Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

Lieu ten ant-Col o nel Al. Manoil m.p.,Head of Po lice De part ment and Head quar ters***20.Tes ti mony of Viad Marievici, for mer Di rec tor of the Burial Ser viceCom pany of Iasi’s Mayor’s Of fice, in ter ro gated by DumitruSaracu , pub lic pros e cu tor, on July 21, 1945.(...) at approx. 11.00 hrs, a Lance-Ser geant came to my office,and re quested a closed trans port ve hi cle. I gave him the van, andwhen he re turned at about 14.00 hrs, the driver told me that theyhad trans ported Jew ish bod ies from the yard of the Cen tral Po liceSta tion to the Jew ish cem e tery. (...) On June 30, 1941, I cameinto my of fice as usual, and im me di ately re ceived the or der fromthe po lice to present myself with all avail able means of trans port(cars and carts) at the Central Po lice Sta tion. I im me di ately didso, and asked Po lice Con sta ble Iancu to or der out Gen darmesand po lice men to es cort ev ery car and cart. This hap pened af teran ar gu ment be tween us, be cause I ob jected to his pro posal thatthe bod ies be col lected only by workers of the burial ser vice com -pany. I did so to pre vent the pos si ble loot ing. I also asked Po liceCon sta ble Iancu about the dy ing and wounded. Af ter con tact ingCol o nel Lupu , Com mander of the Town, Po lice Con sta ble Iancutold me that the dy ing and wounded should be taken to the Jew -ish hos pi tal. I learnt from the staff of the burial com pany that thisor der had not ac tu ally been car ried out, and in many cases dy ingpeo ple were also put onto the cars, as or dered by the Gen darmeser geants es cort ing the trans port ers These ei ther suf fo cated as are sult of be ing cov ered by dead bod ies, or were thrown into theholes alive. I must add that only the staff car ry ing out phys i calwork re mained next to the cars and carts, and these or ders weregiven only by sol diers and po lice men. I sup plied them with fourvans and 24 carts then (...). The cartsmen al ways had lunch atthe town eat ery, but that day most of them did not ap pear there.In the eve ning they ex plained that the au thor i ties held them backso as to con tinue trans port ing. A lot of them were drunk. I amcon vinced that most of them robbed the dead bod ies, and thissup po si tion can be proven by the fact that a few days later, whenthey re ceived their wages, they did not even bother to count themoney, and be haved as if they could n’t care less. A num ber of137