“Model province”: Explaining the Holocaust of Bessarabian and Bukovinian Jewry∗

∗This research was made possible by generous support from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the J. and O. Winter Fund, and the University of Central Florida. Many people contributed to the improvement of this text through their expertise and advice, among them Rosalind Beiler, Peter Black, Randolf L. Braham, Holly Case, Robert Cassanello, Spencer Downing, Radu Ioanid, Irina Livezeanu, as well as the anonymous reviewers of the Nationalities Papers. My sincere thanks go to all of them, while all responsibility for possible mistakes and omissions is my own.

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Notes

∗This research was made possible by generous support from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the J. and O. Winter Fund, and the University of Central Florida. Many people contributed to the improvement of this text through their expertise and advice, among them Rosalind Beiler, Peter Black, Randolf L. Braham, Holly Case, Robert Cassanello, Spencer Downing, Radu Ioanid, Irina Livezeanu, as well as the anonymous reviewers of the Nationalities Papers. My sincere thanks go to all of them, while all responsibility for possible mistakes and omissions is my own.

1. Joseph Goebbels, Tagebücher 1924–1945, Vol. 4 (Munich: Piper, 1992), pp. 1659–1660. According to latest and most authoritative assessments, in July and August 1941 Romanian army, gendarmerie and police, together with local Christians, killed an estimated 45,000 to 60,000 Bessarabian and Bukovinian Jews. In the fall the same year Romanian gendarmes and policeman deported Jewish survivors from the provinces, who had been detained in transit camps and ghettos, to the east, to the territory between Dniester and Southern Bug rivers which Hitler gave to Romanians as compensation for their participation in the war against the Soviet Union. Romanians called this region “Transnistria” which means “territory across the Dniester-River.” An estimated 105,000 to 120,000 Jews from Romania, mostly from Bessarabia and Bukovina, died in Transnistrian concentration camps. See International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, Final Report (Iaşi: Polirom, 2005), p. 382.

2. See Radu Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940–1944 (Chicago: Ivan R Dee, 2000), pp. 259–270; Jean Ancel, “The German–Romanian Relationship and the Final Solution,” in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 19 No. 2, Fall 2005, pp. 262–264; idem., Contribuţii la istoria României: problema evreească. (hereinafter referred to as Ancel, Contribuţii), Vol. I partea a doua: 1933–1944. (Bucharest: Hasefer, 2001), pp. 89–110.

3. See, for example, Gheorghe Buzatu, Aşa a început Holocaustul împotriva poporului Român (Bucharest: Majadahonda, 1995) and idem, Românii în arhivele Kremlinului (Bucharest: Univers Encicplopedic, 1996). Larry Watts, an American historian currently residing in Romania, published in 1993 a highly sympathetic biography of Ion Antonescu which essentially avoided mentioning his role in the persecution of Jews (Romanian Cassandra: Ion Antonescu and the Struggle for Reform, 1916–1941 [Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1993]). For a superb analysis of this discourse and its proponents see International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, Final Report, pp. 333–380.

4. See, e.g. Ioan Scurtu and Constantin Hlihor, Anul 1940: drama românilor dintre Prut şi Nistru (Bucharest: Editura Academiei de înalte studii militare, 1992), pp. 49–80; idem., Complot împotriva României, 1939–1947: Basarabia, Nordul Bucovinei si ţinutul Herţa în vâltoarea celui de-al doilea război mondial (Bucharest: Editura Academiei de înalte studii militare, 1994), pp. 92–100; Anatol Petrencu, Basarabia în al doilea război mondial, 1940–1944 (Chişinău: Lyceum, 1997), pp. 60–67. Probably the most outspoken attempt to justify Romanian treatment of Jews in the provinces by reference to their supposed “treachery” in 1940 can be found in the brochure by the former Romanian dissident Paul Goma, Săptămâna roşie, 28 iunie—3 iulie 1940, sau Basarabia şi evreii (Chişinău: Museum, 2003).

5. According to the most recent and authoritative estimate, Romanian policy resulted in the deaths of between 280,000 and 375,000 Jews. Besides, deportations of nomadic Roma to Transnistria in 1942 resulted in the death of ca. 11,000 of them (see ibid., p. 382).

6. Among the most important recent publications of this latter category, besides the works by Radu Ioanid and Jean Ancel cited in note 2 above, are the following: Lya Benjami, Prigoană şi rezistenţă în istoria evreilor din România, 1940–1944: studii (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer, 2001); Viorel Achim and Constantin Iordache, eds, România şi Transnistria: Problema Holocaustului. Perspective istorice şi comparative (Bucharest: Curtea Veche, 2004); Mihail E. Ionescu and Liviu Rotman, The Holocaust and Romania: History and Contemporary Significance (Bucharest: Institute for Political Studies of Defense and Military History; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2003). The Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, which was created on the initiative of President Ion Iliescu in October 2003 and comprised leading specialists from Israel, Romania, and the U.S., contains a very useful summary of scholarly research of the above mentioned and other historians.

7. See Documents Concerning the Fate of Romanian Jewry during the Holocaust, Vols I–X (New York: Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1986) (hereinafter referred to as Ancel, Documents); Lya Benjamin and Sergiu Stanciu, eds, Evreii din România între anii 1940–1944: Izvoare si marturisiri referitoare la evreii din România (serie speciala), Vol. I (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer, 1993); Lya Benjamin, ed., Problema evrească în stenogramele Consiliului de Miniştri, Vol. II (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer, 1996); Ion Şerbănescu, ed., 1940–1942: Perioada unei mari restrişti, vol. III, partea I-a si partea a II-a (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer, 1997); idem., 1943–1944: Bilanţul tragediei—renaşterea sperantei, Vol. IV (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer, 1998).

8. For critical analysis of the contemporary historiography—both Romanian and Western—of the Holocaust in Romania see Irina Livezeanu, “The Romanian Holocaust: Family Quarrels,” East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2002, pp. 934–947.

9. The most up-to-date analysis of the change in Romanian policy in the fall of 1942 is to be found in note 2 above. The southern part of Bukovina was also cleansed of Jews in the fall of 1941, though less violently than the northern part: here cleansing involved deportations to Transnistria, but not mass murder.

10. Since 1997 the Romanian National Archives have been publishing one volume of this source per year, each volume containing the minutes of a three-month period; as of the time of writing, all minutes through the end of 1942 have been published. See Marcel-Dumitru Ciuca; Aurelian Teodorescu; Bogdan Florin Popovici, eds, Stenogramele sedintelor Consiliului de Ministri: guvernarea Ion Antonescu, Vols I–VIII (Bucharest: Arhivele Naţionale ale României, 1997–2005) (hereinafter referred to as Stenogramele). Minutes from January 1943 onwards were consulted by the author in the archival collections of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Lya Benjamin published the most important excerpts from this source pertaining to the anti-Jewish policy in Problema evreească în stenogramele Consiliului de Miniştri. However, some important materials on the dictator's thinking about Bessarabia and Bukovina were not included in her selection.

11. On Antonescu and his system of government see Keith Hitchins, Rumania, 1866–1947 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 451–471. The most detailed English-language biography of Ion Antonescu for 1916–1941 is Watts, Romanian Cassandra: Ion Antonescu and the Struggle for Reform. This book is, as has been already noted, apologetic and not completely reliable.

12. Cf. “[W]e are in a revolutionary regime,” Stenogramele, Vol. VI, p. 393, 23 March 1942.

13. Ibid., p. 516, 24 April 1942.

14. Antonescu's instruction on a report concerning the reasons of slow construction of the Bucharest Conservatory. Antonescu asserted on that occasion that “music means spiritual and cultural refinement. A serious nation has to affirm itself in this domain as well.” (Romanian National Archive. Office of the President of the Council of Ministers, Military Cabinet, file 176/1940, p. 726 USHMM RG-25.013M Reel 7).

15. Romanian State Archive, Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, file 475/1941, pp. 351–355 USHMM RG 25-013, Reel 15.

16. Stenogramele, Vol. VI, 27 March 1942, p. 379.

17. Romanian State Archive, Office of the President of the Council of Ministers, Military Cabinet, file 175/1940, p. 552 USHMM 25-013 Reel 7.

18. Stenogramele, Vol. V, p. 419, 10 December 1941.

19. On nationalism as ressentiment see Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).

20. “Communism, Jews and Freemasonry constitute three big internal problems …,” Stenogramele, Vol. II, p. 42, 10 January 1941.

21. On the use of the word “foreign” (or “alien”) in reference to national minorities see Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans, Vol. 2 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 135–136.

22. Stenogramele, Vol. IV, p. 230, 3 March 1942.

23. Benjamin, Problema evreească, p. 210, 14 March 1941, Consultation of the Leader of the State with the representatives of big industrial enterprises.

24. Stenogramele, Vol. I, p. 184, 10 October 1940.

25. “We, Romanians, started commerce after the war [World War I]. Many of those [who did so] fell out because of the Yids' competition. Romanians embraced all branches of activity influenced by Transylvanians and their commercial spirit, but there was no luck for them because of Yids who competed with them, because they had credits and because Yids were buying semi-fabricated and fabricated goods on lower prices than those on which Romanians were buying them and because they had credits” (ibid., p. 130, 1 October 1940).

26. His own comparison; see Stenogramele, Vol. I, p. 149, 3 October 1940.

27. References to aliens as parasites are to be found in ibid., Vol. II, p. 3, 9 January 1941 and Vol. V, p. 174, 19 November 1941. They, as well as occasionally some other social groups, were called “parasites” because they were seen as not contributing to the development and strengthening of the Nation but as exploiting it.

28. Roma and Sinti (Gypsies, ţigani) whom he called a “lesion” (plaga) were contaminating the whole of Bucharest with various illnesses (ibid., Vol. III, pp. 94–95, 4 April 1941). Jewish doctors were “for sure” intentionally murdering Romanian peasant women giving birth in the villages and also “starting to do the same thing [i.e. killing their patients]” in the army (ibid., Vol. I, p. 311, 22 October 1940).

29. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 180, 7 February 1941.

30. Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 186, 26 February 1942.

31. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 32, 18 September 1940.

32. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 276, 15 February 1941.

33. This characteristic was given to Ion Antonesco by the French military attaché in Bucharest, General Victor Pétin, in 1922. See Valeriu Florin Dobrinescu, “Extrem de muncitor, de o mare valoare militară,” Dosarele istoriei, 6(70), 2002, p. 18.

34. Indeed, there is direct evidence that they positively knew what was going on. In the Council of Ministers of 7 July 1941 there was the following exchange between Mihai Antonescu and Minister of Internal Affairs General Popescu: Mihai Antonescu: “[In Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina] in the understanding with the army, with police and holding Minister of the Interior permanently informed … cleansing of the communist element is now being carried out.” General Popescu: “And certain cleansings have already taken place.” Stenogramele, Vol. IV, p. 32.

35. Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania, esp. pp. 189–204.

36. Cf. Iuliu Maniu's, leader of the National Peasants' Party and former prime minister, memorandum to Antonescu of 8 November 1941: “National Peasants' Party … approves a tendency to Romanianize in a legal manner our social and economic life … but disapproves, in the most categorical way, Germanization of our enterprises … and systematic penetration of alien elements in our national system of production” (Iuliu Maniu, Ion Antonescu, and Ion Calafeteanu, Opinii si confruntări politice: 1940–1944 (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Dacia, 1994), p. 112.

37. Cf. 17 October 1940 in the Council of Ministers: “Statism [etatizare] must not be extended to the extreme. A managed economy should be combined in a harmonious way with economic life [i.e. private economic activity]. A middle road should be followed. … Romanianization produces a whole which cannot be covered” (Stenogramele, Vol. I, pp. 292, 300–301, 17 December 1940). On Goga–Cuza government see Paul A. Shapiro, “Prelude to Dictatorship in Romania: The National Christian Party in Power, December 1937–February 1938,” in Canadian–American Slavic Studies, No. 8(1), Spring 1974, pp. 45–88.

38. For more detailed analysis on Antonescu's cooperation and subsequent conflict with the Iron Guard see Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania, pp. 43–61; Ancel, Contribuţii, Vol. I partea întâi: 1933–1944, pp. 373–440. Cf. Ion Antonescu to Horia Sima on 27 October 1941: “I do not allow to brutalize the Nation because it may lead to the tragic situation for the Romanian Nation [Neam]” (Stenogramele, Vol. I, p. 117).

39. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 327, 3 February 1941.

40. According to the data of the Union of Chambers of Industry and Commerce of January 1941, Jews which comprised 4.2 per cent of the total population of the country, possessed 31.1 per cent of all commercial and industrial firms, and the authorities were convinced that “the immense majority” of the corporations were “in the hands of Jews”. (Benjamin, Problema evrească, pp. 40–41). Jews comprised 28.8 per cent of all those employed in the blanking sector, 40.3 of those employed in commerce (National Archives of Romania Fond: Office of the President of the Council of Ministers, file 397/1940, p. 20 USHMM RG-25.012M reel 1), 31.1 per cent of all practicing doctors (Benjamin, Prigoană şi rezistenţă, p. 334), etc.

41. This was the case with “Herdan” mill, which Antonescu called “unique” not only in Romania but in the whole of Europe (see ibid., Vol. III, p. 101, 8 April 1941; p. 141, 10 April 1941). The mill, later renamed “România Mare,” which means “Greater Romania,” was not, however, given back to its former Jewish owner and Antonescu continued to be upset by its mismanagement. See Vasile Arima, ed. Ion Antonescu. Secretele guvernări. Rezoluţii ale conducătorului statului (septembrie 1940—august 1944) (Bucharest: Editura “Românul,” 1992), p. 155, instruction of 2 December 1942.

42. Illuminating in this respect is a memorandum presented by the former secretary for Romanianization (December 1941 through November 1943) Titus Dragoş to the People's Tribunal to investigate war-time crimes in September 1944 with the aim of exculpating himself. While this document should be read with a fair degree of caution, the data contained in it leave no doubt that Romanianization was much less successful in terms of the replacement of Jews with ethnic Romanians in the economy than the government wanted. (This document was published in Ancel, Documents, Vol. VI, pp. 1–24.)

43. Ibid., Vol. III, doc. No. 235, pp. 390–395. This is a telegram of the U.S. ambassador to the State Department recounting the information received from “a friend who invariably gives … accurate and timely information.”

44. See minutes of the interrogation of Mihai Antonescu in Moscow in June 1945 in Central Archives of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, file H-18767, vol. 1, p. 80 USHMM RG-06.025M Reel 43. This file contains minutes of the interrogation of Ion Antonescu and his closest lieutenants in March 1945–January 1946 in Moscow.

45. Stenogramele, Vol. V, p. 8, 6 October 1941.

46. Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 214, 26 February 1942.

47. Radu Lecca's interrogation in Moscow, Central Archives of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, file H-18767, vol. 1, p. 473 USHMM RG-06.025M Reel 43.

48. Raoul Bossy, Jurnal (2 noiembrie 1940—9 iulie 1969), ed. Ion Mamina (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 2001), p. 52. As early as October or November 1940 Ion Antonescu was already taking measures to prepare his country for war with the Soviet Union and in January or February 1941 he made it clear to his ministers that war was coming and Romania would take part in it. See Moscow interrogations of General Cristea Pantazi (Central Archives of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, file H-18767, vol. 1, pp. 136–138, 150–158 USHMM RG-06.025M Reel 43, of General Constantin Vasiliu (ibid., pp. 183–186), and of the former Governor of Transnistria Gheorghe Alexianu (ibid., p. 286).

49. Mihai was a distant relative of Ion Antonescu. He won his unconditional trust after defending him as his attorney against charges of bigamy in 1938. These charges were concocted, probably, by the Romanian secret service at the behest of King Carol II. See Watts, Romanian Cassandra, pp. 180–181 and Mihai Antonescu's own testimony on his relations with Ion before the People's Tribunal in May 1946, published in Josif Constantin Drăgan, ed., Antonescu: Mareşalul României şi războaiele de reîntregire: Martrurii si documente coordonate şi îngrijite de Josif Constantin Drăgan (Veneţia: Fundaţia europeană Drăgan, 1991), p. 446.

50. Stenogramele, Vol. III, pp. 570–572.

51. National Archives of Romania, Fond: Office of the President of the Council of Ministers, Military Cabinet, file 583/1941 p. 12. USHMM RG-25.0013 Reel 19.

52. Ibid., pp. 19–22.

53. Stenogramele, Vol. IV, pp. 57–58, 8 July.

54. Ibid., Vol. V, pp. 66–67.

55. Ibid., Vol. IV, pp. 567–568, 5 September 1941. “Old Kingdom,” or “Regat,” this is how Romanians referred to those territories of their country that had been part of the Romanian state since 1859. The elites of the Old Kingdom provided the bulk of administrative and military personnel in inter-war Romania and there was a widespread perception that those Romanians who were born and raised in the Old Kingdom (regăteni) were more trusted than those from the provinces acquired after 1918.

56. Monitorul Oficial #209/941. The law was published in Petrencu, Basarabia în al doilea război mondial, pp. 269–279.

57. Art. 25. See ibid., p. 275

58. Ion Antonescu to governors in the Council of Ministers of 16 December 1941: “Whatever the statute says, you are sovereign there.” This was in response to the governor's of Bukovina General Corneliu Calotescu sucking up remark: “You are a boss [conducător] and I am a steward on your estate” (Stenogramele, Vol. V, pp. 442–444, 16 December 1941).

59. Art. 8. See Petrencu, Basarabia în al doilea război mondial, p. 271. Ion Antonescu strictly forbade the Bucharest authorities from interfering in the administrative affairs of the provinces even before the issuance of that decree-law, first on 23 July via “provisional administrative instructions” and then on 1 August by the telegram to the Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers (documents published in Petrencu, România şi Basarabia in anii celui de-al doilea război mondial, pp. 61, 68).

60. Stenogramele, Vol. III, p. 597, 19 June 1941; ibid., Vol. VI, pp. 308–309, 13 March 1942.

61. Ibid., Vol. III, p. 597, 19 June 1941; ibid., Vol. IV, p. 200, 25 July 1941. Once again, though Mihai Antonescu thought those were “temporary measures”, in reality they were preserved until the approach of the front in 1944.

62. Vol. III, p. 645, 25 June 1941; ibid., Vol. IV, p. 566, 5 September 1941; ibid., pp. 601, 607; 6 September 1941; ibid., Vol. VI, p. 456, 17 April 1942.

63. This was a point of intermittent discussion in the CBBT. See, for example, exchanges on 14 and 17 January 1942, in Moldovan National Archives, Fond 706 Inventory 1, file 572, Vol. 1, pp. 55–56, and ibid., 17 January, pp. 74–78 USHMM RG-54.002M Reel 12.

64. For a very useful discussion of the fascist “dual state” see Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Alfred A. Kopf, 2004), pp. 119–171. I use his terminology here.

65. Resumé of the discussions in the Council of Ministers of 16 December 1942, Moldovan National Archive, Fond 706 Inventory 1 file 560, p. 34 USHMM GR-54.001 Reel 11. In the published version of the minutes less radical language is used, but the one cited was officially sent to the provinces by Antonescu's office as a guide to action.

66. The official transcript of the Hitler–Antonescu conversation of 12 June 1941 does not contain any mention of their discussing the “treatment of Jews in the east” but on 16 August 1941 Ion Antonescu complained to the German ambassador in Bucharest, Manfred von Killinger, and to the commander of the German 11th Army on the Romanian segment of the front, General Eugen Ritter von Schobert, that the German army's refusal to permit Romanians to deport the Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina to the east was running “contrary to the guidelines which the Führer had set forth to him in Munich.” Eleven days later Karl Ritter, German Foreign Ministry Ambassador for Special Assignments, informed Wehrmacht General Headquarters that though he was unable to find any record of that discussion, he nevertheless was aware that Antonescu and Hitler spoke on other occasions, and that “it was entirely possible that the question of the Foreign Jews was also discussed there.” In any case, Ritter concluded, there was “no reason to doubt the accuracy of General Antonescu's assertions.” See Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), Vol. 12, No. 614, pp. 996–1006; Vol. 13, No. 207, pp. 318–319. See also an informative discussion of this problem in Jean Ancel, “The German–Romanian Relationship and the Final Solution,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3, 2005, pp. 255–256.

67. On the persecution of Jews by Romanian army officers and soldiers during World War I see: Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania, pp. 10–12; Mariana Hausleitner, Die Rumänisierung der Bukowina: die Durchsetzung des nationalstaatlichen Anspruchs Grossrumäniens, 1918–1944 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001), pp. 98–99, 117.

68. Bukovina and Bessarabia belonged since the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to the Austrian (later Austro-Hungarian) and Russian Empires, respectively, which had annexed it from the principality of Moldova (Moldavia). Moldova was one of the two constituent parts (alongside with Walachia) of the future Romanian state (formed 1859), the so-called Old Kingdom. In the last stages of World War I Bessarabia and Bukovina were occupied by the Romanian army and then successfully claimed by Romania at the Paris peace conference on historical and ethnographic grounds (in the case of the northern part of Bukovina, where Ukrainians predominated, ethnographic data were twisted). The Soviets never recognized what they believed was the “annexation” of Bessarabia and made their claims on Northern Bukovina known as early as 1919. In June 1940, following the defeat of Romania's most important ally, France, they presented an ultimatum to Bucharest, demanding that Romania immediately concede those two provinces, and the Romanian government was compelled to oblige under the threat of overwhelming force (Germans at that time actually supported Soviet claims in accordance with Molotov–Ribbentrop pact of 23 August 1939). See Hitchins, Rumania, pp. 231–250, 271–280, 282, 289–290, 434–437, 444–450.

69. See the collection of testimonies of Romanian officers and soldiers deposited shortly after the completion of their withdrawal from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in the Archives of the Romanian Ministry of Defense, file 1691, 2nd Cavalry Division, file 1723, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 11th Cavalry Regiments, USHMM, RG-25.003M Reel 390. See also a published collection of documents in Florica Dobre, Vasilica Manea, and Lenuţa Nicolescu, Anul 1940: Armata română de la ultimatum la dictat: Documente. Vol. I (Bucharest: Editura Europa Nova, 2000).

70. Archives of the Romanian Ministry of Defense, file 1723, p. 7 USHMM, RG-25.003M Reel 390.

71. Ibid., n.p., frames 00455-00457 (I indicate frame number when no pagination is available).

72. And in fact a few testimonies mention that, alongside the Jews who rejoiced at seeing Romania's withdrawal, there were others who bemoaned it, like in the village of Climăuţi, where Jews asked Romanian soldiers why were they leaving them to the whim of the Russians (see ibid., fr. 549, 11th Cavalry Regiment, caporal Miroi). Significantly, Jews from that village suffered the same fate as those of their brethren who were reportedly less concerned about the Romanians' departure in 1940: deportation and death from hunger and cold. See Soviet Extraordinary Commission, Moldavian SSR, Moldovan National Archive, Fond 1026 Inventory 1, file 27, pp. 11–14v USHMM RG-54.002M Reel 5.

73. Ibid., n.p., fr. 464.

74. Florica Dobre et al., Anul 1940: Armata română, Vol. I, p. 159.

75. Stenogramele, Vol. IV, pp. 554–555.

76. The results of this enormous work with respect to Bessarabia are to be found in Moldovan National Archives, Fond 706 Inventory I file 555, Vols 1–2, USHMM RG 54.002M Reel 10. It looks like the work in Bukovina was less thorough, probably because the statistical data from that province from before the war were believed to have been more reliable than those from Bessarabia (see ibid., file 1123, Vol. 2, p. 444–444v).

77. See the discussions of 15 January 1942, 25 February 1942, 3 July 1943, Fond 706 Inventory 1 file 572, Vols 1–2, pp. 63–64, 293, file 582, Vol. 2, p. 312, 314 USHMM RG-54-001M Reel 12.

78. See Archives of the Romanian Ministry of Defense, Fond: Government of Bessarabia, Military Cabinet, file 7, p. illegible (after 260), USHMM RG-25.003M Reel 124.

79. Moldovan National Archive, Fond 706 Inventory 1 file 520, Vol. 1, p. 81, USHMM RG-54.002 Reel 9.

80. The documents are to be fond in: National Archives of the Republic of Moldova, Fond 706 Inventory 1 file 1123, Vol. 2, pp. 366–396 USHMM RG-54.002M Reel 17.

81. See memorandum by the German consul Fritz Gebhard Schellhorn of 16 October 1941 in Ukrainian National Archive, Chernivtsy oblast', Fond 307, file 10, n.p. USHMM RG-31.006M Reel 5. On the admirable position taken by Traian Popovici see Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania, pp. 155–172.

82. See Archive of the Romanian Ministry of External Affairs, Fond Central, Problema 33, Vol. 21, p. 144 USHMM, RG-25.006M Reel 10. Report of Governor Calotescu to the Office of the Committee of Ministers, September 1942.

83. See Archives of the Ministry of Defense, Fond: Government of Bessarabia, Military Cabinet, file 19, pp. 1–84, USHMM RG 25.003M Reel 125.

84. Ibid., p. 65.

85. National Archives of Romania, Fond: Office of the President of the Council of Ministers, file 397, pp. 20, 35 USHMM RG-25.012M Reel 1.

86. Monthly activities report of the governorship of Bessarabia, February 1942 in Moldovan National Archive, Fond 706 file 483, Vol. 1, p. 171 USHMM RG-54.002M Reel 8 and activities report for two years, August 1941 to August 1943, file 520, Vol. 1, p. 11 USHMM RG-54.001 Reel 10.

87. See the proposal from the governorship to the Office of the President of the Council of Ministers of 22 July 1942, file 945, p. 224 USHMM RG-54.001M Reel 16.

88. See Antonescu's pronouncements in the Council of Ministers of 12 March 1942. Stenogramele, Vol. IV, p. 320. This was also the underlying theme of the December 1942 plan of ethnic cleansing.

89. See e.g. activities report, August 1941 to August 1943, Bessarabia, Moldovan National Archive, Fond 706 Inventory 1, file 520, Vol. 2, p. 148 USHMM RG-54.002M Reel 10.

90. On the “old peasants-style” clothing see minutes of the sitting of the Administrative Council of the Governorship of Bessarabia, 20–21 April 1942, Archive of the Romanian Ministry of Defense, Fond Governorship of Bessarabia: Military Cabinet, file 7, p. 79 USHMM RG 25-003M Reel 124.

91. See e.g. report of the commission of the architects who studied the destruction of Chisinau in the early fall 1941 and recommended its rebuilding in strict “national style” (Moldovan National Archive, Fond 706 Inventory 1 file 515, p. 12, USHMM RG 54.002M Reel 9), and report of the commission to study the situation of the “abandoned” properties in Bessarabia, February 1943, which recommended their rebuilding in “autochthonous style” (ibid., file 1123, Vol. 2, p. 401, Reel 17).

92. Stenogramele, Vol. VI, pp. 439–458, 30 April 1942.

93. Cf. official confession, end of 1942: “Supply of the industrial goods to the province is being effected under difficult conditions” (Archives of the Ministry of Defense, Fond: Government of Bessarabia, Military Cabinet, file 10, p. 37 USHMM RG 25.003M Reel 124). On the distribution of cows see ibid., file 7, pp. 157–158, Reel 124.

94. Ibid., p. 68.

95. See the angry exchange between Mihai Antonescu and Governor of Bukovina General Corneliu Calotescu in the sitting of the Council of Ministers of 29 September 1941 on the subsidies the provinces were receiving from the national budget in Romanian National Archive, Fond Office of the President of the Council of Ministers, Military Cabinet, file 510/1942, p. 436, USHMM RG-25.0013M Reel 30.

96. Archive of the Romanian Ministry of Defense, Fond: Government of Bessarabia, Military Cabinet, file 7, pp. 273–281, USHMM 25-003M Reel 124.

97. Moldovan National Archive, Fond 706 Inventory 1 file 1123, pp. 283–294 USHMM RG-54.002M Reel 17.

98. In the fall of 1940 members of the German minority from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were “repatriated” to the German Reich in accordance with a special treaty signed by Germany and the Soviet Union and in November 1940 to July 1941 their co-nationals from Southern Bukovina followed suit, this time in accordance with a German–Romanian convention. In total, about 93,500 people were “repatriated” from Bessarabia, 42,400 from Northern Bukovina, and 52,100 from Southern Bukovina. See Dorel Bancoş, Social şi naţional în politica guvernului Antonescu (Bucharest: Editura Eminescu, 2000), pp. 108–110. Some further bibliography can be found on the same pages. Important Soviet documents on the “repatriation” of Germans from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were published in Valerii Ivanovich Pasat, Trudnye stranitsy istorii Moldova: 1940–1950-e gg. (Moscow: Terra, 1994), pp. 65–140.

99. Romanian National Archives, Fond: Office of the President of the Council of Ministers, Military Cabinet, file 375/1943, pp. 256–257 USHMM RG-25.013M Reel 34.

100. In Bukovina they numbered about 15,000, as mentioned above; in Bessarabia just less than 200 Jews, mostly baptized before 1940 and those married to Christians were allowed to stay. On the 179 Bessarabian Jews who received official permission to remain in the province see Moldovan National Archives, Fond 679 Inventory 1 file 6923, pp. 404–406, 31 July 1942. A police report from the town of Bolgrad in southern Bessarabia mentioned 108 Jews who were deported to Transnistria and received permits to return to southern Bessarabia, “where a permanent residency was fixed for them.” This was the only exception made for the deported Jews from the provinces and it is not clear who took that decision. See Moldovan National Archive, Fond 680 Inventory 1 file 4766, Vol. 1, USHMM RG-54.002M reel 17.