Holocaust in Romania

Matatias Carp: Holocaust in Romania Facts and Documents On The Annihilation of Romania’s Jews 1940-1944. Edited by Andrew L. Simon ISBN 0-9665734-7-1 Library of Congress Card Number: 00-102297 Translated by Sean Murphy This selection and the translation is based on the following editions: Atelierele Grafice SOCEC & Co., S.A.R. Bucuresti, 1946 and Societatea Nationala de Editura si Arte Gratice “ Dacia Traiana ”, Bucuresti, 1947,1948. The original title of the book: Matatias Carp CARTEA NEAGRA Suferintele evreilor din Romania, 1940-1944. Printed by Light ning Print, Inc., La Vergne , TN 37086 Published by Simon Publications, P.O. Box 321, Safety Harbor, FL 34695 Contents Pref ace to the Eng lish Edi tion 1 In tro duc tion 7 Fore word to the Orig i nal Edi tion 11 Part 1. The Iron Guard 15 The His tory of Anti-Se mitic Per se cu tion in Ro ma nia , 1940-1944 15 Some Sta tis ti cal Data on the Jew ish Pop u la tion: 16 An Out line of the Suf fer ing of Ro ma nian Jews 21 Those Re spon si ble for the Atroc ities 47 The Iron Guard Gov ern ment 53 Part 2. The Po grom in Iasi 79 His tor i cal Re view 79 Ini tia tive, Or ga ni za tion and Aims 84 Se lected Doc u ments 113 Part 3. Transnistria 145 His tor i cal Re view 145 The Mas sa cres in Bessarabia, Bucovina and Dorohoi County 159 Camps and Ghettos in Bessarabia 178 De por ta tions from Bucovina , Dorohoi County and the Chernovitz Ghetto 189 Mur ders in Odessa and in the Counties of Berezovca and Golta 194 De por ta tions in the Spring and Au tumn of 1942 201 Life and Death in Transnistria 209 Re pa tri a tion 223 Se lected Doc u ments 229 Preface to the English Edition You have just opened the pages of an extraor di nary doc ument. It sheds a pierc ing light into the most ob scured, most hidden, most for gotten cor ner of the crime of our cen tury, the Holo caust. It is the largely un known story of the whole sale slaugh ter of close to 400,000 Jews by the war time Ro ma - nian gov ern ment and the fas cists of that coun try. With out this book, the story of the Ho lo caust is incom plete . It is not a co in ci dence that this story has re mained hid den for so long. Ever since the war and to this day, all the Ro ma nian gov ernments and most of the coun try’s histo ri ans were united in a tacit conspir acy to deny, to ob - scure, to hide the truth about Ro ma nia’s con tri bu tion to the Ho locaust . And for good reasons, as that truth is abom i na ble. Ro ma nia has had the dis tinction of com pleting its own in dig e nous Ho lo - caust, with out much prod ding from their Ger man al lies. In fact, as ev i - denced by this vol ume, mass butch er ing of Ro ma nia’s Jews started well be fore the Endloesung was un leashed on the Jews of Ger many and of the coun tries under Ger man oc cupa tion . No Ger man prod ding was needed as the meth ods of the slaugh ter ing reached such in cred i ble level of sav agery that some times even Ger man au - thor i ties felt compelled the pro test the bar ba rism. Think about it. What it could take dur ing the war to have Nazi Ger man of fi cials to pro test the mis - treat ment of Jews. In re cent years if be came fash ion able in cer tain ex treme right-wing cir cles to deny that the Ho lo caust ever took place. There are “ex perts” around the globe who spend a great deal of time and ef fort on de ny ing the un de ni able. In some countries such pro paganda vi o lates the law, in oth ers its prac ti tio - ners are sim ply dis missed as crack pots. What we wit ness in this case is a mon strous, and so far largely success ful, at tempt of of fi cial Ho lo caust de nial. The four vol umes of this book were pub lished in Bucha rest be tween 1946 and 1948. Shortly af ter pub li ca tion 1 the Ro manian au thor i ties confis cated every avail able vol ume and fed them to the pulp mills. Ro ma nian agents since have sto len and de stroyed even most of those cop ies that found their way into for eign li brar ies. This book, until now, was prac ti cally un avail able for the out side world. In this enforced si lence car ried on the of fi cial Roma nian pro pa ganda with per fect con ti nu ity through half a cen tury. What this propa ganda aided by Roma nian “his to ri ans”, has trum peted around the world was their pe cu liar ver sion of World War II history in which Ro ma nia was the only countr y un der Ger man in flu ence or oc cupa tion that largely spared the Jewish pop - u lation un der its ju ris dic tion. This book shows the op po site to be true. If there was any distinc tion, it lay in Ro ma nia’s preced ing and occa sion ally sur pass ing Nazi Ger many’s bru tal ity. What they lacked in the cold cal cu la - tion of the dia bol i cally sys tematic Ger man death machine, the Romanians made up in the sheer savagery of their hu man slaugh terhouses, the mass rapes of their victims wives and daugh ters, or the burn ing alive of 20,000 of Odessa’s Jews. The Amer ican reader might re spond with in credu lity to the horrors de - scribed here if the Ser bian atroci ties in Bosnia and Kosovo would not be so re cent. One should be reminded that both the Ser bi ans and the Romanians and their Southern neighbors had to en dure 500 years of bru - tal oppres sion un der the Ot toman em pire while the rest of Eu rope has ex - peri enced the Re naissance, Enlightenment and Ref or ma tion. What hap pened in Srebrenica in July 1995 is not much dif fer ent from what has hap pened in Iasi in June 1941. Even be fore the reign of Vlad the Im paler, Ro manian his tory was stud ded with un usu ally bar baric behav ior. Twenty years be fore the Ho lo caust in Ro ma nia U. S. Ma jor General Harry Hill Bandholtz , Amer ican Rep re sen- tative to the Inter-Allied Mil i tary Mission in Hun gary—su per vis ing the Roma nian oc cu pa tion of East ern Hun gary in 1919—wrote these in his di - ary 1: “It is sim ply im pos sible to con ceive such na tional de pravity as those miser a ble “Latins” of South east Eu rope are dis playing”.... “Per sonally I 1 H. H. Bandholtz : An Undip lomatic Di ary : ISBN 0-9665734-6-3 2 came here rather in clined to condone or exten u ate much of the Roumanian pro cedure, but their outra geous con duct in vi o la tion of all in - ter na tional law, de cency, and hu mane consid er ations, has made me be - come an ad vo cate of the Hun gar ian cause.” Bandholtz —who was Pro vost Mar shal Gen eral of the Amer i can Ex pe dition ary Force in Eu rope—wrote to Brit ish For eign Sec re tary Earl Curzon: “Ev ery ef fort hu manly pos si ble has been made by an Inter-Allied Mil i tary Mission, with the pa tience of a set ting hen on a nest of china eggs, to coax Roumanian Head quarters into carry ing out the ex pressed wishes of the Su preme Coun cil or into keep ing any of its sol emn prom ises 2. The good will was one-sided with a ven geance. Judging from the Roumanian oc cu pa tion of Hun gary, our lit tle Latin Allies have the re fined loot ap pe tite of a Missis sippi River cat fish, the chiv - alrous in stincts of a young cuckoo, and the same han kering for truth that a sea sick pas sen ger has for pork and beans.” 3 This is not an easy book to read and not only be cause of its horren dous con tent. Matatias Carp was no great writer and made no pre ten sion of be - ing one. Al though at the time of pub lica tion he was the General Sec re tary of the Asso ci ation of Ro ma nian Jews, he stated in his own fore word that he wrote this book as a sim ple ar chi vist, a chron i cler of the suf fer ings of Ro - ma nia’s Jews.

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