Speaking out in Times of Crisis: Differentiability in Romanian Jewish Leadership, 1938–1944

ABSTRACT

The Jewish leadership in Romanian territories during World War II sought to change antisemitic legislation, stop deportations, and ensure the survival of the deportees in the camps and ghettos. Unfortunately, they found their communities attacked from various sides and their petitions largely unheeded by the Antonescu wartime government. When the Federation of Jewish Communities was replaced by the government-controlled Jewish Center, Bucharest lawyer Wilhelm Filderman and former Federation members found other avenues by which to continue their work. I analyze their major successes as well as their failures in regard to legislation, deportations, and survival of deportees through the different phases of the war to reveal the dominating influence of regionalism among Romanian Jewish leadership.

KEYWORDS:

• Holocaust
• Romania
• Jewish leadership
• Antonescu
• Transnistria
• World War II

Acknowledgement

My thanks to the EEJA editors and the two anonymous reviewers for their advice on earlier drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Iemima Ploscariu is a postgraduate Irish Research Council researcher in Ireland who specializes in the history of ethnic and religious minorities in Romania.

ORCID

Iemima Ploscariu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2398-6090

Notes

1. Sebastian and Ioanid, Journal, 1935–1944, 343.

2. National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, “Elie Weisel,” Holocaustul din România și percepția relațiilor interetnice (2017), accessed May 30, 2019, http://www.inshr-ew.ro/ro/files/Kantar_TNS_Raport_INSHR_2017.pdf.

3. Ancel, The History of the Holocaust in Romania; Dumitru, The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust; Geissbuhler, Romania and the Holocaust; Ionescu, Jewish Resistance to “Romanianization,” 1940–44; Solonari, Purifying the Nation.

4. Ursuţiu, “Jewish strategies in Romania between 1940 and 1945”; Benjamin, “‘Leadership’-Ul Comunitar În România În Perioada Holocaustului (1940-1944)”; Rosen, “Teme demografice și economice în preocuparile doctorului Wilhelm Filderman”; Leibovici-Lais, “Conducerea evreilor din România în perioada Şoahului”; Fisher, “Making Sense of Catastrophe.”

5. Schaary, “The Realpolitik of the Jewish National Leadership of Bukovina”; Tibon, “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”; Altskan, “On the Other Side of the River”; Ploscariu, “Institutions for Survival.”

6. Solonari, “Patterns of Violence.”

7. Guṭman, Patterns of Jewish Leadership in Nazi Europe 1933–1945; Trunk, Judenrat; Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders; Jockusch and Finder, Jewish Honor Courts; Friedl, “Negotiating and Compromising.”

8. Southern Transylvania and the Banat, although not historically part of the Regat, will also be identified as such here since these regions were treated differently from the acquired eastern territories (Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transnistria) by the Romanian wartime government.

9. Vago, “Romanian Jewry during the Interwar Period,” 31. Sorrels, “Police harassment and the politicization of Jewish youth in interwar Bessarabia.”

10. Janowski et al., “Why Bother About Historical Regions?”.

11. Solonari, Purifying the nation, 222.

12. Vago, “Romanian Jewry during the Interwar Period,” 41.

13. Rosenkranz-Herscovici, Dadu.

14. Ancel, The History of the Holocaust in Romania, 34, 165–166. Uniunea Comunităților Evreiești (Union of Jewish Communities) and the Jewish Party were disbanded in 1938. The Union represented Jews in the Regat while the Federation included all unions in the different provinces. Filderman was president of both.

15. For more on the situation of Jews in the Soviet Union see Arad, The Holocaust in the Soviet Union; Bemporad, Legacy of Blood.

16. Solonari, Purifying the Nation, 152. For more on Romanianization policies see S˛tefan Ionescu, Jewish Resistance to "Romanianization", 1940-44.

17. Ancel, Documents, vol. I, 221.

18. Elie Wiesel International Commission, Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, http://www.inshr-ew.ro/ro/files/Raport%20Final/Final_Report.pdf (2004), 31–43.

19. Ancel, Documents, vol. I, 221.

20. ASB, fond PCM, 174/1940, vol. II, 715 in Benjamin, Evreii din Romania intre anii 1940–1944 vol. II Problema Evreiasca in Stenogramele Consiliului de Ministri, 151, 186–187.

21. Ibid, 249.

22. Ibid, 435. Document dated August 4, 1940. By contrast, only 15,000 Lei could be sent to Bukovinan Jewish refugees in Suceava. Filderman mentioned that 200,000 Lei was previously sent to help the refugees. Rejecting the Society of Writers’ request may have unleashed more antagonism in the press.

23. Ibid, 421.

24. Monitorul Oficial August 9, 1940, cited in Ancel, Documents, vol. I, 437–45.

25. Ancel, History of the Holocaust, 172.

26. Lavi, Petițiile doctorului Filderman (Tel Aviv: Viața noastră, 1979).

27. Ancel, Documents, vol. I, 460; vol. II, 6, 334–9.

28. Filderman, Memoirs and Diaries, 511–2.

29. Ancel, Documents, vol. I, 424, 453, 459; Elie Weisel Commission, 196.

30. Elie Weisel Commission, 220.

31. Ancel, History, 87.

32. Elie Weisel Commission, 220.

33. Ancel, History, 83.

34. Safran and Ancel, Resisting the Storm, 51.

35. Ancel, History, 83.

36. Kuller, “Sioniști sub ‘lupa’ Siguranței și Securității,” 138–9, 141.

37. Ancel, Documents, vol. I, 460.

38. Ancel, Documents, vol. IV, 296–8; Benjamin, “Politica antievreiască a regimului Antonescu 1940–1944,” , 26.

39. Ancel, Documents, vol. I, 475-476. Filderman was a former classmate of Ion Antonescu.

40. Carp, Cartea neagră, vol. I, 73.

41. Ancel, Documents, vol. II, 15, 20, 33, 81, 85.

42. Ancel, Documents, vol. I, 595. Jidan or the adjective Jidovesc is the equivalent of the ethnic slur “kike.”

43. Ibid, vol. II, 93, 41, 284, 328.

44. Ibid, 26–27.

45. Ibid, 412–3.

46. Ancel, Documents, vol. II, 30.

47. Ibid, 87.

48. Ibid, 94–102.

49. Ibid, 376.

50. Te'odor Lavi, Aviva Ben-Azar, Tsevi Sha'al, Jean Ancel, Pinḳas ha-ḳehilot, vol. II, 336–339.

51. Curierul Israelit 35, vol. 2, February 23, 1945, cited in Elie Weisel Commission, 208-209.

52. Levin, The lesser of two evils: Eastern European Jewry under Soviet rule, 1939–1941, 37–39.

53. Ancel, Documents, vol. III, 292; Eaton, “The Story Created Afterward,” 42–58.

54. Elie Weisel Commission, 220; Ancel, Documents, vol. II, 455.

55. Benjamin, Problema evreiască în stenogramele Consiliului de miniştri, 1940-1944, 307. Ancel, “The Romanian Campaigns of Mass Murder in Transnistria,” , 99.

56. Ancel, Documents, vol. II, 471; dated July 22, 1941.

57. Ibid, 524–5.

58. Solonari, “Patterns of Violence,” 749–87.

59. Mircu, Pogromurile din Basarabia si alte câteva Întâmplari, 20; Shapiro, The Kishinev ghetto, 1941–1942 a documentary history of the Holocaust in Romania’s contested borderlands, 20.

60. Shapiro, “The Jews of Chisinau,” 146–7.

61. Reifer, “History of the Jews in Bukovina,” accessed July 30, 2017, http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/bukowinabook/buk2_003.html (2005).

62. Ancel, “The Romanian Campaigns of Mass Murder in Transnistria,” 97–100. About 331,000 Jews were in Transnistria when German and Romanian troops occupied the region. Many men were previously conscripted into the Red army and there was a greater chance of escape through Odessa by sea. After the Tighina Agreement Einsatzgruppe D transferred responsibility of Jews in Transnistria to Romanian military authority.100,000 Ukrainian Jews were massacred and about 200,000 more were sent to death camps across the Bug River.

63. Ancel, History, 265; Carp, Cartea Neagra, vol. III, 81. Șapira (formerly a Romanian officer and whose name Ancel writes as Shapiro) was given a military plane and army uniform by a Romanian general. He kept his word and returned to Chișinau from where he was deported to Transnistria on October 20 and later died.

64. Ancel, Documents, vol. III, 242; Ancel, History, 281.

65. Ancel, Documents, vol. III, 262.

66. Ancel, Documents, vol. V, 111. Pressner’s letter was dated October 22, 1941.

67. Many of the leaders were deported to camps in the Regat and accused of being communists. Folder 17/1941, Fond Inspectoratul General al Jandarmeriei Inv. 1474, Romanian National Archives.

68. Ancel, History, 298.

69. Ancel, Documents, vol. III, 327.

70. Ancel, History, 265, 291; Ancel, Documents, vol. III, 273.

71. Ancel, Documents, vol. VI, 125; Ancel, History, 246-257; Baruch, Frozen Mud and Red Ribbons, 27–83. Many were shot on the way for not being able to keep up or were sold to local peasants. They had little or nothing to eat. Jewish women were raped in notorious Cosăuți and Briceni forests en route to Transnistria.

72. For a detailed administrative map of Transnistria see Andrein, “Romania Mai 1942,” accessed November 8, 2017, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ROMANIA_MAI_1942.png.

73. Carp, Cartea Neagra, vol. III, 362–3. Under the leadership of Jägendorf, Mogilev ghetto residents fixed an abandoned electric power station, rebuilt the foundry and the metal plant, and opened a pharmacy, a bakery, and a public kitchen. They also established a shelter for 250 elderly, set up a Health Service, and an orphanage for 200 children. Jägendorf, Jagendorf's foundry.

74. Ancel, History, 398–411.

75. Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, “There Was Never a Camp Here,” 148–149.

76. Ancel, Documents, vol. V, 189.

77. Ancel, History, 409.

78. Hilberg, The Destruction of European Jews, vol. II, 3rd edition, 219.

79. Hilberg, 837.

80. Vago, “The Ambiguity of Collaborationism,” 300; Shachan, Burning ice, 288.

81. Ancel, Documents, vol. VII, 5-6; vol. III, 515.

82. “Holocaust in Romania,” The Association of Jewish Romanian Americans (2000), accessed July 30, 2017, http://ev-en.org/history/bershad_ghetto.txt.

83. Ancel, Documents, vol. IV, 10–11.

84. Ancel, History, 495.

85. Ancel, Documents, vol. IV, 342.

86. Ibid, vol. IV, 240.

87. Ibid, vol. II, 18, 28,74.

88. Ancel, Documents, vol. IV, 221; Ancel, History, 482, 497.

89. Ancel, Documents, vol. IV, 159–161.

90. Ancel, History, 498. “Rhinocerization” references Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros and the “peril of collective insanity” as described in Cap-Bun’s “Rhinocerization as a Symbolizing Process.”

91. Ancel, Documents, vol. IV, 118.

92. Ibid, vol. IV, 266.

93. Ancel, Documents, vol. IV, 562, 564, 567–1.

94. Ibid, vol. V, 353. Money sent to Transnistria was changed into the local occupation currency—Reichskreditkassenscheine—at a loss of two-thirds its value. Mail was a continual problem—in July 1943 Filderman wrote to the Prime Minister that Mogilev residents were still not receiving their mail. Ancel, vol. IV, 626–9.

95. Carp, Cartea Neagra, vol. III, 438–42.

96. Ancel, Documents, vol. V, 438, 465–8.

97. Ibid, vol. V, 489–90.

98. Ibid, vol. IV, 654, 64.

99. Ibid, vol. IV, 692–3. The lack of clothes among the deportees was a particular concern.

100. Ibid, vol. V, 523–6, 527–36, 576–86; vol. IV, 703. Chioveanu, “The Paper Solution.”

101. Ibid, vol. V, 491–2.

102. Solonari, Purifying the Nation, 222.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been funded by the Irish Research Council under the Government of Ireland Postgraduate Programme [Grant Number GOIPG/2018/22].