Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

ghastly acts of the Iron Guard were ex am ined before the col lapse of the sys -tem by two Christian law yers, forced onto the Union of Jewish Re li giousCom mu nities by “Iron Guard Aid”. These robberies and other crimes dur -ing the period of the Iron Guard revolt were recorded by a com mit tee of 30Jew ish law yers, appointed by the Union of Jew ish Re li gious Com mu nities.Part of the material on which this book is based was in the pos ses sion of thear chives of the Union of Jewish Re li gious Com mu nities. The only ex ist ingdocuments are the ones I managed to save before the Cen tral Office of Ro -ma nian Jews was founded. The other part of the collection was throwninto a corner of a cellar, where, after August 23, 1945, I could not find any -thing other than a pile of rotting pa per.Cer tain directives were checked and completed with the help of the re sultsof an in ves ti ga tion organized by the Ro ma nian Department of the In ves ti -gating Com mit tee of the Jewish World Fed er a tion, who also fa cil i tated thepub li ca tion of this book.I had intended to or ga nize the ma te rial into four vol umes as follows:Volume 1: The Iron Guards and the Iron Guard RevoltVolume 2: The Antonescu Government and the WarVolume 3: The Transnistrian TragedyVolume 4: Northern TransylvaniaThe original intention was that the book should con tain all the doc u mentson which it is based. How ever, this would require 10-12 vol umes, which isnot feasible at pres ent. Per haps, this will be a task for the fu ture. [Later theau thor mod i fied his original plan, and the volumes were pub lished un derdif fer ent titles. - Ed.]The Black Book of the suffering of Ro ma nian Jews is ex clu sively my per -sonal work, and I ac cept re spon si bil ity for its con tents. The gath er ing ofdata began in June 1940, and I started to or ga nize the ma te rial in thespring of 1943 with the help of my only col league, my wife, with whom Ishared the work, the pain and the fear of persecution.14