Mihai Chioveanu_death Delivered, Death Postponed. Romania and the Continent-wide Holocaust

8/12/2019 Mihai Chioveanu_death Delivered, Death Postponed. Romania and the Continent-wide Holocaust

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DEATH DELIVERED, DEATH POSTPONED. ROMANIA AND THECONTINENT-WIDE HOLOCAUST

DEATH DELIVERED, DEATH POSTPONED. ROMANIA AND THE CONTINENT-WIDE HOLOCAUST

by Mihai Chioveanu

Source:

Studia Hebraica (Studia Hebraica), issue: 8 / 2008, pages: 136-169, on www.ceeol.com.
http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/


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DEATH DELIVERED, DEATH POSTPONED.

ROMANIA AND THE CONTINENT-WIDE HOLOCAUST

Mihai Chioveanu

ABSTRACT

The aim of the present study is to provide an adequate explanation for Romanias

gradual shift from total commitment to, to outright defiance of, the Nazi FinalSolution. My chief interest is with delineating the reasons and motivations behind the

Romanian Governments decision not to hand over half of its Jews to the Nazis.

Issues that are equally significant and helpful in understanding the process which

ultimately led to Romanias Disengagement from the Nazi Final Solution, most, ifnot all, of them already considered and sometimes reconsidered by other historians,

will be analyzed in a wider, European context, as the dynamic of the Final Solution atlarge, the Nazi perspective on the events, their plans, expectation and so on; mighthelp us understand some inner developments of Romanias semi-independent

genocide.

During the Second World War, as a direct result of an intentional, state

sponsored and organized policy of ethnic-cleansing, between 250,000 and

320,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jewish civilians died at the hands of the

authoritarian and semi-reactionary with certain fascist features, and backed for a

short period of time by a fascist party regime of Marshal Ion Antonescu1. Yet,

half of the Romanian Jews survived the Holocaust within the borders of thecountry which ran Germany a close second in massacring Jews

2.

Intrigued by this paradox, many Holocaust students accepted thechallenge, and embarked upon the effort to explain it

3. Still, six decades after the

events, but few of them succeeded to grasp the set of elements that altogethermight provide an adequate explanation for Romanias gradual shift from total

1See Michael Mann, Fascists, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004, p. 293. See

also, Saul Friedlander, The Years of Extermination, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2007, p. 70.2Michael Burleich, The Third Reich,A New History, Pan Books, London, 2001, pp. 658659.

3 See Martin Gilbert, Holocaust. A History of the Jews of Europe During the SecondWorld War, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1985, p. 637, Robert S. Wistrich,Hitler andthe Holocaust, A Modern Library Chronicles Book, New York, 2003, p. 157, Laurence Rees,

Auschwitz.A New History, PublicAffairs, New York, 2005, p. 210.


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commitment to, to outright defiance of, the Nazi Final Solution4. Not surprisingly,

before and after 1989, Romanian historians focused on the Romanian

governments efforts to resist and foil the German Final Solution in as much as toresiliently claim that, unlike in other European countries, in Romania, Jews were

protected by Ion Antonescu and his regime and thus saved. The emigration policy,

which was never totally abandoned by the government, the absence of gas

chambers on Romanias territory, and the fact that most Romanian Jews in the

Old Kingdom, Southern Transylvania and Banat, around 300,000 souls, did not

reach the death factories in Poland, were blatantly turned into irrefutable

arguments of Holocaust denial in Romania5.

The aim of the present paper is to focus on, interpret, and explain the

inconsistencies of the Romanian anti-Semitic policy during the Holocaust, so as to

point out that Antonescus regime was not simply a puppet, and one of Hitlers

willing executioners, as it is often portrayed. The final goal is to indicate that the

Romanians followed their own path, developed and implemented their owngenocidal project, somewhat independently from Nazi Germany, whose presence

and overwhelming role in Eastern Europe in the 1940 was only to favor, and insome respects facilitate, the Romanian actions

6.

When addressing death delivered my main focus is on the 19411942cleansing campaign of the frustrated and unrestrained dictatorship of Ion

Antonescu, which turned to the armed forces, the police, and the gendarmerie asprofessional practitioners of violence to enforce his ideal vision of nation and

society, and implement his Politics of Salvation. My aim is to indicate that ethnic-cleansing was triggered not only by hyper-nationalism and ardent, violent anti-

Semitism, but also by the Romanian governments determination, and

opportunity, especially with the advent of war against the USSR, to vent

righteous anger on the weak, thus adding the cleansing of the ground to the(sense of) magnitude of an otherwise failed domestic policy, and uncertain and

much too costly military victory against the external enemy.

In this sense I will not follow the entire process whereby hundred of

thousands of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews perished of starvation and plagues, or

4See Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Quandrangle, Chicago, 1961,

pp. 682702, Radu Ioanid,Evreii sub regimul Antonescu[The Jews under the Antonescu Regime],Hasefer, Bucharest, 1998, pp. 325339, Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.), Final

Report. International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, Polirom, Iai, 2005, pp. 168172.5Bela Vago, The Destruction of Romanian Jewry in Romanian Historiography, in Yisrael

Gutman, Gideon Greif eds., The Historiography of the Holocaust Period, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem,1988, pp. 405406, 411, 415. See also Gheorghe Zaharia, Nicolae Copoiu, The Situation of the Jews

of Romania, 19381944, as reflected in Romanian Historiography, inIbidem., p. 427.6 Cristopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution. The Evolution of Nazi Jewish

Policy, September 1939 March 1942, University of Nebraska Press, Yad Vashem, Lincoln,Jerusalem, 2004, pp. 275277. Saul Frielander, The Years of Extermination, op. cit., pp. 166, 169, 225.


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in nocturnal death marches, sealed wagons, public executions, and mass killingoperations, which often turned into a carnage that exhausts the reader

7. Instead, I

will try to find an explanation for the paroxysmal violence of the mid 1940-late1941 period, and for the perpetrators enthusiasm, manifested on so many levels.

The huge number of Jewish victims in the first stages of the war, due to the fascist

military violence of the Romanian mass killings in savage massacres that do not

resemble the later bureaucratic murder8, and the striking cruelty of the less

structured in its brutality (when compared to the Nazi one) Romanian process of

destruction of the Jews, a process in which not one community was spared,

pinpoints the existence of one factor, other than anti-Semitism and ethnic-cleansing,

which plays an important role in the equation of the Romanian Holocaust9.

Moving to death postponed, my chief interest is with delineating the

reasons and motivations behind the decision of the Romanian government not to

hand over half of the Jews to the Nazis. Contrary to what others might think, I

consider that understanding the decision-making process, and the strategic logicof the perpetrators, is no less essential than the final outcome, the fortuitous (in

many respects) survival of the already targeted victims10

. The major risk of notdoing so would be to continue with the somewhat simplistic, intentionalist

approach that reduces everything to Ion Antonescus personality, and to credit theRomanian dictator alone with the merit of having halted the deportation, thus

saving the Romanian Jews (Antonescu himself stated, during his 1946 trial, thatit was thanks to him that the Romanian Jews were still alive)

11.

Though aware of the importance of the lower-level perpetrators, the levelwhere genocide actually takes place, I nevertheless decided not to focus on the

entire chain of command, but solely on the higher-level perpetrators. Genocide

students consider this level to be far more important, since here is where blueprints

are drawn, serial mass killing outlined, and genocidal mentality shaped, sometimes

7 For an excellent and accurate account of the crimes perpetrated by the Romaniansduring the Holocaust see Radu Ioanid,Evreii sub regimul Antonescu, idem.

8Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy. Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge, 2005, pp. 305306.9Radu Ioanid, The Sword of the Archangel: Fascist Ideology in Romania, Boulder, New

York, 1990, p. 207. See also Lucy Dawidowicz, Rzboiul mpotriva evreilor. 19331945 [TheWar against the Jews. 19331945], Romanian transl. by C. Paac, Hasefer, Bucureti, 1999, p.348; Andreas Hillgruber,Hitler, Regele Carol i Marealul Antonescu. Relaiile germano-romne.19381944 [Hitler, King Carol and Marshal Antonescu. The German-Romanian Relations. 19381944], Romanian transl. by S. Neagoe, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1994, p. 280.

10See Dinu C. Giurescu, Romnia n al doilea rzboi mondial[Romania during WorldWar II], ALL, Bucharest, 1999, p. 146.

11Sorin Alexandrescu, Paradoxul romn[The Romanian Paradox], Univers, Bucharest,1998, pp. 155156.


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only to be later filtered down12

. In other words, the top decision-makers are theones that can gear, or conversely stop, the machinery of destruction.

The decision of the Romanian government to create its own nationalagency in charge with Jewish affairs rather than accepting that Nazi (SS)

nominees deal with the matter; the clumsiness, opportunism and corruption of the

Romanian bureaucracy; Ion Antonescus studied independence; Radu Leccas

visit to Berlin in August 1942 that went badly wrong; the powerful lobbying of

the Apostolic Nuncio, the Swiss and the US ambassadors, and Queen Mother

Elena; the interventions of some Jewish leaders, Romanian politicians and heads

of the Romanian Orthodox Church; the international pressures; the evolution of

the war on the Eastern front; Romanias attempts to desert the Axis and prepare

the grounds for an advantageous, less catastrophic peace with the Western allies

and so on are altogether issues that are equally significant and helpful in

understanding the process that ultimately led to Romanias disengagement from

the Nazi Final Solution. Most, if not all, of them have been already consideredand sometimes reconsidered by other historians, overestimated or, conversely,

underestimated. In an attempt not to double other scholars efforts, even though Irealize it is not very likely that I shall be entirely successful in my enterprise, I

will try to place and analyze the above-mentioned factors in a wider, Europeancontext. The dynamic of the Final Solution at large, the Nazi perspective on the

events, their plans, expectations, and so on, might help understand some innerdevelopments of Romanias semi-independent genocide.

The Romanian rabid anti-Semitism, an aspect that was over-researched13

,will be briefly addressed in the following paragraphs, only inasmuch as to point

out that, already a tradition and a major component of Romanian political culture

by the time Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard came to power, though turned into

state policy only in the 1930s, and even then rather unsuccessfully, it can offer butlimited explanations when, and if, analyzed separately. Starting with the 1920s,

first the Christian National Defense League (LANC) and then the Iron Guard

turned Romanian anti-Semitism into a radical and eliminationist notion. Both

A.C. Cuza and the legionnaires portrayed the Jewish minority as criminal anddangerous, parasitic and immoral, exploiting the Romanian proletarian nation,

disloyal to the state, and therefore an enemy population that had to be watched,

controlled, deprived of civil and political rights and propriety, and, whenever

12Robert Gellately, The Third Reich, the Holocaust, and Visions of Serial Genocide, in

Robert Gellately, Ben Kiernan (eds.), The Specter of Genocide. Mass Murder in HistoricalPerspective, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006, p. 254.

13 See Leon Volovici, Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism. The Case of RomanianIntellectuals in the 1930s, Pergamon Press, New York, 1991; also Carol Iancu, Evreii din Romnia(19191938). De la emancipare la marginalizare, [The Jews of Romania 19191938. FromEmancipation to Marginalization], Hasefer, Bucharest, 2000.


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possible, forced into emigration, or simply tossed across Romanias borders. Theonly, in fact essential, difference between the two major anti-Semitic parties was

that, unlike Cuzas adepts, C. Z. Codreanu and his legionnairesalways depictedthe struggle against the Jews as a life and deathmatter, as a war that had to becarried out not only by legal means, as at stake was the very survival of thenation

14. Constantly reiterated by the radicals, this type of ideas and messages

were mimetically imported by other politicians and parties, which turned the

Jewish Question into the most important issue in Romanian society.

Consequently, banning the Jews was considered to be increasingly righteous, and

a means to save the country. Yet, most of the politicians of the time remained

quite moderate in their anti-Semitic endeavor, sticking to the law and stressing the

idea that all proposed solutions to the Jewish Question had to be civilized15

.

The situation changed drastically between 1938 and 1940, with the

collapse of the democratic system, and values. With the gap between declarations

and intentions, then state policy, hastily bridged, Romania introduced several,progressively more severe anti-Semitic legislations, which constantly deteriorated

the Jews condition16

. But the worst was yet to come in September 1940, whenCarol IIs political miscalculations facilitated the advent in power of an

authoritarian and nationalistic general, Ion Antonescu, backed by a fascist partyand militia, the Iron Guard. Within months, this uninspired political maneuver,

aiming to divert the public opinions attention in a desperate attempt to secure theposition of the king and his entourage, the infamous camarilla, while givingsatisfaction to a furious and frustrated population and army, who was anti-Semiticand thus ready to turn the Jews responsible not only for the territorial loses at the

hands of the Soviets but for all of Romanias failures after 1920, was to generate a

ravaging outburst of violence that would radically change the political landscape

in Romania, and seal the fate of the Romanian Jews17.Unlike the legionnaires, Antonescu was not mystical and revolutionary; his

vision of politics was rather limited and more pragmatic. His nationalism was

14 Programul Ligii Aprrii Naionale Cretine [Program of the Christian National

Defense League], in Jean Ancel (ed.),Documents Concerning the Fate of Romanian Jewry duringthe Holocaust, vol. I, New York-Jerusalem, 19851986, doc. 10, p. 118; Corneliu Zelea Codreanu,Discurs parlamentar (21 decembrie 1931) [Parliamentary Speech, December 21, 1931], in LyaBenjmin (ed.), Documente. Comisia internaional pentru studierea Holocaustului n Romnia[Documents. The International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania], Polirom,Iai, 2005, p. 54.

15Carol II, Declaraie de Pres [Press Statement], Universul, January 13, 1938.

16 Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, op. cit., pp 210212. As

Browning put it a proper anti-Semitic stance from Romania was a way to improve the relation with

Germany, deteriorated after Codreanus assassination. Romanian oil was not enough, nor the fact thatRomania left the League of Nations. Nuremberg inspired legislation was introduced, increasingRomanias dependency on Germany and generating a wave of spiraling anti-Semitism of a new type.

17Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.),Final Report, op. cit., pp. 5054.


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more primitive, less elaborated than the legionary one, but by no means lessextreme

18. His idea to cleanse the Romanian territories of the alien oppressor,

strengthen the borders, and achieve national purity was reactive, rather than part ofa broader, proactive, modernizing vision of the nation19

. Antonescu was nothing but

a nationalist who could, and had to, harness radical populism, in particular anti-

Semitism, and xenophobia at large. Nevertheless, his anger and extensive use of

violence, itself righteous and motivated by a fierce desire to change things for the

better, were, at least when it came to the initial declarations, not marked by an

irrational and arbitrary pursuit of revenge, which would lead, like in the case of the

legionnaires, to unwanted consequences and unsatisfactory results20

. Still, within

the context generated by the war, the ultimate expression of human anger21, with

Romania sided by Nazi Germany in its holly war against the USSR, the regime

and its politics, marked by perpetual and ubiquitous paranoia, turned increasingly

punitive, and finally gave up rational and controlled anger.

An authoritarian leader, whose popularity and legitimacy was based onplebiscites, domestic order management, prestige given by sound victories on the

front, and a broad populist appeal supported by an irritable rejection of the old,corrupted, political system, Antonescu assumed autocratic powers on the ground of

national emergency and against the political parties, the royal dictatorship, and evenhis insurgent fascist children when necessary. When it comes to the fate of the Jews

and his means to solve the Jewish question, the fact that Antonescu was not arevolutionary fascist, but an authoritarian, semi-reactionary, politician, makes little

difference. As the war fueled the political imagery of the regime with the external andinternal threat represented by Judeo-bolshevism, and Jews as agents, saboteurs, and

finally an enemy population, Antonescu turned his anger into legitimate politics.

Ethnic cleansing became a priority, thus giving Antonescu primacy over the civilian

establishment and securing the interest of the army, the professional practitioners ofviolence. By that time there was no need for the Antonescus regime to ponder, as

everything was already in place: an ideology shaped by a century of anti-Semitic

thinking, the creation of an ethnocratic state as a political goal, regardless of the costs

and repercussions, and a propaganda that motivated the perpetrators and demonized

the victims, thus turning them fit for destruction22

.

During the first six months of 1940, Romania lost several provinces at the

hands of the neighboring countries. The Romanian nation felt humiliated and

18Ion Antonescu, quoted in Michael Mann,Fascists, op. cit., p. 290.

19Michael Mann,Fascists, op. cit., pp. 294295.

20Ion Antonescu was looking for a long term, legal, official, and coordinated revenge. For

the legionnairesinstant revenge was a priority, meant to give them the sense of holding power, beingunrestricted, and a first and immediate confirmation of their political victory over the enemies.

21Peter Calvert, Autocracy, Anger and the Politics of Salvation, op. cit., p. 5.

22Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.),Final Report, op. cit., pp. 114, 132.


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betrayed, the Romanian army felt frustrated; distrusted, Carol IIs dictatorship, aswell as the political parties and politicians, were held accountable and blamed for

the collapse; finally, the ethnic minorities were regarded as disloyal to the stateand therefore enemy populations. In Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, more

than in other cases, the Jewish population was accused, based on a long lasting

political myth, of helping the Red Army, acting as Bolshevik agents, propagating

communist ideas, attacking the Romanian army, and terrorizing the Romanian

population23

. This image was powerful enough to later motivate and justify the

anti-Semitic policy of the Antonescu regime, and the atrocities perpetrated by the

Romanian army, gendarmerie, and sometimes civilians, from 1941 onward. A

closer look into the events suggests that in 1940, and later on 1941, the Romanian

authorities overreacted, turning the accusations into a rationale for the mass

killing and deportation of the Moldavian, Bessarabian and Bukovinian Jews24.

For some of the anti-Semites, the events of June 1940 were but a

confirmation of their fears and, consequently, of the justness of the anti-Jewishstruggle, providing them with an opportunity to voice their anger and anti-Semitic

hate. Following the same logic, Ion Antonescu was to reply, in a public letter toWilhelm Fildermann of October 1941, that the killing and deportation of the Jews

to Transnistria were the Romanian response to the Jewish hate, and to thesuffering caused by the Jews to the Romanians in June 1940. This time, past

events were recalled to justify present deeds, namely ethnic cleansing25

. However,the text leaves the reader with a strong sense of a simulated anger, which turned

betrayal, grievance, and national reassertion into a perfect cover and strongmotivation for the horrific treatment applied to the Jews

26.

In other words, this indicates that the attack on the USSR provided

Antonescu with the opportunity not so much to trample down the cringing

shades of yesterdays dishonor, but to articulate, behind the display of avengeful, bellicose, and xenophobic ideology, a strong rationale for his genocidal

policy. The fact that Antonescu knew months in advance about the Nazi plan to

invade the USSR, as well as about their intention to exterminate the Soviet Jews

and political commissars, in Aktionen, is but to strength the argument. TheRomanians were made aware of the future developments of their partners

extermination plan, and had the time to plan their own war of extermination27.

In June 1940, during the withdrawal of the Romanian troops from

Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to Moldova, numerous but scattered deadly

23George Voicu, The Notion of Judeo-Bolshevism in Romanian wartime Press, Studia

Hebraica, no. 4, Bucharest University Press, 2004, pp. 5964.24Michael Burleich, The Third Reich, op. cit., pp. 610, 613614.25

Ibidem, pp. 625626.26

Ion Antonescu, quoted in Saul Friedlander, The Years of Extermination, op. cit., pp. 226227.27

Jean Ancel, Archival Sources concerning the Holocaust in Romania, op. cit., pp. 6263.


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assaults on the Jews by civilians and soldiers, and one massacre the Dorohoipogrom, which was generated by panic, frustration, therapeutic violence, lack of

discipline, and a recrudescence of anti-Semitism took place in the Old Kingdom.For fear of disorders, panic, and anarchy, the Romanian civil and military

authorities made efforts to stop the violence, isolate the aggressors, reorganize

military units, and reestablish control and order, so as to diminish the side effects of

the deep crisis. Still, protecting the Jewish population was no priority28

, and some

local authorities even issued express orders to custom officers not to allow any

Bessarabian Jew to cross the border into Romania, as they were Soviet agents29.

The attitude of the authorities thus triggered even more anti-Semitism, and spread

anger and hate toward the Jews30. Moreover, most of the military reports insisted on

the fact that the communists attacking the army and the authorities in Bessarabia

were Jewish; such reports often included references to alleged Jewish groups

mobilized by the Red Army to harass the Romanian army, loot, kill, terrorize the

population and the authorities, desecrate the Romanian national symbols, and soon

31. Other reports mentioned the great number of Romanian Jews trying to cross

the border into the Soviet Union, thus indicating their hostility toward theRomanian state

32. The authorities were soon to embrace the explanation that all the

attacks and acts of revenge against the Jews in Romania were totally justified by thehostile attitude of the Bessarabian Jews

33. Later on they even came to the

conclusion that they had to solve, one way or another, the Jewish question, as ifthere were no other critical issues, ranging from domestic to international policy,

army equipment and discipline, and so on, to explain the crisis. The governmentstarted working on a new, radical version of We the People, taking the Nazi anti-Semitic legislation as both a juridical and political role model, in pursuit of a yet not

transcendental, but definitely cleansing, nation-statism, by means of law34

. The

ideal Romania for the Romanians was reiterated, and so was ethnicpurification, with the deprivation of rights, emigration, and population border

28Mihai Stoenescu, Armata, Marealul i Evreii[The Army, the Marshal and the Jews],

RAO, Bucharest, 1998, pp. 141142.29

AMR, fond Microfilms, reel 1078, c 0572.30

Though a significant number of civilians, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Romanian,

dissatisfied with the corruption, abuses and bad treatment by the Romanian authorities inBessarabia since 1918 welcomed the arrival of the Soviets, it was mainly for the Jews to be heldresponsible and demonized. See Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania, op. cit.,

pp. 112, 122-123, 149; also Mihai Stoenescu,Armata, Marealuli Evreii, op. cit., pp. 6667.31

MapN Archive, fond MStM, file 941, p. 558.

32AMR, fond 948, file 941, pp. 217226.33

ANIC, fond PCM, file 482/1940, p. 18.34

Lya Benjamin, Legislaia anti-evreiasc [The Anti-Jewish Legislation], Hasefer,Bucharest, 1993, doc. 4, pp. 5154.


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exchanges as civilized means to achieve it35

.This time, unlike on other occasions, clichs such as the Jew as a

Communist agent, the Jew as a disloyal character, the Jew as an enemy, and soon, were the product of the intelligence services, meant to intoxicate the state and

army leadership. The media, which circulated terrific, often fictional, stories by

soldiers and Romanian refugees, launched a virulent anti-Semitic campaign that

ultimately generated a real psychosis, while the desperate efforts of the authorities

to play it down by means of censorship lingered unsuccessful36

. The legionnaires,

banned at the time, and the Nazis, had a rather insignificant contribution.

The new government, headed by Ion Antonescu, installed on September 6,

1940 by the king, as a desperate measure to secure his position, did not radically

depart from this type of approach toward the Jewish question, at least not in the

first months. Its resolution to the Jewish Question, vital to the Romanian

people, excluded, at least in theory and declarations, any violent means: it had to

be progressive and methodical, so as not to jeopardize the existing economicorder, and offend the dignity and morality of the Romanians

37. With Antonescu in

favor of state authority and law as pillars of the new Romanian Order, thelegitimate and just liberation from the yoke of foreign exploiters was not to

exceed confiscation of Jewish rural proprieties, concentration of Jews in urbanareas, and emigration whenever possible

38.

This type of legalist attitude and tactics rendered the legionnaires angryand frustrated, as to them, like to some of the local authorities and civilians

infected with the fascist virus39

, there was no need for a protective legalframework of the Jews, which was only going to haze and postpone the

Romanianization process (confiscation of Jewish propriety and its attribution to

Romanian nationals), the isolation, pauperization, and eventual emigration of

Jews from a land where they had no future. The legionnaireswere looking forrapid results, and thus favored swift and violent, arbitrary methods

40. Traces of

the future conflict between Antonescu and the legionnaires are visible even inrespect to the two conflicting approaches toward the Jewish question of the

fascist, respectively authoritarian, camp. The differences were so visible that the

leaders of the Jewish community regarded Antonescu, as an authoritarian and

moral man, as they put it, as a protector of the law. As such they begged him not

to follow the fascist path and turn the Jewish question into a political diversion

and springboard. Unfortunately, this is exactly what Antonescu did once the

35ANIC, Fond PCM, file 327/1940, pp. 3132.

36Lya Benjamin (ed.),Documente. Comisia internaional, op. cit., pp. 7374, 7879.

37ANIC, fond PCM, CM, file 1770/1940, vol. 2, pp. 783784.38

Lya Benjamin (ed.),Documente. Comisia internaional, op. cit., pp. 111112.39

Jean Ancel (ed.),Documents, op. cit., vol. I, doc. 121, pp. 528530.40

Lya Benjamin,Legislaia anti-evreiasc, op. cit., doc. 16, pp. 7478.


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legionnaireswere defeated. Only his approach was sectional, not all Jews being,like in the eyes of the legionnaires, equally dangerous, and therefore to be equally

subjected to purges.In the case of Antonescu, it was chiefly for the Bolshevik-Jew catchy

theme to make his special interest, soon to turn into a monomaniacal obsession. As

official documents indicate, on several occasions Ion Antonescu and the legionaryminister of the interior, General Petrovicescu, discussed the situation and activity of

communists in Romania, of which 90% are kikes, and proposed solutions to putan end to the threat: expulsion for the Hungarians, Bulgarians, Russians, and

concentration camps for the Jews41

. However, not only the Jewish Bolshevik agentswere targeted, but the entire Romanian Jewish population, as if they were all

working against the Romanian state, and particularly the Bessarabian Jews, who

were allegedly crossing the border in organized groups to make propaganda infavor of the USSR and against Romania, thus inciting the Romanian population to

turn against the authorities

42

. That was, according to numerous official reports, toexplain the defiant and pro-soviet attitude of Jews in Moldova in general, and Iai

in particular, despite the very same populations deep fear of potential armed

retaliation for present and past attitude and participation in anti-Romanian actions.

Consequently, following the implacable logic of we do not know who are the

guilty, so they are all guilty, Antonescu, one of the Grand Simplificateursof histime, continued to take advantage of 1940 events echo. The fabricated presence of

a shrewd and cruel Jewish enemy within and outside the borders of Romaniaoffered a rationale for his future policies

43. Within months, the Romanian army, in

many cases the same military units that had left the province in the summer of

1940, entered Bessarabia in a set up, foul state of mind, motivated by hate, angerand revenge, by now convinced that the Jew was the Romanians mortal enemy.

Meanwhile, unhappy with the long preparations and delays, the impatientlegionnaires continued to attack the Jewish population, loot, destroy, and kill,soon reaching the conclusion that a massive strike against the Jewish peril and its

allies and protectors, Antonescu and his oligarchic regime included, was needed44

.

In January 1941, in less then three days, more than 120 Jews were slaughtered in

unimaginable ways. Synagogues were burnt down and Jewish stores devastated ina bloody pogrom

45.

Antonescu had the power and the means to stop, if not to prevent, the

41Marcel-Dumitru Ciuc, Aurelian Teodorescu, Bogdan Florin Popovici (eds.), Stenogramele

consiliului de minitri n perioada guvernrii Antonescu [Records of the Council of Ministersduring the Antonescu Government], vol. I, Romanian National Archives, Bucharest, 1997, pp. 366,601, 628, 687.

42MapN archive, file 155, pp. 162172.43

Mihai Stoenescu,Armata, Marealul i Evreii, op. cit., p. 95.44Michael Burleich, The Third Reich, op. cit., pp. 610611.45

Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, op. cit., p. 672.


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pogrom, but no reason. For him, the legionary assault on the Jews was anopportunity to demonize his radical and rebellious partners on the one hand, and a

perfect litmus test for his future actions on the other, indicating to what degree thecivil population would support similar strikes, or turn into indifferent and/or

intimidated, and thus reduced to silence, bystanders46

. Moreover, his victory over

the rebels, which was to put an end to the reign of terror, was to shed a new light

on the government, state institutions and army, creating a positive image and

generating a degree of confidence that they all desperately needed after the failure

of 1940. Lastly, anger and personal feelings also played an important role. No

matter how much he disliked the legionary gangsterism, Antonescu had no

reason, and could not find one, to protect the Jews, who had so harmed Romania

in the past. As he blatantly put it: I will not sacrifice Romanian lives (of officers

and soldiers) to protect the kikes47.

Crushed by Antonescu and his army48

, the legionnairesmissed the chance

to implement their political vision and program. Yet, as individuals, they wereallowed to further display their hate toward the generic Jew, the Bolshevik-Jew, the

diabolic Jewish conspiracy against civilization and culture, to instigate andindoctrinate the population and the army rank and file, and take part in the

massacres, this time as soldiers and civilians, and not as members of a fascist partyand militia

49. One way or the other, they legitimized the policy and actions of

Antonescu who, in his turn, sponsored their newspapers. War propaganda reliedheavily on former legionnaire and pro-legionnaire publications when it came to the

holly war against Bolshevism and the Jew, the eternal enemy with myriad faces(agent, exploiter, disloyal, terrorist, spy, saboteur and so on and so forth)

50.

With the legionnairesdefeated and the Iron Guard banned, the situation ofthe Jews did not change for the better, as many might have hoped, at least not in

the long run. Except for street violence and random terror, the semi-reactionaryAntonescu regime was not that different from the fascist one. Romanianization

continued and was justified as part of the process of national rebirth and

purification, and anger was turned progressively into a political motivation as

Antonescus discourses and policies included more and more references to Jewish

saboteurs, Jewish communists, an enemy population siding with Romanias

46Michael Burleich, The Third Reich, op. cit., p. 611.47

Pe marginea prpastiei. 21-23 ianuarie 1941 [On the Edge of the Precipice. January21-23, 1941], vol. 12, Scripta, Bucharest, 1992, pp. 126, 138, 149, 154.

48Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.), Final Report, op. cit., p. 110. The

rebellion was a failed attempt of the Iron Guard to conquer the state and its institutions. Thelegionary terror generated repulsion in the army, police and gendarmerie.

49Radu Ioanid, The Sword of the Archangel, op. cit., pp. 7475.50

Aurel Popoviciu, Un popor de dumani, trdtori i spioni care n-au iubit niciodatperomni [An Enemy, Treacherous and Spy People Who Have Never Loved the Romanians],Curentul, year XIV, no. 4809, July 7, 1941.


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external enemies, whether the USSR or Hungary. Fewer and fewer Jews weretrusted by the authorities and considered loyal, and not even they were desirable

on a long run

51

.Before the war had broken out, Jews from Moldavian villages were

deported to towns and camps in Southern Romania52

. The effort to remove the

Jewish population away from the front line, otherwise irrational, non-realistic,

logic-less, indicating the monomaniacal obsession with the Jewish peril53

, was

designed not so much to secure the area, but to incite the population and the army,

reminding them that the Jews were a disloyal and suspected enemy population54.

The final preparations for the invasion of the USSR were to trigger a rampant

anti-Semitism, which was to facilitate ethnic cleansing by means of deportation

and mass killing. Official military reports indicate that by that time the myth of

the Bolshevik-Jew was already at work, and anger a strong political motivation:

the entire Judeo-Bolshevik population was to be evacuated. All Jewish males

were considered suspects, and thus subjected to summary investigations andexecution by shooting

55.

When the war broke out, and Einsatzgruppe D was sent to the front, inIai, they were to rapidly discover they arrived amid genocide already well

underway56

. Though imprecise, as the German special killing squads were in factalready there at the beginning of the pogrom, and took part in it, Michael

Burleichs account makes its point. The initiative and coordination for the massslaughter in Iai goes to the Romanians. The pogrom, carried out by Romanian

state institutions, in a frontier city with over 50% Jewish population, hotbed ofradical and rabid anti-Semitism where from June 1940 to June 1941 Jews had

been under continuous attack from legionnairesand Bessarabian refugees, endedup in more than 10,000 victims. Due to the preexistence of a great aversion

toward the Jews, which the authorities were aware of, there was no need forAntonescu to issue any specific orders before, but only to later justify the deeds in

an official communicate. Communist Jews were (made) responsible for the events

51 Lya Benjamin, Problema evreiasc [The Jewish Question], Hasefer, Bucharest, doc.

71, pp. 190191.52

Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.),Final Report, op. cit., p. 118.53

As Eugen Cristescu, the chief of the Romanian intelligence, put it, it would have

sufficed to closely watch and control an already terrorized and terrified population. See MihaiStoenescu,Armata, Marealul i Evreii, op. cit., p. 235.

54 Lya Benjamin (ed.), Documente. Comisia internaional, op. cit., pp. 186188. The

deportation was for the government a pre-emptive strike meant to remove a hostile populationaway from the front line. Any attempt from the Jews to disobey the orders was punished by

shooting. The police had the task to identify all potential instigators and Soviet agents among 16 to60 year old Jewish males, and send them to camps.

55Jean Ancel (ed.),Documents, op. cit., vol. II, doc. 1, p. 1.

56Michael Burleich, The Third Reich, op. cit., p. 629.


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in Iai, with 500 Bolshevik-Jews having been executed for their crimes57

.Propaganda did the rest, announcing that the Bolshevik kike was wiped out

from the city of Stephen the Holy and Great

58

. No matter what the Iai Jews mightor would have done in June 1941, their fate was sealed long before. But the peak

of one long year of abuses, arrests, beatings, persecutions, hate speech, and so on,

the pogrom was the final test before launching the ethnic cleansing operations in

Bessarabia and Bukovina. The local authorities, encouraged to keep the order by

all means, the Romanian army, no longer victimized by the state propaganda, but

presented in the aftermath of the pogrom as heroic, with its pride retrieved and the

shame of 1940 washed in the blood of the Jewish plague, lastly the civilians,

who were to act patriotically by indicating to the police all the suspects and

strangers, under penalty of death59

, were tested one more time.

In a special order, issued on July 4, 1941, Ion Antonescu disapproved of

the methods, violence, massacres and lootings by civilians and soldiers, but not of

the ends. From that moment on, all initiatives to cleanse Romania of Jews andthus fulfill the expectations of the Romanian people rested with the government

60.

Deportation, ghettoization, extermination were officially turned into stateorganized and sponsored policy

61.

Rather hard to believe that in the case of the Iai pogrom the governmentand the local authorities were not in, or at some point lost, control, and that made

possible the unrestrained outburst of sweeping anti-Semitic violence62

. A furtherlook into the events suggests that in fact the authorities reiterated and further

fueled the psychosis of 1940, and later allowed the army, gendarmerie, police, andcivilians have their own struggle, and revenge, against the Jewish enemy. Yet, this

time, anger was triggered by both past events and present deadlocks, as the Jewish

population was held responsible for the slow advance of the Romanian army into

the Soviet territory the pogrom took place on the June 28-30, 1941, one weekafter the troops had entered Bessarabia, with poor military results

63.

On July 8, 1941, prime-Minister Mihai Antonescu delivered a speech to

the cabinet, deriding the soapy vaporous philosophical humanitarianism of the

traditionalists when it came to the Jewish Question. He further informed his

ministers that, from that moment on, ethnic cleansing would become a state

matter and governmental venture, thus moving beyond riots, random terror, and

57MapN archive, fond 948, file 2410, p. 372.

58Soldatul, no. 2, July 1, 1941.

59Lya Benjamin,Legislaia anti-evreiasc, op. cit., doc. 42, p. 155.

60Michael Burleich, The Third Reich, op. cit., pp. 620621.61Jean Ancel (ed.),Documents, op. cit., vol. X, doc. 23, pp. 79-80.

62Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.),Final Report, op. cit., p. 122.

63Radu Ioanid, The Sword of the Archangel, op. cit., p. 204.


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pogroms64

. The very same ideas were exposed within days, on July 12, 1941, bythe prime-Minister, at a meeting with the civil administration of Bessarabia and

Bukovina organized by the ministry of the interior, where he informed hisinterlocutors of the necessity for, and meaning of, a new concept: cleansing the

ground65

. As a result, Hell on Earth was unleashed, with the Romanian troops

entering Bessarabia and Bukovina and acting as an Iron Broom, cleansing villages

and towns by massacres, causing 25,000 deaths in less than one month66

. As the

memoirs of Traian Popovici, former mayor of Cernowitz, indicate, the Romanian

troops seized the opportunity to release their long accumulated anger and hate,

treating the Jews as an enemy population, in an obvious attempt to achieve the

political goal of the government, the physical destruction of the Jews67.

A huge number of Bessarabian and Bukovinan Jews died in the first days

and weeks of the invasion, but most of them thereafter, towards the end of 1942.

In some cases the entire population of one village was killed on the spot, in other

cases only the community notables, often Rabbis and well-to-do, middle class,Jews, who were by no means communists. Like in Iai, in most instances there

was no need for exact orders from above: the central authorities preferred to letanger and thirst for revenge put things in motion, rather than reestablish order

within days68

. Yet, nothing was accidental: everything was carefully orchestratedby the authorities. Plans were designed for the removal of the Jews from the

liberated territories by organized teams that had to act before the troops arrival69

.The strategy was simple and efficient: first offer satisfaction to the mob and

vengeful army, allowing them to kill and loot, second deport the survivors to thecamps in Transnistria, or simply toss them across the Bug

70. According to General

Constantin Vasiliu, mass killing on the spot was favored, indicating that

cleansing the ground meant what it said71

. No attempts were ever made by the

government or army officers to put an end to the killings; on the contrary,violence against the Jewish enemy population was righteous and designed to

further strengthen the combat spirit of an army fighting not against civilians, but

against Soviet agents and partisans72

. Blaming the Jews not only for the events of

64Michael Burleich, The Third Reich, op. cit., p. 620.65

Mihai Antonescu, Pentru Basarabia i Bucovina. ndrumri date administraieidesrobitoare, [For Bessarabia and Bukovina. Instructions to the Liberating Administration],Bucharest, 1941, pp. 6061.


67Lya Benjamin (ed.),Documente. Comisia internaional, op. cit., pp. 571592.


69MapN archive, fond Armata IV, reel 781, pp. 145146.

70Radu Ioanid, The Sword of the Archangel, op. cit., pp. 214215.71Constantin Vasiliu, quoted in Jean Ancel, Archival Sources concerning the Holocaust

in Romania, op. cit., p. 67.72

Mihai Stoenescu,Armata, Marealul i Evreii, op. cit., p. 290.


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1940, but for all the evils of Soviet occupation, accusing them of acting ascommunist agents and collaborators, demonizing them when depicting the

destroyed churches and the mass graves of the 200,000 Romanians killed by theSoviets73

, the authorities kept the killing machine oiled and ready for brutal and

swift, spontaneous and disorganized, dispersed and capricious, massacres that are

unique in the history of the Holocaust, the result of an odd mixture of destructive

spirit and opportunism74

. The Jewish population was aware of, though not

responsible for, all the horrors undertaken by the Soviets and circulated by the

Romanian propaganda, as were they also aware of the Romanian revenge drive,

which made them flee by the thousands to the USSR, only to be later captured and

executed by the Romanians and the Germans, in Odessa.

The harbor city of Odessa in Crimea, which was never part of Romania,

was conquered by the Romanian army following a long and grim siege that ended

in heavy losses, exceeding 70,000 people. That was to make Romanians enter the

city in a foul frame of mind75

, with reprisals starting before Antonescu hadissued any orders

76. The Conductor [Leader] (Antonescu) was only later to

legitimize and justify the terrible massacre perpetrated by the army against Jewishcivilians, and not simply in terms of retaliation for the bomb attack on the

Romanian military headquarters. In a letter to Fildermann he stressed the direct orindirect guilt and responsibility of the entire Jewish population, who, acting as

Bolshevik commissars, agents, and collaborators, had pushed the Russians troopsinto a senseless massacre against the Romanians

77.

This time, anger played a more important role than ethnic cleansing, withthe retaliations resulting in 19,000 Jews killed in Odessa proper, and 40,000

others killed in Dalnic, in the city outskirts. Most of them were Jewish refugees

from Bessarabia, and thus, one way or the other, targeted for extermination78

.

By the time the Romanian army had reached and conquered Odessa at theend of August beginning of September1941, under the impact of the events,

failures, losses, dissatisfactions, and continuous demonization of the Jewish

people, Antonescu was already in the logic and line of his former partners, the

legionnaires: the Jew was Satan, and the war but a life and death struggle againsthim

79. The war against the Jews was no longer a matter of tactics or profit, but

survival. Moreover, with Antonescu coming closer and closer to Hitlers vision:

73 Andreas Hillgruber, Hitler, Regele Carol, op. cit., p. 280; see also Mihai Stoenescu,

Armata, Marealul i Evreii, op. cit., pp. 290, 302.74

Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, op. cit., pp. 668669.75

Michael Burleich, The Third Reich, op. cit., pp. 622623.76Ibidem, p. 626.77

Ion Antonescu, quoted inIbidem, p. 625.78

Lya Benjamin (ed.),Documente. Comisia internaional, op. cit., p. 282.79

Idem,Problema evreiasc, op. cit., doc. 109, pp. 298299.


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At the end of this struggle we will cleanse the world of them, or become theslaves of the Jewish Beast, the fate of the Moldavian, Bukovinan and

Bessarabian Jews was sealed forever. All of them were to be deported toTransnistria80

, a dumping ground for ethnic undesirables, mainly Jews but also

Roma81

, which turned into a trap for the Romanian administration, whose first

intention was to push the Jews and Roma across the Bug, and abandon them at the

hands of the Germans. Unprepared as they were, the Romanians turned the

deportation to the camps into a death sentence. Tens of thousands died there of

typhus and starvation, in mass killings, whether preventive or simple outbursts of

therapeutic violence, executed by the Romanians alone or together with German

police and the Ukrainians, or at the hands of the SS and the Todt82. Some of the

episodes were as horrible and cruel as to leave the fortuitous eyewitness with the

impression that he was re-living scenes from the legionary rebellion, this time

with the slaughter performed under the patronage of the state and army, and not of

the Green Beast83

. Few returned, from 1943 onward, mainly orphans, withAntonescu bitterly opposing the solution, seeing it as unacceptable and unpopular,

dangerous and catastrophic84

.In late 1941, the Romanian ethnic cleansing operations in Bessarabia and

Northern Bukovina, a combination of random and selective mass killings anddeportations to Transnistria, were rapidly coming to an end

85. The Romanians

were speeding the deportations, without realizing that the Germans were unableand unprepared to cope with the situation. At one point the Germans had no other

solution but to ask the Romanians to operate more systematically, and slow downtheir actions

86. Shortly thereafter, with the Romanians having in mind a Jewish

Question solved by an overnight process, anxious to turn to the Jews of Old

Kingdom, Banat, and Southern Transylvania, so as to make room for Romanian

refugees87, and with Transnistria overcrowded and a bureaucratic nightmare, itwas not difficult for the Germans to convince the two Antonescus to accept a new

plan: deportation to the Lublin area. By the end of July 1942, the two parties had

reached an agreement to start the deportations on September 10. The rest was but

a matter of technicalities and formalities, to be later on taken care of by the

bureaucrats Radu Leccas visit to Berlin was designed to settle the final

80Jean Ancel (ed.),Documents, op. cit., vol. II, doc. 31, pp. 5758.



83Lya Benjamin (ed.),Documente. Comisia internaional, op. cit., p. 301.

84ANIC, Fond PCM, file 166/1940, pp. 7475.

85Jean Ancel, Archival Sources concerning the Holocaust in Romania, op. cit., pp. 9398.86Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy, op. cit., pp. 304305, Jean Ancel (ed.),

Documents, op. cit., doc. 148, p. 293.87

Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.),Final Report, op. cit., p. 168.


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arrangements88

. Once the decision had been taken, with no opposition inBucharest (or in Berlin), there were no reasons for the Germans to fear, or at least

doubt, that the Romanians would change their mind. The only, otherwise small,but not insignificant, problems underlined in the case of Romania were the high

level of widespread corruption, and the way Romanians defined Jewishness: in

terms of religion rather than race. As for the rest, in Romania, like in Slovakia and

Croatia, and unlike in Hungary, there was no need to send an adviser (and expert)

on the Jewish Question89

. Some of the Nazis were so trustful that they rushed to

publicly announce that Romania would soon (read 1943) be free of Jews, thus

setting, once more, an example for other countries to follow90

. Yet, unexpectedly,

on October 13, 1942, the Romanian government decided to halt the deportations,

without making any public announcement of the decision91

. The Germans were to

find out only later about their allys position reversal.

Still, Romanians stood on the Nazi side in the genocidal mire, and huge

proportions of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews perished at the hands of theRomanian government. Ion Antonescu knew from Hitler himself, and from the

very beginning, that the Job was tough and dirty. Yet, he decided to give uphuman feelings and compassion. There was little or no need for any form of

German participation in the cleansing of the ground, as violence was triggeredby the long lasting local anti-Semitism, backed by anger, bigotry, opportunism,

materialism, careerism and military discipline. With Odessa, one of the greatestmassacres in the entire Holocaust, Romanian mass killings turned genocidal

92,

reaching a peak, only to slow down thereafter. Moreover, the perspective changeddramatically once the Romanian government turned to the Jews of the Old

Kingdom, Transylvania and Banat. One major explanation for the Romanian shift

and rift would be that the killings were gradually turning geopolitically

disadvantageous. The Western allies had let Bucharest know from the verybeginning that they were disgusted by any form of radical anti-Semitic measures

and policy, but it was only after Stalingrad that the Romanians started paying

attention and becoming more sensitive93

. At the beginning of the war against the

USSR, the situation had looked totally different: their alliance to an undefeated,

even inexpugnable Germany, had given them the impression of military power

and a politically untouchable status, which turned them arrogant enough to

88Ibidem, p. 169.

89Gerhard Schoenberner (ed.), The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of the European

Jews, Gedenkstatte Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz, Berlin, 2002, pp. 107108, doc. 7,8,9.90

Rumanien wird Judenrein and Judenaussiedlung, in Bukarester Tageblatt,

August 8, 1942.91

Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.),Final Report, op. cit., p. 170.92

Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy, op. cit., p. 305.93

Ibidem,pp. 306307.


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remove any barrier and totally disregard potential consequences. That sufficed tomake possible the display of lethal violence by a regime aiming to ethnically

cleanse the nation.Another explanation would be that what worked in the case of Bessarabia

and Bukovina did not work for the other Romanian provinces, as the government

divided its strategy on the means to do it in terms of time and geography. In the

East, the Romanian army and gendarmerie fought and exterminated the enemy,

the Bolshevik Jew: winning the war and cleansing the land thus went hand in

hand. Killing in the east was righteous for the Romanians, by no means a simple

matter of keeping the balance between pleasing the Germans and achieving their

own goals. The full commitment was ideologically justified and fueled by the

hatred of Jews, communism, and the USSR, and pushed so far as to limit the

flexibility toward Western allies, even when it became obvious that Germany was

loosing the war. In the Old Kingdom, Transylvania, and Banat, a different

strategy was needed, as in the eyes of both the authorities and the local populationJews were not only culturally different, but also less dangerous, less poor, and

more integrated than the Jews in the East. Hungarian Jews were perceived asdisloyal, and a fifth column of the neighboring country, but far less dangerous

than the Russian, Bolshevik Jews. Ion Antonescu himself stated in differentmoments that the Old Kingdom, Transylvania and Banat Jews would not suffer,

meaning would not be deported, unless proven to be communists or sympathizersof Romanias enemies, England and the USA included

94. He also promised as of

1941 that, in principle, the government would protect all Jews who had hadRomanian citizenship prior to 1914

95. However, those suspected to be hostile to

the Romanian army and people were to be deported as well, with the government

alone to decide over who, when, and of what charges he/she was guilty.

Moreover, protection was but temporary, with the fate of all Romanian Jews to bedecided later, at the conclusion of the war, as part and by means of an

international equitable solution to the Jewish question96. Far from being

saved, protected, trusted, the Jews were simply tolerated as long as they accepted

to entirely submit to the state and the regime97. At the time, from February to

October 1942, deportation to both Poland and Transnistria were not totally and

forever eliminated from the agenda, at least some personal agendas.

The invasion of Russia took many of the leaders of the Third Reich from

plans of expulsion and commensurate population decimation as the central

94Andreas Hillgruber,Hitler, Regele Carol, op. cit., p. 283.

95Dinu C. Giurescu,Romnia n al doilea rzboi mondial, op. cit., p. 144.

96 Lya Benjamin (ed.), Evreii din Romnia ntre ani 19401944, vol. III, 19401942:Perioada unei mari restriti, [The Romanian Jews during 19401944, vol. 3, 19401942: A Timeof Great Oppression], part II, Hassefer, Bucharest, 1997, pp. 126127, doc 428.

97Ibidem, pp. 126127, 175176, doc. 428, 469.


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not little cynical double-dealing105

. Considerable room for criticism, initiatives,and limited opposition to policies sanctioned by Hitler was still possible when,

and if, backed by other recognized needs and priorities such as the war effort,shortages of labor force, strengthening or preservation of alliances and so on.

Few were able to comprehend the new vision, panoramic and radicalized, and

consequently postpone the idea of, and vested interests with, Germanizing the

conquered territories in the East for the next decade, and consolidate the process

after generations, as for them the resettlement of ethnic Germans was equally

important to solving the Jewish Question106. The polycratic nature of the weak

dictatorship of consensus107

, marked by conflicting policies and personalities,

generating paralysis and indecision for a short while108, doubled by the fact that

the factories of death were not all ready and working at full capacity, and the

supply system was not running properly yet109, was but to slow the process in

the first months of 1942.

When it came to extracting the Jews from allied and satellite countries,which was no easy task in some cases, with agreements to be reached and

sensibilities not to be hurt, other delays occurred. One major explanation lies inthat the SS and the Foreign Office were competing rather than working together,

getting into a conflict generated by the SS attempts to fully control the operations,and the diplomats efforts to preserve their jurisdiction

110. Second, the Other Jews

were not a priority for the Germans from the very beginning: the Jews from theAltreich, Austria, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, then Wartegau, wereinitially targeted for evacuation in the General Government. Furthermore, theRoma and Sinti, and the Poles, were to follow, with the Nazis never to fall short

of victims. Therefore, no rush was needed when it came to other countries and

territories, at least not at an early stage111

.

105 Heinz Hhne, The Order of the Deaths Head. The Story of Hitlers SS, Penguin

Books, London, 2000,pp. 398399.106

Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, op. cit., pp. 108109.107

Robert Gellately, The Third Reich, the Holocaust, and Visions of Serial Genocide,

op. cit., p. 241.108Saul Friedlander, The Years of Extermination, op. cit., p. 336. Facing opposition from

the government on various issues concerning the German, but not East European, Jews Hitler hadto force the Reichstags hand and impose a second Enabling Act in April 1942, granting him

unlimited powers, placing the Fuhrers principles above the law.109

Ibidem, pp. 490492. From a logistical point of view, the deportations were a constantfactor of stress, at least until 1943; they gave headaches to the Nazis, who never had enough trains,

nor exactly when they needed them, as the Reihsbahn was fail ing to provide sufficient freight cars,since there were always other priorities. See also Raul Hilberg, The Bureaucracy of

Annihilation, in Franois Furet ed., Unanswered Questions, op. cit., pp. 123125.110Heinz Hhne, The Order of the Deaths Head, op. cit.,p. 281.

111 Christopher Browning, The Decision Concerning the Final Solution, op. cit.,

pp. 114115.


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increasing opposition by some members of the Romanian government andadministration, at least the Bucharest based experts and diplomats could do

nothing but watch, write reports to Berlin, protest, and eventually turn more andmore frustrated, with each and every failed attempt to take over control and

physically deport the Romanian Jews to the Lublin area. Romania was no

occupied or satellite country, but an ally, which forced many of them to be

prudent, since too much pressure on the Romanians to hand over their Jews might

have jeopardized the military alliance and Romanias economic contributions to

the war effort. Killingers briefings with Mihai Antonescu, and the reports sent to

Berlin by SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Richter, point to the fact that they were bothaware and concerned with the evolution of the Jewish Question in Romania, and

with the interventions of some Romanians in favor of the Jews. However, all they

could do was threaten that the time would come when the saboteurs would have

to pay the bill119

. Not even top diplomats in Berlin, such as Luther, could do more

than attempt to persuade the Romanians that a radical change of their policytoward the Jews would not improve Romanias image worldwide, but only

indicate a crack in the Axis, and weakness on the part of Bucharest leaders120

. Asfor the SS, Himmler, Heydrich, Muller, Eichmann, all had their hands tied, as

they could only work on details, but not make decisions on German Grand Policyand high diplomacy. It was the Fuhrers job to come up with the broad

brushstrokes and final decisions, as he was the only one who had a panoramicview, and the only one who could operate at the top level of Antonescu, Horthy,

Tiso, Petain and others, issuing authorizations concerning the politicallyextremely sensitive operation of extracting the Jews from other countries

121.

As Helen Feins study points out, direct German rule and SS control over

deportations counted more than anything else in the implementation of the Final

Solution122. A comparison between the cases of Romania and Bulgaria on the onehand and Slovakia and Hungary on the other would be more than sufficient,

illustrative and illuminating. However, the SS never succeeded in getting more

than agreements from the Romanian government, though as of June 1941 they

repeatedly attempted to take control and entirely coordinate the operations the

selective mass killings and deportations from Bessarabia and Bukovina

respectively123. The Romanians refused to surrender their prerogatives, and SS

plots and interference in Romanias domestic policy were utterly rejected. Pride

119Lya Benjamin (ed.),Perioada unei mari restriti, part II, op. cit., pp. 2645 doc. 548.

They went as far as to make their threats public, writing articles on the Romanian slaves of theJews. See Judenknechte, inBukarester Tageblatt, October 11, 1942.

120Andreas Hillgruber,Hitler, Regele Carol, op. cit., p. 283.121Michael Burleich, The Third Reich, op. cit., pp. 630631.

122Helen Fein,Accounting for Genocide, Free Press, New York, 1979.



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was one factor; Ion Antonescus distrust of the black tunics another. TheRomanian Conductor [Leader] preferred to rely on the Foreign Office for the

simple reason that German diplomatic interventions had liberated him from prisonin 1940, and later on, in January 1941, German diplomacy had bet their money

on him, while the SS had supported the fascist, legionary coup124

. From that

moment on Antonescu had had but contempt for the SS, suspecting them of

cooperation with his legionnaireenemies, so as to jeopardize his position125. Theonly person who had the means and skills to intervene in favor of the SS, like in

Hungary, where he had changed Horthy with a puppet regime willing to finally

tackle the Jewish question, was Hitler126

. Yet, Hitler preferred to continue trying

to persuade Antonescu, and lived with the impression that he was successful in his

efforts, as the Jews were the archenemy that ultimately had to be destroyed127

.

Consequently, Romania was not occupied, though the plan to do so in case of an

eventual defection existed. There were even good reasons for Hitler to order it,

especially as of April 1943, when he informed Antonescu about tentativeapproaches by Romanian ministries to the Western allies, complaining about, and

disapproving of, the Romanian mild anti-Semitic measures128

. Coming fromHitler, not to put iron in the glove could only mean he was convinced the glove

was itself made of iron. As a matter of fact, Antonescus loyalty to, and supportof, the Romanian army were never doubted by Hitler, not even after he had

refused to offer the Romanians some satisfaction by returning NorthernTransylvania to Romania. Antonescu was not only an ally, but also an

accomplice, the only foreign statesman whom Hitler had been ready to inform inadvance about the attack on the USSR, and the annihilation war to be carried out

there, as the Romanian army had to be broadly put into the picture. Hitler

possibly felt that no harsher terms were needed when it came to the Romanian

Jews, in the hope that the episode of June-October 1941, when Antonescu hadunleashed his thirsting for revenge troops, allowing for horrifying massacres in

order to offer satisfaction to the Romanian people and army, would genuinely

repeat itself129

.

Before the deportation of the Romanian Jews to Poland (Lublin area) took

shape, Romanians had implemented, somewhat independently, other, similar

plans. In July 1941 the Romanian government had thought of deporting all the

124Heinz Hhne, The Order of the Deaths Head, op. cit.,pp. 289290.

125Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.),Final Report, op. cit., pp. 6263. See

also Lya Benjamin (ed.),Perioada unei mari restriti, part II, op. cit., pp 2425, 29, doc. 359, 364.126 Ian Kershaw, Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis, vol. 2, Penguin Books, London, 2000,

pp. 627628. Also Saul Friedlander, The Years of Extermination, op. cit., p. 405.127Saul Friedlander, The Years of Extermination, op. cit., p. 636. On August 5, 1944, Hitler

made a last attempt to persuade Antonescu to change his mind and deport the Romanian Jews.128Ian Kershaw,Hitler, op. cit., pp. 582583.129

Ibidem, pp. 383384.


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Jews from Bessarabia, Bukovina, and other counties of Moldova to Transnistria.Bolshevik Jews and many others from the Old Kingdom, Transylvania and Banat

were to be deported soon thereafter as well. No preparations were made, asdeportation was to be only temporary; Transnistria was seen as a simple dumping

ground, with the Jews to be shortly evacuated (pushed, tossed, as the perpetrators

put it) over the Bug River, into the USSR130

. Speeding the process on their own,

they did not realize that, with the advent of the Barbarossa plan, Hitler, Himmler,

and Rosenberg turned Russia into a fated land of German expansion, where no

expulsion of Jews was to be allowed, and where the existing Jewish population was

to be exterminated131

. Uninformed as they were, they could not grasp the logic of

the Germans, who pushed back the Jews deported to Moghilev in July, shooting

12,000 out of 25,000. With Transnistria conquered and turned into a territory under

Romanian administration, Romanians continued to deport the undesirables there,

still hoping to later expel them to Russia. In August 1941, Mihai Antonescu

informed the Romanian cabinet of his previous discussions with several Naziofficials rather third echelon experts, probably Richter, than high-ranking

officials, as he put it concerning the implementation of an international solutionto the Jewish Question, meaning the evacuation to the East. Until December 1941,

Ion Antonescu continued to think that the question of the Yids is being discussedin Berlin. The Germans want to bring the Yids from Europe to Russia and settle

them in certain areas, but there is still time before this plan is carried out132

.This was no Romanian dreadful imagination at work, only wishful

thinking based on a former Nazi plan from 1939-1940. The Romanians knewabout it since June 1940, when the Ion Gigurtu cabinet had expressed its intention

to collaborate with the Germans and solve the Jewish Question by means of

evacuation and relocation to the East, where a reservation for the European Jews

was to be created133. However, by mid 1941, the plan was already outdated as anew vision emerged from within the Third Reich leadership, which brought the

Romanian policy of ethnic cleansing somewhat to a deadlock134. To find a way

out, Romanians had to be persuaded to give up expediency, halt deportations,

renounce their plans, and accept the new German solution and method instead135.

With Ion Antonescu determined to move forward and deport all Romanian Jews

to Transnistria, resiliently stating that nothing was going to stop him, at national

130Jean Ancel, Archival Sources concerning the Holocaust in Romania, op. cit., p. 98.

131Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, op. cit., p. 109.

132Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.),Final Report, op. cit., pp. 6467.

133Lya Benjamin (ed.),Problema evreiascn stenogramele Consiliului de minitri[The

Jewish Question in the Records of the Council of Ministers], Hassefer, Bucharest, 1996, p 365,doc 126.

134Andreas Hillgruber,Hitler, Regele Carol, op. cit., pp. 280281.

135Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, op. cit., pp. 678686.


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or European level, from doing so, German experts working as advisers to theRomanian government had to make sustained efforts to convince the Romanian

Conductors henchmen to deport the Jews from the Old Kingdom andTransylvania to Poland136.In late 1941, Radu Lecca and Gustav Richter convinced Mihai Antonescu

to create Centrala, a new agency meant to help the Romanian governmentcoordinate and control of Jewish activities, organize forced labor, and collect

contributions for the war effort137

. In March 1942, Franz Rademacher tested, once

more, the Romanian governments readiness to deport its Jews, with some

promising results. Romanian Jews living outside Romania, in European countries

under German control, were abandoned at the hands of the Nazis138. With

Romania soon to be included in the continental wide Final Solution, the Nazis

wanted to make sure they were not going to meet with resistance.

During the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, this was one of the main

issues to be discussed, with Martin Luther, Undersecretary of state at the ForeignOffice, ensuring Heydrich that the path was cleared in South Eastern Europe, with

none of the governments there to create any problems to the RSHA when it wouldcome to deporting their Jews

139. In the case of Romania, previous attitudes and

developments indicated but willingness and openness from the authorities tocollaborate with the Germans. By that time, the Romanians had already deported

more than half of their Jews, with Mihai Antonescu personally writing to Himmler,asking him to send his expert, Gustav Richter, whose expertise had proven

essential, back to Romania140

. True, the Romanians were not ready to fully give uptheir prerogatives and jurisdiction, as they were still longing for a Romanian

solution, in some respects different from the German one141

. To Heydrich and his

always suspicious RSHA, this was a sound indicator of the Romanian

governments reluctance, even opposition to the new policy. To Killinger, whoinformed the Foreign Office in September 1941 that Heydrichs report was

inaccurate, as the Romanians proved to be radical, it was simply a matter of time,

and preparations142

. By November 1941, even Killinger, the troubleshooter, was

to inform Berlin that the Romanians were somewhat double-crossing them, that the

only to be trusted in Bucharest was Ion Antonescu, as the rest of the Romanian

politicians and bourgeoisie were rather anti-German143.

136Jean Ancel, Archival Sources concerning the Holocaust in Romania, op. cit., pp. 9899.

137Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, op. cit., p. 689.

138Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, op. cit., p. 379.

139Radu Ioanid,Evreii sub regimul Antonescu.., op. cit., pp. 325326.

140

Lya Benjamin (ed.),Perioada unei mari restriti, part I, op. cit., p. 383, doc. 274.141Radu Ioanid,Evreii sub regimul Antonescu.., op. cit., pp. 3267.

142Lya Benjamin (ed.),Perioada unei mari restriti, part II, op. cit., pp. 78, doc. 343.

143Radu Ioanid,Evreii sub regimul Antonescu.., op. cit., p. 328.


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In July 1942 doubts vanished once again, when MihaiAntonescu issued anorder coming directly from Ion Antonescu: the Jews of Banat and Southern

Transylvania were soon to be deported to Poland. Moreover, German andRomanian agencies were to carry it out together144

. Gustav Richter rushed to let his

superiors in Berlin know that he had accomplished his mission. By July 26,

Heydrich, and even Eichmann, were informed that the preparations had started, and

that, following the Slovak scenario, deportations would begin on September 10,

1942145

. Able-bodied Jews were to be deported to forced labor, loosing Romanian

citizenship and assets once they crossed the border146. Some German officials, such

as Martin Luther, were still displeased with the Romanian governments general

attitude, and the too many categories of Jews exempted from deportation. Yet, the

proposed strategy was not to put further pressure on the Romanians who, in

principle were going in line with the German plan. Instead, Radu Lecca was to be

invited to Berlin to work with the Nazi bureaucrats on the last details147

. In the

meantime, several German and Romanian German newspapers publicly announcedthe inevitable deportation of the Romanian Jews, while the Romanian press

refrained from doing so148

. What made the difference between the Romanian andthe German attitude remains somewhat unclear. Further developments suggest that

for the Romanian government the success of the entire operation was conditionedon secrecy more than on anything else. At the same time, the Nazis had to

propagandistically advertise each and every military, political, diplomatic andideological success of the regime, to let the domestic population back home know

that Germany was not alone, that trustworthy allies were fighting on its side, and soon and so forth. Finally, a certain dosage of typical Nazi arrogance, in this

particular case at least Gustav Richters, is not to be eluded.

Invited to Berlin in August to sort out the details, Radu Lecca, the head

of the Romanian Jewish Commissariat, was brusquely treated by ForeignMinistry officials, who thought they were discussing details with an oily rag

rather than making decisions with a ships officer149. Franz Rademacher, the

Foreign Offices expert on Jewish matters, and Luthers direct subordinate, was

the only official who took the time to talk to Lecca. This time it was not only for

arrogance and infatuation to ruin the Nazi plans. The existing conflict between the

RSHA and the Foreign Office150, as well as the fact that Martin Luther had

144Andreas Hillgruber,Hitler, Regele Carol, op. cit., p. 282.


146Andreas Hillgruber,Hitler, Regele Carol, op. cit., p. 282, also Radu Ioanid,Evreii sub

regimul Antonescu., op. cit., pp. 328329.147

Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, op. cit., p. 693.148Radu Ioanid,Evreii sub regimul Antonescu, op. cit., pp. 32930.


150Andreas Hillgruber,Hitler, Regele Carol, op. cit., p. 282, nota 51.


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clumsily missed to inform his superiors on the issues discussed at Wannsee going with the wind, a perfect opportunist and careerist, Luther wanted but to

secure a personal jurisdiction and thus improve his position within the ministry, offended not only Lecca, but also Ion Antonescu. For the Romanian

Conductor the way his envoy was treated in Berlin was indicative for theGerman general perception of Romania as a second rate ally and easy to handle

executant (and executioner), and not an equal partner. For Antonescu, a

vainglorious military and authoritarian politician with a studied independence,

suspicious toward, and annoyed by, any Nazi plot, intrusion, and pressure, this

incident might have made the difference between deporting the Jews of the Old

Kingdom, Banat and Transylvania to Poland or not151. Anyhow, his decision to

halt the operation was not a matter of humanistic self-reflection over his deeds

and their terrifying outcomes.

After Leccas return from Berlin, the general attitude of the Romanian

government changed, but the diplomatic incident is not enough to explain thischange

152. The Germans, first the Bucharest legation, then Berlin, continued to

hope and push, as long as to their mind the negotiations with the Romanians wereconcluded. Conversely, and somewhat unexpectedly, Romanian officials started

claiming that the deportations had to be postponed, the plans studied and workedin further details, and the operation launched when the time would come

153. For

someone familiarized with the back and forth oscillation of Romanian policy,and with the deportations starting, only to be stopped shortly thereafter, the

situation must have been unpleasant, but not desperate. Fortunately for thetargeted victims, the Germans did not realize that, by late 1942, the Romanians

had gradually turned disappointed, loosing their enthusiasm and initial

exuberance154

. Contradictions and even conflicts between cabinet members and

decision makers soon sparked, as some realized that they had to be more cautious.The fact that the secret of the deportations to Lublin was out only days after the

discussions between Mihai Antonescu and the Nazi officials, with rumors

spreading fast the information apparently transpired from the Centrala and from

Romanian Railways clerks , and generating a wave of interventions and protests,

was one good reason to be careful. On September 29, 1942, Mihai Antonescu

informed his close associates that the Jews had found out the secret, proving how

deeply infiltrated and dangerous they could be, spreading lies and creating panic;

local authorities in Banat were frightened at the time that German refugees would

be brought instead155

. However, the plans to deport the Jews, hundreds of

151Radu Ioanid,Evreii sub regimul Antonescu, op. cit., p. 338.

152Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, op. cit., pp. 694695.153AMAE, Fond 33, file 17, p. 100.


155Lya Benjamin (ed.),Problema evreiasc, op. cit., p. 441, doc 145.


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thousands of them, with one hundred thousand in Bucharest alone, were notabandoned, as they were still the envisaged solution to some pressing problems

such as making room for Romanians, whether refugees or not. Initiatives comingfrom bureaucrats working at both the central and local level were to reach Leccas

office, who, far from rejecting or opposing any, assured them that according to

state policy all Jews that are not useful to Romanian economy are to be

evacuated to Poland156

. The only problem, at the time, was generated by the

cabinets indecision whether to deport the Jews, who were too many and too

dangerous for public order and state security, to Poland or to Transnistria157.

On September 22, 1942, Mihai Antonescu met with Hitler, Ribbentrop,

and German army commanders in Vinnytsa, Hitlers new headquarter in Ukraine,

at a conference organized to analyze the situation on the Eastern front, but not

only. As usual, Hitler asked for more, but refused to offer anything, from military

equipment to political satisfaction in the case of Romania, this referred to his

promise to return Northern Transylvania after winning the war. The issue of theJewish deportations to Poland was also touched. In his first intervention during

the negotiations, Ribbentrop insisted that Romania should keep its promises.Antonescu did not openly oppose him

158. In some respects, it looked like the

German Foreign Minister had just found out about Hitlers plans and wishes forsure, but I would say, too late

159. Days latter, a somewhat irritated and panic-

stricken Ribbentrop asked Luther to pressure Germanys south east Europeanallied and satellite countries to deliver their Jews, to accelerate as much as

possible the evacuation of the proven archenemies that incite against us andhave to be considered responsible for sabotage acts and assassination attempts

160.

Difficult to say whether Ribbentrops (re)action was determined by an already

predictable at the time Romanian defection. What is unquestionable is the fact

that in less than two months Nazi officials would have good reasons to fearRomanias disengagement from the Final Solution.

156Jean Ancel (ed.),Documents, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 276.

157AMStM., RSEM.900, C1224.158

Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihail Ionescu (eds.),Final Report, op. cit., pp. 170171.159

Christopher Browning, The Decision Concerning the Final Solution, op. cit., pp. 101102, 117. Before that moment, Ribbentrop had not considered necessary to put pressure on theRomanians in regard to the Jewish question. Luther did not inform Ribbentrop on the WannseeConference and the Final Solution in an attempt to secure a better position. Piqued by the SSintrusion and encroachment of his ministry jurisdiction, he gav