Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

Part 3. TransnistriaHistorical ReviewWorld War II represents the greatest degree of degradation in humancivilization. Each war contains the damned germ of human barbarity. It isonly natural that such a protracted confrontation of such dimensions, thisuniversal war, which had forced powers vying for precedence to confronteach other like enraged enemies, awakened age-old instincts which, onceout of control, destroyed and annihilated without mercy. World War I hadalready shown the horrifying examples of the vile depths to whichtwentieth century man was capable of sinking: here we are primarilyreferring to the Teutons. It is enough to mention the relics of culturedestroyed in Louvain and Reims, the persecution suffered by theinhabitants of occupied territories: deportation, the murder of POWs, theintroduction of poisonous gases in Belgium and Northern France; the listis endless.It was to be expected that a new confrontation capitalizing on the latestscientific developments would, in its cruelty and barbarity, surpassanything ever recorded in the history of war. Every piece of writing byexperts published during the relatively calm period of 1920 -1939predicted the cruel nature of the war to come with a sense of horror, orsometimes haughtiness. None of these publications, however, wasendowed with an imagination capable of forecasting the horrifying realityexperienced by mankind between 1939 and 1945.The main victims of the barbarity which broke loose were European Jewsliving on territories under the occupation or influence of Germany.In the percentage ratings the Jewish people are No.1 in the list of warvictims (63% of the 9,500,000 European Jews were killed). Taking intoaccount the total number of victims, they lie in second position behind theSoviet Union; from the point of view of suffering endured, however, theirssurpassed the suffering of any nation at any time.145