The Supreme Commander of the Army the Department of the Civil Government of Transnistria Ordinance No
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Annex The Supreme Commander of the Army the Department of the Civil Government of Transnistria Ordinance no. 23 We, ION ANTONESCU, Marshal of Romania, Commander-in-Chief of the Army: Through Professor G. ALEXIANU, Civil Governor; With regard to the fact that there is a large jewish population on the territory of Transnistria which has been evacuated from various battle-zones, in order to protect the rear of the front; With regard to the need to organize communal living for this evacuated population; Seeing that this population must find a means of existence on its own account and through labour; By virtue of the full powers accorded by Decree no. 1 of 19 August 1941, issued at Tighina; We command: Article 1 All jews who have come from the battle-front in Transnistria, as well as jews from Transnistria, who for the same reasons were moved into various centres, or those who remain to be moved, are subject to the rules of life established by this present ordinance. Article 2 The Inspectorate of Gendarmes in Transnistria determines the localities where the jews can be housed. The Jews will be housed with regard to the size of their family in the dwellings abandoned by the Russian or jewish refugees. Each family of jews who receive a dwelling will be obliged to tidy it up forthwith and to keep it clean. If there are not enough of these dwellings, the Jews will also be housed in private homes, which will be allocated to them, for which they will pay the determined rent. Article 3 All the Jews in a commune will be listed into a special register, in which will be entered: I. Their name and first name; 2. Their nationality; 3. Their religion; 4. Their age; 5. Their profession; 6. The locality from which they come. Each jew will be issued with an identity card with all the above details. Article 4 A Jew can only leave the commune in which his domicile has been fixed if he has the authorization of the county prefect. Article 5 All the Jews in a commune form a colony, which is administered by a head of the colony appointed by the district pretor. 278 Annex 279 The colony head is assisted by group leaders. Each colony head will appoint a group leader for every twenty Jews, and he will be responsible for the whereabouts of all group members, for the well-being of the group, and will bring to the notice of the authorities any transgression by a member of the group. The colony head and the leaders of the group are personally responsible for the whereabouts of all the Jews in the colony and for the executions of all the orders handed down by the administration and by the gendarmerie. Article 6 The head of the colony is obliged to make a list of all the professional persons, the craftsmen and all able-bodied people in the colony. On the basis of the lists submitted by the colony head, the mayor of the commune will organize labour in the colony and in the commune in the following manner: Craftsmen will be obliged to perform any service according to their skills that is required. Professional persons will make themselves available to the commune authorities and will be used whenever the need arises. Manual labourers will make themselves available to the town-hall and will perform any labour required of them for the benefit of the colony and the commune, or public service tasks; They will be used for agricultural labour, for road or bridge repairs, for wood cutting in the forests, quarrying stone or any other materials. In return for labour duly performed the labourer will receive meal coupons to the value of one-day's labour, one-day's labour being valued at one mark a day for manual labourers, and two marks a day for qualified professionals. The gendarmerie will continuously inspect and control the Jewish colonies, and will report their findings to the higher authorities. Article 7 The use of Jews from one commune for labour in another, will be made with the approval of the county prefect. The movement of specialists from one county to another in order to perform work will only be permitted with the approval of the Director of Administration and Labour of the [Transnistrian] government. Article 8 Any Jew found in a place other than that in which his residence is fixed without the approval of the authorities, will be considered a spy and immediately punished according to military law in time of war. Article 9 Jewish specialists may be used with government approval on all projects necessary for the reconstruction of industrial plants destroyed by war, for the reopening of factories, or for any other uses that may be deemed necessary. Article 10 County prefects and the Inspector of Gendarmerie are charged with the implementation of the present ordinance. Issued in our office, today, 11 November 1941 1 Notes Introduction 1. Antonescu and Hitler met ten times, on 23 November 1940, 14january 1941, 12 june 1941, 6 August 1941, 11 February 1942, 10-12 January 1943, 12 April 1943, 2-3 September 1943, 23-24 March 1944 and 5 August 1944. Mark Axworthy terms their meeting at Rastenburg on 2-3 September 1943 as 'unscheduled'. Mark Axworthy, Cornel Scafe~ and Cristian Craciunoiu, Third Axis, Fourth Ally. Romanian Anned Forces in the European War, 1941-1945 (London: Arms and Armour, 1995), p. 121; see also Andreas Hillgruber, Hitler, Konig Carol und Marschall Antonescu. Die Deutsch-Rwniinischen Beziehungen, 1938-1944 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1965), p. 173. The Romanian leader was 'the first foreigner to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, the only one to be solicited for military advice, and probably the only person - German or foreign - permitted to out-talk and contradict the Fuhrer'. Joseph Rothschild, East-Central Europe between the Two World Wars (Washington: Washington University Press, 1975), p. 317. 2. As does that with von Ribbentrop on the following day; see chapter 5. 3. Axworthy, Scafe~ and Craciunoiu, Third Axis, Fourth Ally, p. 216. After Italy signed an armistice with the Allies on 8 September 1943, Romania became the second Axis power in Europe. 4. Radu Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania. The Destmction of Jews and Gypsies under Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944 (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000. Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), p. 289. 5. Dennis Deletant, 'The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its Consequences for Bessarabia: Some Considerations on the Human Rights Implications', Revue Roumaine d'Histoire, vol. XXX, nos 3-4 (1991), pp. 221-2. 6. Maurice Pearton, 'British Policy towards Romania 1938-1941', Anuaml Institutului de Istorie 'A. D. Xenopol', vol. 23, no. 2 (1986), p. 551. 7. By contrast, Hungary's population grew from about 9 million in 1939 to an estimated 14.7 million in 1941, including almost 1 million Romanians. Axworthy, Scafe~ and Craciunoiu, Third Axis, Fourth Ally, p. 17. 8. Antonescu's pragmatism is noted by Franklin Mott Gunther, the American minister in Bucharest. In a report to the US Secretary of State of 25 February 1941 he wrote: 'It has always been my impression - one which has recently been confirmed - that the General's pro-German as well as his anti-British feelings are not dictated by sentiment but solely by what he considered to be national interest and dates from Russia's invasion into Rumania and the collapse of France.' Larry Watts, Romanian Cassandra. !011 Antonescu and the Struggle for Refonn, 1916-1941 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1993), p. 380. 9. It listed: l.The occupation of four islands at the mouth of the Danube in the autumn of 1940; 2. Daily frontier incidents involving attempts to move the frontier; 3. Attempts by Soviet vessels to enter Romanian waters by force in January 1941; 4. Incessant incursions, despite Romanian protests, into Romanian airspace amounting during April, May and June to up to seven daily over-flights; and 5. A massive concentration of Soviet military forces on the Romanian frontier 280 Notes 281 made up of 30 infantry divisions, 8 cavalry divisions, and 14 motorized brigades. Universul, 9 December 1941. 10. These documents are described by Gheorghe Buzatu in Romanii fn arhivele Kremlinului [The Romanians in the Kremlin Archives] (Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 1996). 11. Including this author. Copies of correspondence from the Pre~edintia Consiliului de Mini~tri (the Council of Ministers - Ion Antonescu's office) were held in the archive of the Romanian Foreign Ministry and in the State Archives. Orders issued by this office to the Ministry of the Interior were held in the state security archives, and copies of orders issued to the army were held in the archive of the Ministry of National Defence. 12. Examples of the Soviet view are Artem Markovich Lazarev, Moldavskaya sovetskaya gosudarstvennost' i bessarabskiy vopros [The Soviet Moldavian Government and the Bessarabian Question] (Kishinev: Cartea Moldoveneasdl., 1974); and Iziaslav Elikovich, Krakh politiki agressi diktatury Antonesku: 19.IX.42-23. VIII.l944 [The Failure of the Aggressive Policy of the Dictator Antonescu] (Kishinev: Shtiiintsa, 1983); see also Wim van Meurs, The Bessarabian Question in Communist Historiog raphy (New York: East European Monographs. Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 344. 13. van Meurs, The Bessarabian Question, p. 344. 14. I accept that a 'division' is not necessarily a safe basis for comparison, and much depends on its fire power, but the emphasis in the quotation is on 'mobilized men'. 15. Elisabeth Barker, British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1976), p.