to Moghilev by the Governorship.

"Are there any living Jews left in Transnistria?", the governor of the province asked his subordinates innocently from time to time.

"Only the total extermination of these evil-doers and [234] fanatic communists can free mankind from the danger of communism", the Inspector of the Transnistrian Gendarme reported to his superiors, while requesting further orders.

From high-ranking officials to the last camp guard, nobody missed a chance to prove in words or deeds that the great task at hand was the total extermination of Jews.

While Transnistria does not call to mind the apocalyptic flames of crematoriums, the methods which served the eventual realisation of the objective were nevertheless frighteningly versatile. They serve as an example of methodical mass execution. Here, the undermining of the victims' moral stamina overshadowed the physical torture. In German camps victims quickly grew apathetic, so terribly so that not only did they give up all hope at the very beginning, but completely ceased to exist as moral beings. In Transnistria the hope was constantly alive in them, they were always aware of the gradual degradation humanness, and acutely experienced the truly terrifying moral pains. The fear of all sorts of diseases that threatened them from all sides; the problem of providing food for themselves and their loved ones, the horror of being beaten or tortured, to which they were constantly exposed - with or without pretext; the continuous anxiety over the threat of transportation to camps within the country or beyond the Bug, paralysed their senses, numbed their physical pain, but enormously increased their moral suffering.

The most important contributory causes of the physical and psychological annihilation of the Jews deported to [235] Transnistria were, naturally, the above-mentioned (disease, hunger, torture, deportation or the nightmares of these). The fact that total extermination could not be achieved can be attributed to another "miracle", brought about by the enormous vitality and indefatigable energy of the Jews. A small group of people - sometimes one single person - were capable of creating a community from the mass of uprooted, exhausted suffering and persecuted people, through initiative, courage, strong will, stamina, and the power of respect as well as Jewish solidarity.

Leaders emerged, un-elected, un-appointed and unconfirmed in their roles.

Similarly, Jewish institutions sprang up in a spontaneous and natural way as a consequence of necessity and tragedy. The Office of Organising Jewish Work can be considered one of these. Such institutions were widely disdained by Jews, who saw that such organisations could be used as tools by the enemy. These notorious offices played the role of necessary evil by eliminating unjust actions and hindering brutal acts of persecution. Because of the general hunger, public eateries, communal kitchens and food distribution centres had to be set up, and the wonderful industrial 'associations' (construction or small-scale industry workshops) had to be organised. Because of the epidemics, primarily the petechial typhus, dilapidated buildings had to be transformed into hospitals, and an excellent health service had to be created out of nothing, which, in spite of, or above the heads of, the inefficient or malicious authorities, started a gigantic battle against the disease, and was victorious over it.

[236] Orphanages, kindergartens and primary schools were established, because the depressing sight of parent-less, dirty, ragged and exhausted children roaming the streets begging, or perishing along the roads, was unacceptable.

Slowly, with human sacrifices, and primitive and empirical methods, from dust, blood and soot the wonder of society in Transnistria came into existence: the formation of an organised community out of a debased and directionless crowd In less than six months, and in spite of disease, hunger and misery, the level of Transnistrian Jewish organisation became state-like, winning the admiration of the persecutors, and at times, altering their mentality, or substituting their authority.

(...) Thanks to the energetic attitude of Jews, the Transnistrian "miracle" came about, which despite disease and human evil, saved the lives of approx. 60,000 Jews; at the time of liberation there were 15,000 local Jews among them.

The Red Army liberated Transnistria in early March 1944. The Soviet troops, which had set out from Uman county on March 10, crossed the Bug on March 16, and reached the bank of the Dniester in a mere four days. The speed of the attack, which dispersed the fascist troops and forced them to flee chaotically, pre-empted the final danger. The tired bodies and broken bones of the survivors of the Transnistrian hell had been saved.

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