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In 1940 large areas of Greater Romania were annexed by bordering countries. In June 1940, the Soviet Union annexed Bessarabia and northern Bucovina, and after the loss of Transylvania, in August 1940, King Carol II was forced to abdicate. On September 1940, General Ion Antonescu, who now ruled, proclaimed a "national legionary state", sharing power with the Iron Guard under Horia Sima's leadership.
The racial anti Jewish laws, elaborated in the spirit of Nuremberg laws, were passed in the summer of 1940, and among other provisions, the citizenship of Jews was abolished and mixed marriages were forbidden. Under Antonescu's rule, Jews were subjected to discriminatory laws, but there were quite a few fluctuations in their status, depending on the war front situation and on the political interests of the regime.
Between September 1940 and January 1941, Antonescu gave orders to implement the first stage of economic anti-Jewish legislation, or "Romanianization", the gradual elimination of Jews from the national economy, designed to lead to such aspects of "national rejuvenation" as the creation of an ethnic Romanian commercial class and an ethnic Romanian controlled economy.
In October 1940 the legionary government started a campaign of deportation of Jews from villages. The campaign aimed to seize Jewish property in many regions of Romania, and lasted two month. Since these actions were illegal, the order was issued orally by the Interior minister. By mid-December 1940, Legionnaires started robbing Jews in Bucharest of their property, including homes and businesses, assaulted, and killed Jewish citizens.
Army units in localities far from Bucharest, also took part in the Legion's anti Jewish actions. On Yom Kipur ,October 12,1940, soldiers participated in a Legion organized day of terror in Câmpulung Moldovenesc. Colonel Mociulschi, commander of the local army base, ordered soldiers to prevent Jews from entering or leaving their homes, while police and Legionary squads burgled and pillaged.
Iron Guard confiscations of the Jewish properties and corruption threatened to disrupt the Romanian economy, and led to tension with Antonescu and the Romanian army. Antonescu agreed that the Jews should lose their property, but did not agree with the means and pace of expropriation. As the Legion grew rich by taking possession of most Jewish property, he began to perceive the Legion as a threat.
On January 14, 1941, Antonescu met Hitler in Obersalzberg to receive his approval regarding his plan to do away with the Legion. By January 20 the Legion had already started to launch mass arrests of Jews taking them to the Bucharest Prefectura, and on January 21, the Iron Guard rose against the regime. Antonescu wanted to let the Legionnaires compromise themselves through their own actions, and until the evening of January 22, the army's actions were limited to returning fire when shot. This allowed the Ion Guard to kill Jews, and pillage or burn their property in several districts of Bucharest, and attack synagogues. During the three day civil war, eventually won by Antonescu with the support of the German army, members of the Iron Guard, killed 123 Jews, destroyed synagogues, and vandalized the Jewish districts. The army offensive ended the rebellion on the morning of January 24, 1941.
Antonescu continued the forced labor campaign started under the National Legionary State. Beginning December 5, 1940, Jewish men aged 18 to 50 had to perform forced labor. In total 84,042 Jews aged 18 to 50 were registered to supply free labor. The youngest 18-20 and the oldest 41-50 were allowed to work in their own towns, which were usually an opportunity for public humiliation, while the others had to work in labor camps, on construction sites and in the fields, under military jurisdiction. Life and work conditions in these camps were horrible. Medical assistance was scarce and hygiene precarious. The sick and crippled were often forced to work, and as the mobilization was done in haste, many workers had to wear their summer clothes until December 1941, when labor camps were temporarily closed.
In exchange for an official ransom, Jews declared "useful" to the economy were exempted from forced labor and allowed to have jobs. The ones unable to work or pay a ransom were to be deported. In June 1942, the Chief of Staff ordered that Jewish workers who committed certain "breaches of work and discipline " were to be deported to Transnistria along with their families. Those Jews in labor detachments often met with severe punishment, such as whipping and clubbing. Eventually, the essence of the "revision" was that the labor camps system was considered to be damaging to the economy.
Antonescu continued what had began under the National Legionary State: the evacuation of Jews from villages and small towns. On June 18,1941, he ordered these Jews to be moved to the county capitals. Some of these capitals had only a few Jewish families, so the evacuated Jews were crowded into abandoned buildings, warehouses, and community buildings. The local Jewish communities could not cope with the needs of the evacuated Jews. Male Jews,18 to 50 years old were sent to the Târgu Jiu camp in southern Romania. Those evacuated from Dorohoi and Southern Bucovina, and the survivors of the Iaşi death trains, were sent to other camps in the counties of Romanaţi, Dolj, Vlaşca and Călăraşi-Ialomiţa. The property of the evacuated Jews was nationalized, and some of it was looted by locals.
By July 1941, 441 villages and small towns were cleansed, and 40,000 people were evacuated. The deportations had a severe impact on the economic life of many villages and towns. By September 1941, Antonescu who became concerned about the situation, decided to divide Jews into two categories: "useful" and "useless" to the economy. Thus Antonescu made the first step away from complete Romanianization.
The period following the invasion of Soviet Union was the most difficult for Romanian Jewry. A few days after the invasion, between June 29 and July 6, the Jews of Iaşi were victims of a pogrom in which more than14,000 Jews were killed in massacres, or suffocated in death trains, supervised by the army and the local police with the support of the Nazi troops.
In July-August 1941 the yellow badge was imposed on the Jews by local initiatives in cities like Bacău, Iaşi and Cernăuţi. A similar measure imposed by the national government lasted only five days (between September 3 and September 8,1941) before being annulled on Antonescu's order following Filderman's protests. Nevertheless, the revocation did not apply to Jews from Bessarabia, Bucovina, and Transnistria, for whom a special decree was issued.
In the summer of 1942, Jews in the Regat, confronted the most critical times, as Antonescu's government accepted the Nazi plan to deport all Jews living in Romania to the Belzec extermination camp. However, in November 1942 it became clear that the Romanian authorities were postponing the execution of this plan, and eventually gave it up completely. The change in policy was a result of pressure from the Allied forces, and because of internal opposition mobilized by the underground council led by Filderman that applied pressure on the authorities through various channels, including the Church and envoys of neutral powers. By March-April 1943, Antonescu stopped the deportations, as he began to seek peace with the allies.
Jean Ancel, Toldot ha-Shoah: Romanyah, 2 vols., Jerusalem 2002, vol 2 no 102, 334
Radu Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania: The destruction of Jews and Gypsies under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944, Chicago, 2000
Final Report of the "Elie Wiesel" International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, Bucharest, 2004
