Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

A num ber of peo ple were killed by the gen darmes who es corted the march -ing col umns. Under the or ders of the Ro ma nian military au thor i ties, thoselag ging be hind were to be shot. 16 Cer tain Jews were sold to villagers. Thesewere then shot dead so that the buy ers could re ceive the clothes of the vic -tims. Dur ing their first winter in Transnistria , approx. 50,000 of the Jewsde ported from Romania died of cold, hunger, ex haus tion and in fec tiousdis eases (ty phoid, petechial ty phus, dysentery, etc.).14 Re port No.121239 of Sep tem ber 17, 1941 by the Mil i tary Judgeof the III Army, Lieu ten ant-Col o nel Jean Poitevitin , sent to theHigh est Mil i tary Tri bu nal con tained the re sults of ex am i na tionscon ducted by the Gen dar merie Le gion of Soroca in con nec tionwith this mas sa cre. The fol low ing re mark ap pears in the re port:“Sep tem ber 2, 1941. The case of the 200 Jews shot dead nearthe Dniester was ex am ined by Gen eral Topor , who later closedthe case. Il leg i ble sig na ture m.p.”15 State ments by wit nesses against war-crim i nals who were com -mand ers of the Jew ish con cen tra tion camps in Vertujeni andMarculesti, from the in dict ment of the Peo ple’s Tri bu nal (Col lec -tion VII, No.23/945): From the tes ti mony of Col o nel AlexandruConstantinescu :“The 21-23,000 Jews brought from Bucovina and Bessarabia bythe Gen dar merie Le gions could not be ac com mo dated in thesmall town of Vertujeni. This was the cause of de spi ca ble over -crowd ing. We could not even guar an tee all of them a place torest. Women, chil dren, girls, men, the ill and dy ing, a mix ture ofpeo ple con fined in con di tions im pos si ble to de scribe, and worsestill, with out eat ing fa cil i ties. The result: the grow ing num ber ofdeaths.” From the tes ti mony of Dr. Epurescu Alexandru , a Lieu -ten ant:“These starv ing and rag ged peo ple brought from an other for estcamp were in ter ri ble con di tion. The num ber of deaths in -creased.”From the ev i dence of wit ness Stefan Dragomirescu :26