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Marcu
The Holocaust in Romania Under the Antonescu Government

by Marcu Rozen
Page 17 of 25
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Historical and Statistical Data About Jews in Romania, 1940 --1944
VI. The Fate of the Native Ukrainian Jews From Transnistria
--Continuation--
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 [Continuation --1]

What happened in the city, at the Dalnic barrier is reproduced after original documents by Mr. Cristian Troncota in his well known book "Glory and tragedies":

"In the same morning (October 23, 1941 --author's note), gallows appeared on the streets and markets of Odessa, while others were shot at random, so that in the same morning, about 5,000 people were executed in Odessa. At noon, the executions stopped, but the gendarmes and the police started to gather thousands of people, which they imprisoned in the big prison in Odessa.

On the 24th of October 1941, the Second Company from the 10th battalion machine-gun group received the order to escort these unlucky human beings to a place, where they didn't suspected what will happen to them, at the borders of Odessa, between the Dalnic barriers, where four warehouses existed of about 25-30 meters long and of about 10-15 meters broad.

The Jews -- children, old women, old sick people of all ages after forming a column were driven like cattle to the slaughter, towards those warehouses.

The transportation lasted until 14 o'clock of October the 24th, 1941. During the transportation, many of those in the column, because of their weakness, fell down immediately and were shot by the gendarmes, so the road from the prison to the place of execution, which was 3 kilometers long, was full of bodies of children, women and sick people …

The first group brought to the execution place was of about 40-50 people, which were tightly tied with ropes, and was put into an anti-tank ditch, turned with their faces towards the ground, forming the ditch's wall.

Lieutenant-colonel Deleanu Nicolae gave personally the shooting order, reminding the soldiers to shoot each one of them, to make economy of time and ammunition.

Ascertaining that this procedure is not good enough for the initial purpose it was decided to proceed at a mass execution. Therefore, in the first three warehouses were put the men and some women, which couldn't be separated from their husbands, and in the fourth warehouse were put the other women and children.

As the witnesses said, in the four warehouses there were over 5,000 people.

For the mass executions, holes in the walls of the warehouses were made, in which machine-guns were introduced. At the order of lieutenant-colonel Deleanu Nicolae and lieutenant-colonel Niculescu M. Coca, a full shot was made. The unbearable screams covered the noise made by machine-guns, producing a terrible uproar. But the bullets couldn't reach the last survivors. Observing that even this procedure is not good enough to satisfy the criminally desire to finish as fast as possible this macabre operation, and because in the month of October, night was coming earlier, at about 17 o'clock, they decided to do something even more cruel, which was to burn the survivors, a way which they thought will erase any trace of the savage horrors.

In order to realize this, the holes made by the soldiers in the walls were blocked, as well as the exits of the warehouses, the attics and the roofs were filled with straws, the walls and the roofs were splashed with gasoline and gas which were also thrown inside with a hose.

Afterwards, at a short order, the warehouses were set on fire.

Giant flames raised to the sky, and in this consuming fire dead and alive united and everything turned into ashes, but not enough to erase all the traces of this horrible crime.

Through the roof it could still be seen how people, turned into living torches, were trying to escape from the terrible fire that surrounded them.

But the gendarmes, respecting the order from lieutenant-colonel Niculescu M. Coca, were shooting those who were desperately trying to escape by any way.

In the darkness that started to surround them, the sight of the naked, burning people, trying to escape with their last means and powers, in order to save their life, was for the present one a hallucinating and terrifying scene, which was beyond the imagination of the most fantastic writers.

……………………………………………………………

By using these procedures, by night fall, all the Jews from the first two warehouses were exterminated, so that the next day the other two warehouses would follow, among them the one in which the children and the women were locked.

An entire night and most of the next morning, women, children and old people, locked in these last two warehouses fought the pain of an imminent death and the poor hope that maybe the thousands of people sacrificed in the preceding day, could have diminished the blood thirst of the cruel executors of the reprisal orders.

These were hopes in vain, because the crimes, apparently, didn't weaken the ardor of the odious killers, because the next day everything continued with the same results as in the previous day.

And more, in order to impress the population of Odessa with the effects of the reprisals, at 5:35 PM of the 25th of October 1941, the warehouse in which were the men, after the ones inside were machine-gunned, was blown up". 1)


1) See, Cristian Troncota: "Glory and Tragedies"
Nemira Publishing House, 2003, pp. 79-80.

 

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