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Marcu
The Holocaust in Romania Under the Antonescu Government

by Marcu Rozen
Page 9 of 25
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Historical and Statistical Data About Jews in Romania, 1940 --1944
IV. Deportation of the Jews from Romania to Transnistria
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3. Deportation of the Jews from the Dorohoi district

On the 5th of November 1941, the authorities informed the Jewish population from the city of Dorohoi that they are to be evacuated to Transnistria

All the Jews evacuated from the district's other localities (Darabani, Radauti-Prut, etc.) were gathered up in Dorohoi. The total number of Jews who lived here before the evacuation was about 12,000.

The deportation began on the 7th of November 1941, and took place in the same conditions as in Southern Bucovina.

The first deportees were the Jews from Darabani. As they had already been evacuated from their small town in June, they were scantily dressed in summer clothes, having few luggage.

On the 8th of November the Jews from Saveni and Mihaileni were evacuated in the same conditions. The deportation of the Jews from Dorohoi took place the 12th and 13th of November.

The Dorohoi district belonged to the Old Kingdom, but due to an arbitrary new administrative division, it was enclosed into the Government of Bucovina, and that was the reason for the disaster of the Jews from this district.

Between the Jews deported from Dorohoi district were many former veterans of the war, invalids, orphans and war widows. The wives and children, whose husbands and fathers were concentrated in forced labor camps, in different places of the country, were also evacuated.

Due to the intervention of the Jewish Community of Bucharest, personally of Dr. W. Fildermann, the government transmitted an order to suspend the deportation.

According to the declarations of several public officers, this order was hidden by the leaders of the district, and was registered and applied only after the departure of the train with deportees.

Among the anti-Semitic personalities of the district Dorohoi, who intervened in Bucharest insisting for the deportation of the Jews, are to be mentioned colonel Barcan, prefect of the district, Jean Pascu, mayor of the city, the pharmacist Gheorghe Timus, the president of the selection commission, Dr. Felix Nadejde, the district's chief doctor, the lawyer Adam and others.

At the railway station the Jews were searched before getting on the train and most of their goods were taken away.

The cattle wagons were locked and guarded during the journey by gendarmes. The deportees had to relieve themselves in the wagons. During the trip some elderly froze and died.

In Cernowitz station a young Jew forced the wagon door and tried to get out to drink water, but was shot by the gendarmes.

After arriving at Atachi, the Jews got out from the train, but were allowed to take with them only those things that they could carry with their hands. The things left in the train were plundered.

They passed the Dnestr by ferry, as the bridge had been destroyed during the war.

On the other side of the river was the city Moghilev. Some remained in Moghilev, but most of them were organized in columns and taken on foot, to different localities inside Transnistria.

The men, from different compulsory labor detachments, who had returned to Dorohoi, found their homes empty, mostly plundered and their wives and children deported to Transnistria.

By a memorial, addressed to Marshal Antonescu and the government, they solicited the return of their families to Dorohoi.

The resolution applied on the memorial reflects the purification policy of the Romanian authorities: "The Jews have to go and fetch their evacuated families," with other words they should be deported to Transnistria.

The Jewish Central Office from Romania had drawn up a dossier with the names and first names of those whose families were deported to Transnistria while they were in different compulsory labor detachments.

This dossier contains 818 heads of family, who during the deportation of their families, were at the embankment building site Braila, at a bridge-earthwork Lipcani, at the detachments Zvoristea, Craiova, Bucharest, Serpenita, Battalion 7-Roads, Edinita and at the ready made clothes workshop, Iasi.

The next year, on the 14th of June 1942, a new group of 450 Jews from Dorohoi was deported, mostly formed of men from the labor detachments, whose families had been deported earlier on November 1941. The fate of these last deportees was particularly tragic.

The train with these deportees arrives at Serebria, near Moghilev, on June 20th 1942, but they were not given the permission to get out from the train. In return, their families from Moghilev are allowed to join them, and they left together, farther away towards the Bug, the convoy increasing in this way to 950 persons.

The convoy arrived on the 3rd of July 1942 in Oleanita Tulcin district, from where they were taken to the quarry on the banks of the river Bug.

In August 1942, colonel Loghin, the Prefect of the district Tulcin, on the request of the German Todt organization, send across the Bug, 3.000 Jews, among them being also the Jews from Dorohoi. They were closed up in the camp Tarasivca, put to different exhausting works and gradually killed by the Germans.

On the 10th of December 1943, the last survivors from this group were shot by the Germans and thrown in a common grave. Only about 50 Jews from Dorohoi, who succeeded to run away from the camp survived from those deported on June 1942.

From the district Dorohoi (without Hertza region) about 10,000 Jews were deported to Transnistria. 1)

It has to be underlined that, during the deportation period, in autumn 1941, according to the secret note No. 8597/October 5th, 1941, transmitted by the Chief of the Military Office to the Governors of Bucovina and Basarabia, all the Jews who were to be deported, were obliged to deposit at the National Bank their hard currency, gold coins, jewelry and precious metals, as well as their cash.

In change, at a totally unfavorable rate, they received German Occupation Marks (Kassenscheine), money without any guaranty, generally refused by the natives from Transnistria.


1) See, Table No. 5, p. 23

 

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