Final Report of the International Commission on the - Minority Rights ...

guard duties. Einsatzgruppe D had armed some Ukrainians who assisted in murdering tens <strong>of</strong> thousands
<strong>of</strong> Jews.
The transfer <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Jews toward <strong>the</strong> Bug in convoys <strong>of</strong> thousands continued apace throughout
October, November, and December 1941 in total disarray. Thousands <strong>of</strong> Jews were left in towns or
villages that had not been slated to house ghettos or temporary camps. Monitoring <strong>the</strong> deportation as if it
were a military operation, Antonescu remarked in a government session that he had enough trouble “with
those I took to <strong>the</strong> Bug. Only I know how many died on <strong>the</strong> way [emphasis added].” On November 9,
Vasiliu, <strong>the</strong> gendarmerie inspector general, reported to <strong>the</strong> Conducator that <strong>the</strong> first stage <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
deportations from Bessarabia and Bukovina was over: 108,002 Jews had been “relocated as in <strong>the</strong>
annexed table.” A map accompanying <strong>the</strong> report indicated that <strong>the</strong> Jews had been taken to three areas near
<strong>the</strong> Bug: 47,545 in <strong>the</strong> north, in Mitki, Peceora, and Rogozna; 30,981 in <strong>the</strong> center, in Obodovca and
Balanovka; and 29,476 in Bobric, Krivoie-Ozero, and Bogdanovka. Richter’s sources proved accurate:
Antonescu had indeed concentrated 110,000 Jews—Romanian citizens—near <strong>the</strong> Bug, intending to kill
<strong>the</strong>m.
Meanwhile, Antonescu ordered <strong>the</strong> SSI to investigate why “all <strong>the</strong> Jews had not been evacuated east
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Jmerinca-Odessa railway,” near <strong>the</strong> Bug. The investigation revealed that in December 1941, 79,507
Jews deported west <strong>of</strong> that line from Romania were still alive. But at <strong>the</strong> beginning <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Romanian
occupation, 150,000 to 200,000 Ukrainian Jews were still alive in Transnistria, too.
Golta County Massacres
The German occupation authorities’ refusal to receive and execute <strong>the</strong> Romanian and Ukrainian Jews
deported to <strong>the</strong> Bug forced <strong>the</strong> Transnistrian administration to resolve <strong>the</strong> matter on its own. The murder
<strong>of</strong> Ukrainian and Romanian Jewry took place in Golta County, near <strong>the</strong> Bug, from <strong>the</strong> end <strong>of</strong> December
1941 until May 1942. Under prefect and gendarmerie Lieutenant Colonel Modest Isopescu, Golta became
known as <strong>the</strong> “Kingdom <strong>of</strong> Death,” site <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> three largest extermination camps—Bogdanovka,
Domanovka, and Akmechetka—and dozens <strong>of</strong> smaller ones. Imprisoned in <strong>the</strong>se camps were about
10,000 local Jews, 30,000 from Bessarabia (particularly <strong>the</strong> Chisinau ghetto), and 65,000-70,000 from
Odessa and <strong>the</strong> counties in sou<strong>the</strong>rn Transnistria. Even before <strong>the</strong> extermination campaign, so many died
every day that Isopescu ordered gendarmes and municipalities “to bury <strong>the</strong> dead kikes two meters
underground. Those buried at half a meter will be reburied deeper. All sick, old, and infant kikes will be
sent to Bogadanovca.” By mid-November 1941 Bogdanovka had become a human garbage dump.
When taking over <strong>the</strong> county, Isopescu wrote, he had found several camps <strong>of</strong> Jews “ga<strong>the</strong>red from <strong>the</strong>
neighboring boroughs” (i.e., Ukrainian Jews), but most were “sent from across <strong>the</strong> Dniester” (i.e.,
deported from Bessarabia and Bukovina). In early October, “about 15,000” Jews had “ga<strong>the</strong>red” (i.e.,
been imprisoned) in <strong>the</strong> village <strong>of</strong> Vazdovca, in <strong>the</strong> Liubasevca subdistrict, and ano<strong>the</strong>r 3,000 in Krivoie-
Ozero and at Bogdanovka. “Those in Vazdovca were hit by typhus and about 8,000 died,” Isopescu
reported. The mayor and <strong>the</strong> infantry regiment staying in <strong>the</strong> village requested that <strong>the</strong> camp be moved,
“because it posed a constant danger <strong>of</strong> infection.” Weakened by hunger and contaminated with typhus,
<strong>the</strong> Jews could not bury <strong>the</strong> corpses, and <strong>the</strong> soldiers and villagers refused to come near <strong>the</strong> camp.
Isopescu transferred <strong>the</strong> roughly 10,000 Jews remaining in Vazdovca and Krivoie-Ozero to “swine
stables <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> sovkhoz [state agricultural farm]” in Bogdanovka. But even before <strong>the</strong> “transport <strong>of</strong> kikes
from Vazdovca” had arrived, “about 9,000 kikes were sent from Odessa, so that today, with what was
already <strong>the</strong>re and what has arrived now, <strong>the</strong>re are 11,000 kikes in <strong>the</strong> kolkhoz [collective agricultural
farm] stables, which can hold only 7,000 pigs.” Iopescu continued, “Today <strong>the</strong> mayor and <strong>the</strong> head <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
kolkhoz came to me in despair for <strong>the</strong>y have been told that ano<strong>the</strong>r 40,000 [Jews] are coming from
Odessa. Since <strong>the</strong> sovkhoz can no longer accommodate <strong>the</strong>m all, and those outside <strong>the</strong> stables are killing