[Continuation]

In the general process of the Holocaust in Europe, the extermination of Jews in some territories from Romania presents some particularities.

In the majority of the countries overran by the Nazis, as well as in the allied ones, the newly installed local authorities, collaborated with the nazis and send the Jews to the German extermination camps in Poland. The gassing and burning of the corpses in these camps was completely executed by the German Nazis.

From Romania, under the Antonescu government, not one train with Jews was directed to the Nazi extermination camps.

The Romanian authorities, planned, organized and applied, by their own initiative, own program of cleaning and extermination of the Jews.

At the meeting of the Council of Ministers, on September 5th, 1941, Marshal Antonescu declared clearly without any ambiguity:

"Don't believe that I am unconscious. Don't believe that when I decided to disinfect the life of the Romanian people from all the Jews, I didn't realize that I would cause a big economical crisis. But I told myself that there is a war that I have to lead. And then, as in wartime, there occur some damages for the nation. …………………………………………………………………….

If we loose this historic moment, we have lost it for ever." ¹)

Consequently the authorities in those times, put into practice massive deportation from the North-East part of Romania; summary executions by the army in Basarabia and Northern Bucovina, the physical destruction by starving, cold and illnesses in the ghettos of Transnistria.

In the camps of Bogdanovka, Domanovka and Akmecetka; shooting and burning of corpses was a common practice as well as in Odessa. The cruel method of dehydration and suffocation in the death trains from Iasi; killing of those who remained behind during the transportation on foot of the columns of deportees towards the Dnestr and Bug, and other methods of extermination were used by the Antonescu authorities.

There were no gas chambers, but the pains and the brutal death of the victims in Transnistria and other zones, as shown in this booklet, were no less barbarian and inhuman as those in the Nazi extermination camps.

The extermination of the Romanian Jews was not an isolate action. This took place in the conditions of terror, deportation of the Jews into extermination camps, initiated and realized nearly all over Europe by the leaders of Nazi Germany.

For this reason we can assert that the genocide of the Jews from Romania, is an integrant part of the European Holocaust.

In Europe, in the countries that were in war against fascist Germany, respectively in Great Britain and the unoccupied territories of the Soviet Union, in the neutral countries (Switzerland, Sweden, Liechtenstein, Ireland, and Turkey), as well as in Spain and Portugal, even though the latter were states with fascist regime, Hitler's racial extermination politic wasn't applied.

In Finland, allied country with Germany, which fought against the Soviet Union, the leader of the state, Gustav Emil Mannerheim, didn't permit the extermination of a single Jew.

In the rest of European countries, allied or occupied by fascist Germany, the Jews had to pay a blood tribute.²)

In Romania "the historic moment, which should not be lost", sustained with much insistence by Marshal Antonescu, was created by the temporary victories on the front, and by the conviction that the war will be won, and had as final purpose the purification of the country from Jews.

The Antonescu government couldn't apply their complete "disinfecting and ethnic purification program", due to: the changing of the situation on the front by the failure of Hitler's "Blitz Krieg" and the defeat of the German army at Stalingrad, as well as the modification of the balance of forces in favor of the allied forces.

Beginning with the year 1943, in the ranks of the Romanian leaders, the gloomy specter of a possible loss of the war, and implicitly the nearing of the hour when they would have to give account for their acts, appears more frequently.

The Marshal's speech changed radically.

At the meeting of the Council of Ministers on April 20th, 1943, Marshal Antonescu declared:

"I fight to win the war, but it is possible that the democracies will win it." ……………………………………………………………………

"And then, can I expose the future generations of the nation to be punished for the measures that I took to eliminate the Jews from the country?" ³)

Consequently, beginning with 1943, the deportations to Transnistria were nearly totally ceased; the problem of deporting the Jews from the Old Kingdom and South-Transylvania into the extermination camps in Poland was no more topical, the racial persecution diminished.

At present, on the occasion of some meetings and reunions of specialists and historians from Romania and from abroad, contradictory discussions are taking place, whether there was or not a Holocaust in Romania, and about the dimension of this phenomenon.

The absolutely erroneous idea was even accredited that, there wasn't any Holocaust in Romania, and that Romania participated only in the Holocaust in Basarabia, Bucovina and Transnistria.

Romania didn't participate in the Holocaust of Basarabia, Bucovina, and Transnistria, but organized and applied concretely the Holocaust, because these territories were administered by the Antonescu Government, and by the local authorities named by this Government.

In Basarabia, Bucovina and Transnistria, the governors, the prefects, the commanders of the gendarme legions and factors of responsibility were Romanian, and had in their hands the life and the death of the Jews, and consequently bear the main responsibility for the crimes committed in these regions.

Nobody denies the fact that in these territories, German of SS-police committed some of the crimes, but this was done with the collaboration or with the tacit accord of the Romanian authorities.

It is necessary, once for ever, to show the whole truth, and to come to the imposed conclusions and lessons.

It results clearly, that the Romanian people is not guilty, and can not be blamed for what has happened, the juridical and ethical responsibility belongs to the Antonescu's authority in power in that period, as well as to some criminal and extremist elements, who took part in this genocide.

This book was written in order to show the facts which happened in that black period of the history of the Jews from Romania and to avoid the repeating of such events on Romanian soil.

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¹⁾ See, Benjamin transcripts 5th of September 1941, A.S.B. Fond P.C.M.
Cabinet, file 476/1941, pp 107-109, 115, 116, 127-129, 143-144.

²⁾ See, Table No. 13, p. 24

³⁾ See, Benjamin transcripts April 20th, 1943-A.S.B. Fond 103, microfilm roller 1-106.