Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

Even though the shoot ing bore all the fea tures of gen u ine bat tle, not onesol dier was killed or in jured, no weap ons were found any where, and notone sin gle marks man was arrested from one sin gle house....The Germans, however, tried to pre tend that there were dead and injuredamong their ranks. The pub lic both believed and ex ag ger ated the Germanver sion of events. High-rank ing Ro ma nian per son al i ties, especially Col o -nel Captaru , the county head, al lowed them selves to be de ceived, or ratherwanted to be de ceived. Con se quently, the au thor i ties looked on the eventsas if the disturbance had been provoked by the Jews, and in stead of actingagainst the crim i nals, they continued to en cour age, actively and passively,those who had arranged the massacre.Si mul ta neously with the shoot ings—which continued all nightlong—Ger man guardsmen, who had checked the entire area of the town,forced their way into Jew ish houses, ex clu sively Jewish houses, where, un -der the pretext of car ry ing out house-to-house searches, they ar rested, as -saulted, looted and murdered. Sta tion ary and mo bile Ro ma nian pa trols(which had been set up at the gar ri son), and individual sol diers as well as alarge num ber of ci vil ians also joined them. Policemen were mem bers ofother groups which searched houses. These marched out after be ing com -manded to do so by the Cen tral Po lice Sta tion. The house searches wereor dered by Gen eral Stavrescu , Com mander of the 14th Di vi sion. If the in -hab it ants were not to be found in their flats (there was an air-raid alarm),the patrols forced their way into air-raid shelters.June 29, 1941Those who avoided the lethal bul lets, are driven to the town centre. Thenever-end ing march ing col umns ar rive from every district of thetown—mostly men, but there are also women and chil dren: par ents andchil dren, grandparents and grand chil dren, wives and hus bands; somedressed, but in ragged clothes, oth ers in pa ja mas; many bare foot; almost allbear ing the marks of the pre vi ous night’s in ju ries; with bruises, openwounds, tracks of blood, tears and sweat on their dirty faces. De spite beingphys i cally ex hausted, they are forced to march in rhythmic steps. This is98