75 years ago, on 9 October 1941, the deportation of Jews in Romania
\nstarted with the province of Bukovina. Overall, 140,000 Jews died in
\nconcentration camps in Transdnestr. 130,000 more Jews in Northern Transylvania,
\na Romanian territory ceded to Hungary in 1940, had the same fate. Persecution
\nof the Jewish population was nothing new, it had started with the Goga-Cuza
\ngovernment, in power between 29 December 1937 and 10 February 1938, which
\npassed a race law. On 21 January 1938, Government Decree 169 revised the legal
\ndescription of Romanian citizenship, and, as a result, 225,222 people, making
\nup 36.5% of Romanian Jews, lost theirs. The persecution of the Jews continued
\nunder the pro-German government led by Ion Gigurtu in the summer of 1940. On
\nAugust 8 1940, at Prime Minister Gigurtu’s proposal, King Carol II signed the
\ndecree on the legal status of Romanian Jews. The decree legalized inequality
\nunder the law, adding taxes or the obligation to perform community service, in
\naddition to the interdiction to acquire property or hold public office, as well
\nas segregating education and making it impossible to bear a Romanian name. A
\nsecond decree banned mixed marriages, providing a penalty of 2 to 5 years
\nimprisonment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
On August 23 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the
\nMolotov- Ribbentrop pact, dividing Eastern Europe among themselves. As a
\nresult, the Soviet Union sent Romania two ultimatums, on June 26 and 27,
\ndemanding it cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina within two days. While the
\nRomanian armed forces and administration left, making room for Soviet
\nofficials, a part of the Jewish population in the area booed and attacked the
\nRomanian troops and cheered the Soviet army, which only led to further
\npersecution. After Romania took control once again over those territories in
\nthe summer of 1941, anti-Semitic policies worsened, leading to the ordeal of
\nRomanian Jews, which started on 9 October 1941. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Historian Andrei Oisteanu spoke
\nto us about the reason why October 9 is
\nthe day on which we commemorate the Holocaust in Romania:<\/p>\n
The Romanian Parliament voted to institute October 9 as the day when we
\ncommemorate the Holocaust in Romania. It is a very important day, not only for
\nJews, but for all the citizens of this country. I myself sat on the board that
\ndecided on the date when we commemorate the Romanian chapter of the Holocaust.
\nWe did not want to have this day in January, when the international day
\ncommemorating the Holocaust is. The reason is that in Romania, Holocaust denial
\nis not against the European Holocaust, but against the one in Romania.
\nTherefore we chose October 9th, a day that has historical
\nsignificance. I quote here a part of the order issued by the prefect of
\nBukovina, who decreed that on October 9 deportation would commence for Jews in
\nBukovina, then Bessarabia, sending them to camps in Transdnestr. It reads as
\nfollows: Today, October 9th, 1941, the Jewish population of the
\nvillages of Itcani and Burdujeni, as well as that of the city of Suceava, shall
\nleave by train.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Leaving for Transdnestr was a death sentence. However, death
\ntrains had started as early as June 1941, when the military and civilian
\nauthorities organized a pogrom in Iasi, leaving 13,000 Jews dead. As witnessed
\nby plaques in railway stations and synagogues in the towns of Radauti, Vatra
\nDornei, Campulung Moldovenesc, Gura Humorului and Suceava, in the autumn of
\n1941, 91,845 Jews were deported from Bukovina by order of Ion Antonescu. During
\nthat time, the mayor of Chernauti, Traian Popovici, managed to save 19,000 Jews
\nfrom deportation. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Here is historian Andrei Oisteanu, talking about the
\nbeginnings of the genocide 75 years ago:<\/p>\n
They were sent off from the railway station in Burdujeni
\nin freight cars. Of the ones who went away on foot, the slower ones were simply
\nshot and left on the side of the road. For this reason, Goebbels wrote in his
\ndiary that Romanians couldn’t even organize a proper genocide, since they left
\ncorpses on the side of the road to spread disease. Of course, the Jews were
\nrobbed of their possessions, and got their houses taken away, along with their
\nmoney and jewelry. The same decree stated that concealing property from
\nconfiscation was punishable by death. In the end, the Jews who did not die on the
\nroad to the camps were not gassed, but many were either shot, or died of hunger
\nand disease.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The Jews of Bessarabia suffered similar persecutions. In October
\n1941, ghettos and labor camps were set up in over 150 places. Between October
\n1941 and August 1942, 150,000 Jews were sent here from northern Romania, and
\nonly 50,000 survived the ordeal. They were used as forced labor, mostly for
\nbuilding roads. 22% of the deportees were children, and 20,000 of them died of
\nstarvation, disease and exposure. October 9 1941 was the beginning of the end
\nfor the over 700,000 Jews in Greater Romania. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On October 9, 1941, the deportation of Jews in Romania started with the province of Bukovina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[42662,42663],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-129700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show","tag-9-october-1941","tag-jews-deportation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n