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... With the risk of not being understood by some traditionalists which may be among you, I am in favor of the forced migration of the entire Jew element from Bessarabia and Bucovina, which must be thrown over the border. Also, I am in favor of the forced migration of the Ukrainian element, which does not belong here at this time. I don't care if we appear in history as barbarians. The Roman Empire has made a series of barbaric acts from a contemporary point of view and, still, was the greatest political settlement.
There has never been a more suitable moment. If necessary, shoot with the machine gun!
From Ion Antonescu's declaration in front of the Ministers' Council on July 8, 1941
"The Stenograms of the Ministers' Council, Ion Antonescu's Government", vol. IV, July–September 1941 period, Bucharest, 2000, 57 (Stenogramele şedinţelor Consiliului de Miniştri, Guvernarea Ion Antonescu, vol. IV, iulie-septembrie 1941, București, 2000, 57
Following the invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany, in June 1941 Romania re-annexed Bessarabia and northern Bucovina, which had been seized by the Soviets a year earlier, after it signed the non aggression pact with the Soviet Union. At that time185,000 Jews lived in Bessarabia and Bucovina.
Three months before the invasion, in March 1941, special delegates of the Reich's government and of Heinrich Himmler arrived in Bucharest to discuss the fate of Romanian Jewry. The delegation included several SS officers, a member of the Gestapo, Eichman's special envoy to Romania, and the future attache in charge of Jewish affairs at the German Legation. During their third meeting on June 21, 1941 in Munich, Hitler reveled to Antonescu the "Guidelines for the Treatment of the Eastern Jews" (Richtlinien zur Behandlung der Osjuden).
A few days before Romania joined Germany in war against Soviet Union on June 22,1941, the gendarmerie was ordered to "cleanse the land" in three localities in Moldova: Roman, Fălticeni and Galaţi. By "cleansing the land" it was intended to killon the spot all the Jews in the rural areas, imprison in ghettoes all Jews in urban areas, and arrest all suspects, party activists, and people who held accountable positions under the Soviet authority.
Following the invasion, Romanian and German combat units, assisted by SS killing squads from Einsatzgruppe D, swept through Bessarabia and Bucovina, killing up to 60,000 Jews and forcing the survivors into ghettos and transit camps.
The order to exterminate a significant part of the Jews of Bessarabia and Bucovina and to deport the rest who would survive was given directly by Ion Antonescu. The gendarmerie and the army, particularly the Pretorate, the military body in charge with the temporary administration of the territory, were chosen to carry out this task. On their arrival in the villages, the gendarmes first would arrest the Jews, mainly with the assistance of the local population and informers. In most cases, Jews turned over to the gendarmes by the army, had no chance to survive and were shot immediately.
The first troops to enter Bucovina were German and Romanian combat units. The route these troops followed was crucial to the fate of thousands of Jews living there, in some of the largest Jewish settlements, such as Herta, Noua Suliţă, Hotin and Lipcani. The soldiers carried out pogroms killing thousands of Jews. The first killings took place in Siret.On July 3,1941, in the village of Ciudei, 450 Jews were shot. On July 4, nearly all the Jews of the villages of Stăneşti, Jadova Nouă, Jadova Veche, Costeşti, Hlinița, Budineț and Cireş were murdered. The massacre of Cernăuţi's Jews, began on July 5, and lasted for days. Herța was conquered on July 4, and Noua Suliţă was occupied on July 7.The slaughter continued in all these places.
The Jews of Bessarabiasuffered the greatest losses to the Romanian operation to"cleanse the land.'In the summer and fall of 1941, on the roads of Bessarabia, Jews walked in rows, accompanied by gendarmes, clerks, and village mayors, carrying shovels, all going to the execution fields.They waited patiently until the gendarmes had shot the Jews, buried them, and returned home with the victims' clothes and other personal effects. The money and valuables were taken by the gendarmes. On July 7, the Jews of Pârlița and Bălți were massacred, on July 8,thousands of Jews were shot in Briceni, Lipcani, Făleşti, Mărculeşti, Floreşti, Gura Kamenca and Gura Căinari and on July 9, the Jews of Edineț were massacred.
Moreover, based on the talks between Hitler and Antonescu in Munich on June 12, 1941, the Romanian army began to deport tens of thousands of Jews who had been arrested in the area, to the other side of the Dniester, in the area that would soon become Transnistria.
Towards the end of July 1941, the Romanian army concentrated about 25,000 Jews near the village of Coslav, on the Dniester.The Germans opposed their advance near the troops and, on July 24, they were sent across the river, the German officers ordering the convoys to head for Moghilev.Although Transnistria was still under German occupation, Romanian gendarmes pushed thousands of Jews through Rezina and Lampol, thousands of them being shot on the banks of the Dniester.
Consequently, at the end of August 1941, Constantin Voiculescu, the Military Governor of Bessarabia informed the press that : "The Jewish problem has been solved in Bessarabia. Today in Bessarabia villages there are no longer any Jews, while in towns, ghettoes have been set up for the remaining."
Awaiting the resumption of deportations, the Romanian authorities set up several dozen ghettoes in Bessarabia, from which the Jews were evacuated to several larger camps. By the end of August, there were already about 80,000 Jews in the ghettoes of Chişinău, Secureni, Edineț, Răscani, Răuţel, Vertiujeni and Mărculeşti. On 11 October, a ghetto was established in Cernăuţi that concentrated approximately 50,000 people in the former Jewish district of the city.
In October 194, most of the surviving Jews of Bessarabia and northern Bucovina were deported to camps and ghettoes in Transnistria. Many died of starvation or disease, while otherswere murdered by Romanian and German units, either in Transnistria, or after being driven across the Bug River into the German occupied Ukraine. The liquidation of the Jews of Bessarabiahas continued until the last Jews were murdered or deported, in late October 1941.
On Antonescu's order between 45,000 to 60,000 Jews in Bessarabia and Bucovina were massacred. The remaining 157,079 Jews were deported to Transnistria: 91,845 from Bucovina, 55,867 from Bessarabia, and 9,367 from Dorohoi. Between 105,000 and 120,000 of the deported Jews died. More than 21,000 Jews from southern Bucovina , from the counties of Dorohoi, Câmpulung Moldovenesc, Suceava and Rădăuţi), which was still a part of the Regat, were also deported before 1942.
Thus, the first phase of the Romanian Holocaust was implemented by the Romanian army and gendarmerie personnel.With the aid of the German Eleventh Army, Einsatzgruppe D, German SS and police units,or on their own initiative, they massacred thousands of Jews in Bessarabia, northern Bucovina, and Transnistria.
Final Report of the "Elie Wiesel" International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, Bucharest, 2004, 24-65
Jean Ancel and Theodor Lavi eds.Pinkas Hakeilot. Rumania (Encyclopedia of the Jewish Communities: Romania, Jerusalem, Yad va Shem, 1980, vol. 2
