Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

Of the three governors of Bucovina , only Gen eral Corneliu Calotescu canbe held ac count able. Sim i larly, of the gov er nors of Transnistria , only thefirst, G. Alexianu , a teacher, is guilty and can be held responsible, andcounty heads work ing as their sub or di nates; /.../ The governors wereguilty of and responsible for the or ga ni za tion and execution of de por ta -tions as well as the mis ery, ter ror and star va tion to which de port ees weresub jected. Mem bers of the first—Iron Guard—group of county headswere rivals in cre at ing and sus tain ing an at mo sphere of panic and ter ror,and con tend ers in the vi o lent robbery of Jews. The mem bers of the secondgroup, al most without ex cep tion, were officers who diligently, and fre -quently with ex treme zeal, ex e cuted the series of shock ing measures in tro -duced at the outbreak of war: evac u a tions from vil lages and towns; thearrest and in tern ment of hostages; the com pul sory display of dis tin guish -ing signs; the or ga ni za tion of the first la bor ser vice squads; cur fews; the re -striction of shop ping time at mar kets; restriction of movement, and theconfinement of Jews to cer tain districts. Mayors and po lice chiefs playedmajor roles in the per se cu tion of Jews.The army had al ways been the bastion of anti-Sem i tism. Romanianpseudo-de moc racy must be held ac count able for sup port ing and spread ingthe hatred, with which the national elite re garded Jew ish cit i zens and dem -o cratic, pro gres sive ten den cies.Both the Iron Guard move ment and the war it self helped strengthen thisviolently and bar bar i cally man i fested hatred, with its terrible con se -quences. A pretext was advanced that Jews supposedly insulted and of -fended the army dur ing its with drawal from ter ri to ries given-up in 1940.The Ro ma nian army, upon re-oc cu pa tion of these ter ri to ries in the sameyear, wreaked foul re venge; with savage an ger, over a pe riod of weeks, morethan 150,000 Jews—men, women, the elderly and children—were ex ter -minated. With an insatiable thirst for blood, they launched at tacks on in -no cent peo ple. These were their mil i tary op er a tions. An in cred i bly largeamount rep re sented it self in the band of uni formed crim i nals from therank and file of the army, from chief com mand ers to privates.The army played a de test able part in both the or ga ni za tion and su per vi sionof Jewish slave la bor, and the planning and di rec tion of de por ta tions in1941; in the preparation and par tial execution of the mass de por ta tions inthe au tumn of 1942, and in the ap pli ca tion of sev eral anti-Se mitic mea -50