REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

Gábor VINCZE: VAE VICTIS! Retaliation, Revenge And Collective Punishment … 173
the beginning of September the gendarmerie collected and deported the political
leaders of the Hungarian minority and many clericals and intellectuals to several
temporary camps (Făgăraş, Hălmagiu) and the internment camp of Tîrgu Jiu. (the
estimated number of the interned Hungarians from South-Transylvania is several
thousands).
There was no legal base for the internment; it was executed according to the interior
instructions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, the Soviet-Romanian truce was
signed in Moscow on the 12 th of September, 1944, obligating the Sănătescu-government to
disarm and intern the Hungarian and German citizens of its territory, so the process continued
referring to that. Not only the few Hungarian citizens of South-Transylvania were deported,
but also the Romanian citizens of Hungarian or German origins.
In the case of North-Transylvania (which belonged to Hungary in accordance with
the 2 nd Verdict of Wien from 1940) they had more rights to refer to the above truce.
However, the process was etnically discriminating in that territory, too: only the
Hungarian citizens of Hungarian origin were deported, the ones of Romanian origin
not. In autumn about 10.000-15.000 mainly Hungarian (and German) men of military
age were collected, and taken to the feared camp of Feldioara. From the area of
Tîrgu Mureş about 50 children and women were deported, but they could go home
within several weeks. In the beginning the conditions in the camp were more or less
bearable, but from the end of 1944, masses of prisoners died due to the
overcrowding, the lack of food and the typhus-epidemic. Those who declared
themselves as Romanian or became orthodox were let free. The estimated number of
the people dying in the camp (without an authentic administration) was about 1500-
2000. The survivors could become free only in the summer of 1945.
Besides the mass-deportations we also have to mention the murders, commited by the
paramilitary corps and the regular Romanian Army.
In the beginning of September, 1944, with the permission of the general staff, corps were
organized for the purpose of “pacification” behind the fron-line. The most feard corp was
the Maniu guard (Regimentul de Voluntari Ardeleni „Iuliu Maniu”) lead by Gavrilă Olteanu
a reservist captain, executing approximately 50 people, including a 16-year-old boy and a
81-year-old woman. Two sekels were decapitated. The victims were accused with killing of
injured Romanian officers, or hiding weapons – the accuse was not right in any cases.
The regular Romanian army committed massacres in three villages of the hollow of Crişul
Negru in the end of September: they killed 90 citizens, also children and old people over 60
years.
Finally, it has to be mentioned, that the anti-Hungarian measures had a legal cover
from 1945. That year the legal actions against “war criminals” started in Romania.
There – just as in several other countries of Europe in the period – the people’s
courts were the institutions of political or/and ethnical revenge. There were people’s
courts established only in three cities of Romania: Iaşi, Bucharest and Cluj. While in
the first two cities real war criminals and people, participating in the pogroms
against the Jews were judged, the court of Cluj operated as the institute of reckoning
with the Hungarians: during its existence – according to the official Romanian data –