Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

lated the plans for the Iasi mas sa cre, along with De part ment No.2of Gen eral Head quar ters and the Ger man Com mander.At the end of the ex plan a tory notes in the al bum, which I have al -ready men tioned, it was writ ten that the de tach ment, fol low ing anagree ment with De part ment No.2 of Gen eral Head quar ters hadtaken ac tion on the is sue of evac u at ing the Jew ish sur vi vors fromIasi.The pho to graphs in the al bum showed a num ber of houses inIasi. Bul let-holes could be seen in the walls; it was claimed thatthese im pres sions were the result of bul lets fired by Jews at Ger -man and Ro ma nian sol diers. Apart from these, there were twomore pho tos, in which Ro ma nian and Ger man sol diers could beseen ly ing in the street. In the ex plan a tory notes it was claimedthat they had been killed by Jews.The other pho to graphs showed streets in the Jew ish dis tricts fullof the corpses of the vic tims of the po grom.Con cern ing the prep a ra tion of the Iasi mas sa cre, I must add thatthe Di rec tors of the Iasi In for ma tion Cen tre of the Spe cial In for -ma tion Ser vice, Cap tain Balotescu Gheorghe and Ma jor Tulbure ,were the ones who re cruited Iron Guards, and both of them tookpart in the prep a ra tion and or ga ni za tion of the mas sa cre with theMo bile De tach ment of the SSI.Con cern ing the ex e cu tions, al though the de tach ment was notcom mis sioned for this pur pose, the fol low ing units, con sist ing ofmem bers of the de tach ment, took part in the mas sa cre: a squadheaded by Cap tains Grigore Petrovici and Gheorghe Balotescu ,an other un der the lead er ship of Ma jor Tulbure , and a third di -rected by Gheorghe Cristescu-Gica , the brother of EugenCristescu . I am only aware of these squads, but there may havebeen oth ers as well. The units were un der the control of Di rec torFlo rin Becescu-Georgescu .Dur ing the first days, the cou rier who had brought the pho to -graphic al bum in formed me of the part played in the ex e cu tionsby these SSI units. Later, how ever, mem bers of these groupsthem selves talked to me about it; to be more ex act, GrigorePetrovici-Guta , Cristescu-Gica , Balotescu and my ex-sec re tary,Silvestru Radu P. Vernescu . They said that they had taken an ac -tive part in the ex e cu tion of Jews through out the po grom. Myex-sec re tary, Silvestru Radu P. Vernescu , told me that he, alongwith lonel Stanescu and Eugen Cristescu , had spo ken to Mar shal118