Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

Fol low ing the ex pul sion of Charles II, this weapon of ter ror, for merly theprop erty of the royal dic ta tor ship, was in her ited by the fas cist Iron Guarddic ta tor ship. The Pal ace Mar shal was watch ful enough to retain it for him -self. He gave the Iron Guard mem bers a free hand in wreak ing re venge,which cul mi nated in the bloodbath in Jilava on No vem ber 17, 1940, dur -ing which, among oth ers, the for mer heads of the SSI, Mihail Moruzovand Niky Stefanescu were as sas si nated. He even al lowed them to es tab lishtheir own po lice force, the horrifying Iron Guard Po lice, an in sti tu tion oftor ture, robbery and murder. He did not, how ever, allow his po lit i calfriends to lay their hands on the SSI. Shortly af ter his in au gu ra tion on No -vember 11, 1940, Antonescu at tached the entire SSI sys tem to his cab i net,and ap pointed one of his con fi dantes, Eugen Critescu , as its head, whoproved very com pe tent, and loyally served his master .The SSI net worksoon encompassed the capital and the prov inces, and set up its foreign in -formation ser vice. In Bucharest a few hun dred Jews were evicted from theirflats to provide the SSI with an entire street in ac ces si ble to strang ers. Alarge num ber of se nior of fi cers were re de ployed to the in nu mer a ble de part -ments of the Spe cial Ser vice. In the prov inces, agencies known as res i den -cies were or ga nized; their sphere of ac tiv i ties in cluded the ob ser va tion ofJews and com mu nists, and the fil ing of names for use at an ap pro pri atetime in the fu ture.The ac tiv i ties of the SSI were also as sisted by the Sec ond Head De part -ment of the Gen eral Command headed by Col o nel Radu Dinulescu , aswell as an enor mous number of for mer Iron Guard mem bers and in form -ers, whose anti- Sem i tism would pass any test.Ei ther with or with out the per mis sion of the SSI, the Gen eral Com mandand the Siguranta Cen ter, an other enormous es pi o nage net work, and se -cret po lice operated on Ro ma nian soil at the time: this be longed to theGer man Reich. The pro vi sion for im pu nity fol low ing acts of prov o ca tionand an ar chy, and the in tru sion of the so-called fifth column into every as -pect of the po lit i cal and eco nomic land scape were among the considerableachieve ments of Ger man Secret Service ac tiv i ties, and especially those ofthe Ge stapo.Si mul ta neously with the ar rival of German troops in the country, therewas a pro lif er a tion of se cret Nazi es pi o nage or ga ni za tions and military orpo lit i cal ser vices in the au tumn of 1940.86