The title of this post is The Iasi Pogrom, but I am starting with a different event, putting the Iasi Pogrom into a more comprehensive context. It is a long read, but it is such an important subject that I feel compelled to be as detailed as possible.
Approximately seven months after the Iasi pogrom on 20 January 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, summoned a group of leading Nazis for a meeting at a villa outside Berlin known today in the history books as the Wannsee Conference, where he presented plans to coordinate a European-wide “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.”
Below are the translated minutes of that meeting:
I. The following persons took part in the discussion about the
the final solution to the Jewish question, which took place in Berlin: Grossen Wannsee No. 56/58 on 20 January 1942.
• Gauleiter Dr Meyer and Reichsamt- Reich Ministry for Leiter Dr Leibbrandt the Occupied Eastern territories
• Secretary of State Dr Stuckart Reich Ministry for the Interior
• Secretary of State Neumann Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan
• Secretary of State Dr Freisler Reich Ministry of Justice
• Secretary of State Dr Buehler Office of the Government General
• Under Secretary of State Dr Luther Foreign Office
• SS-Oberfuehrer Klopfer Party Chancellery
• Ministerialdirektor Kritzinger Reich Chancellery
• SS-Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann Race and Settlement Main Office
• SS-Gruppenfuehrer Mueller Reich Main Security
• SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann Office
• SS-Oberfuehrer Dr Schoengarth Security Police and SD Chief of the Security Police and the SD in the Government General
• SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Dr Lange Security Police and SD Commander of the Security Police and the SD for General-District Latvia, as deputy of the Commander of the Security Police and the SD for the Reich Commissariat “Eastland.”
II. At the beginning of the discussion, the Chief of the Security Police and of the SD, SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich, reported
that the Reich Marshal had appointed him to delegate for the preparations for the final solution to the Jewish question in Europe and pointed out that this discussion had been called to clarify fundamental questions. The wish of the Reich Marshal to have a draft sent to him concerning organizational, factual, and material interests concerning the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe makes necessary an initial standard action of all central offices immediately concerned with these questions to bring their general activities into line.
• The Reichsfuehrer-SS and the Chief of the German Police (Chief of the Security Police and the SD) were entrusted with the official central handling of the final solution to the Jewish question without regard to geographic borders.
• The Chief of the Security Police and the SD) was entrusted with the official central handling of the final solution to the Jewish question without regard to geographic borders.
• The Chief of the Security Police and the SD then gave a short report of the struggle which has been carried on thus far against this enemy, the essential points being the following:
a) the expulsion of the Jews from every sphere of life of the German people,
b) the expulsion of the Jews from the living space of the German people.
In carrying out these efforts, an increased and planned acceleration of the emigration of the Jews from Reich territory was started as the only possible present solution.
By order of the Reich Marshal, a Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration was set up in January 1939. The Chief of the Security Police and SD were entrusted with the management. Its most important tasks were
a) to make all necessary arrangements for the
preparation for an increased emigration of the Jews,
b) to direct the flow of emigration,
c) to speed up the procedure of emigration in each
individual case.
The aim of all this was to cleanse Germany’s living space of Jews legally. All the offices realized the drawbacks of such enforced accelerated emigration. For the time being, they had, however, tolerated it on account of the lack of other possible solutions to the problem.
The Jews themselves, or their Jewish political organizations financed the emigration. To avoid impoverished Jews remaining behind, the principle was followed that wealthy Jews have to finance the emigration of poor Jews; this was arranged by imposing a suitable tax, i.e., an emigration tax, which was used for financial arrangements in connection with the emigration of poor Jews and was imposed according to income.
The work concerned with emigration was, later on, not only a German problem but also a problem with which the authorities of the countries to which the flow of emigrants was being directed would have to deal with. Financial difficulties, such as the demand by various foreign governments for increasing sums of money to be presented at the time of the landing, the lack of shipping space, increasing restriction of entry permits, or the cancelling of such, increased the difficulties of emigration extraordinarily. Despite these difficulties, 537,000 Jews were sent out of the country between the takeover of power and the deadline of 31 October 1941.
Of these
• Approximately 360,000 were in Germany proper on 30 January
1933
• Approximately 147,000 were in Austria (Ostmark) on 15 March
1939
• Approximately 30,000 were in the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia on 15 March 1939.
The Jews themselves, or their Jewish political organizations, financed the emigration. To avoid impoverished Jews remaining behind, the principle was followed that wealthy Jews have to finance the emigration of poor Jews; this was arranged by imposing a suitable tax, i.e., an emigration tax, which was used for financial arrangements in connection with the emigration of poor Jews and was imposed according to income.
Apart from the necessary Reichsmark exchange, foreign currency had to be presented at the time of landing. To save foreign exchange held by Germany, the foreign Jewish financial organizations were—with the help of Jewish organizations in Germany—made responsible for arranging an adequate amount of foreign currency. Up to 30 October 1941, these foreign Jews donated a total of around 9,500,000 dollars.
In the meantime, the Reichsfuehrer-SS and the Chief of the German police had prohibited the emigration of Jews due to the dangers of emigration in wartime and due to the possibilities of the East.
III. Another possible solution to the problem has now taken the place of emigration, i.e., the evacuation of the Jews to the East, provided that the Fuehrer gives the appropriate approval in
advance.
These actions are, however, only to be considered provisional. Still, practical experience is already being collected, which is of the utmost significance concerning the future and the final solution to the Jewish question.
Approximately 11 million Jews will be involved in the final solution of the European Jewish question, distributed as follows among the individual countries:
A. Germany proper 131,800
Austria 43,700
Eastern territories 420,000
General Government 2,284,000
Bialystok 400,000
Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia 74,200
Estonia – free of Jews –
Latvia 3,500
Lithuania 34,000
Belgium 43,000
Denmark 5,600
France / occupied territory 165,000
unoccupied territory 700,000
Greece 69,600
Netherlands 160,800
Norway 1,300
B. Bulgaria 48,000
England 330,000
Finland 2,300
Ireland 4,000
Italy, including Sardinia, 58,000
Albania 200
Croatia 40,000
Portugal 3,000
Rumania, including Bessarabia, 342,000
Sweden 8,000
Switzerland 18,000
Serbia 10,000
Slovakia 88,000
Spain 6,000
Turkey (European portion) 55,500
Hungary 742,800
USSR 5,000,000
Ukraine 2,994,684
White Russia(Belarus)
excluding Bialystok 446,484
The number of Jews given here for foreign countries includes, however, only those Jews who still adhere to the Jewish faith since some countries still do not have a definition of the term “Jew” according to racial principles.
The handling of the problem in individual countries will be difficult due to the attitude and outlook of the people there, especially in Hungary and Romania. Thus, for example, even today, a Jew can buy documents in Romania that will officially prove his foreign citizenship.
The influence of the Jews in all walks of life in the USSR is well known. Approximately five million Jews live in the European part of the USSR, and the Asian part is scarcely 1/4 million.
The breakdown of Jews residing in the European part of the USSR according to trades was approximated as follows:
Agriculture 9.1%
Urban workers 14.8%
In trade 20.0%
Employed by the state 23.4%
In private occupations such as the
medical profession, press, theatre, etc. 32.7%
Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution, the Jews are to be allocated. appropriate labour in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes.
The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly because it is the product of natural selection and would if released, act as a seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history).
In the course of the practical execution of the final solution, Europe will be combed through from West to East. Germany proper, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, will have to be handled first due to the housing problem and additional social and political necessities.
The evacuated Jews will first be sent, group by group, to so-called transit ghettos, from which they will be transported to the East.
SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich went on to say that the exact definition of the persons involved is an important prerequisite for the evacuation.
It is not intended to evacuate Jews over 65 years old but to send them to an old-age ghetto—Theresienstadt is being considered for this purpose.
In addition to these age groups— of the approximately 280,000 Jews in Germany proper and Austria on 31 October 1941, approximately 30% were over 65 years old – severely wounded veterans and Jews with war decorations (Iron. Cross I) will be accepted in the old-age ghettos. With this expedient solution, in one fell swoop many interventions will be prevented.
The beginning of the more extensive individual evacuation actions will largely depend on military developments. Regarding the. handling of the final solution in those European countries occupied and influenced by us, it was proposed that the appropriate expert of the Foreign Office discuss the matter with the responsible official of the Security Police and SD.
The matter is no longer so difficult in Slovakia and Croatia since the most substantial problems in this respect have already been resolved. In Romania, the government has also appointed a commissioner for Jewish affairs. To settle the question in Hungary, it will soon be necessary to force an adviser for Jewish questions onto the Hungarian government.
With regard to preparing to deal with the problem in Italy, SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich considers it opportune to contact the chief of police with a view to these problems.
In occupied and unoccupied France, the registration of Jews for evacuation will, in all probability, proceed without great difficulty.
Under Secretary of State, Luther calls attention in this matter to the fact that in some countries, such as the Scandinavian states, difficulties will arise if this problem is dealt with thoroughly and that it will, therefore, be advisable to defer actions in these countries. Besides, in view of the small
numbers of Jews affected, this deferral will not cause any substantial limitation.
The Foreign Office sees no great difficulties for Southeast and Western Europe.
SS-Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann plans to send an expert from the Race and Settlement Main Office to Hungary for general orientation when the Chief of the Security Police and SD take up the matter there. It was decided to assign this expert, who will not work actively, as an assistant to the police attache.
IV. In the final solution plans, the Nuremberg Laws should provide a specific foundation, in which a prerequisite for the absolute solution of the problem is also the solution to the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood.
The Chief of the Security Police and the SD discuss the following points, theoretically, regarding a letter from the chief of the Reich chancellery:
1) Treatment of Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree
Persons of mixed blood of the first degree will, as regards the final solution of the Jewish question, be treated as Jews.
From this treatment, the following exceptions will be made:
a) Persons of mixed blood of the first degree married to
persons of German blood if their marriage has
resulted in children (persons of mixed blood of the
second degree). These persons of mixed blood of the
second degree are to be treated essentially as
Germans.
b) Persons of mixed blood of the first degree, for whom
the highest offices of the Party and State have
already issued exemption permits in any sphere of
life. Each individual case must be examined, and it
is not ruled out that the decision may be made to the
detriment of the person of mixed blood.
The prerequisite for any exemption must always be the personal merit of the person of mixed blood. (Not the merit of the parent or spouse of German blood.)
Persons of mixed blood of the first degree who are exempted from evacuation will be sterilized to prevent any offspring and to eliminate the problem of persons of mixed blood once and for all. Such sterilization will be voluntary. But it is required to remain in the Reich. The sterilized “person of mixed blood” is thereafter free of all restrictions to which he
was previously subjected.
2) Treatment of Persons of Mixed Blood of the Second Degree
Persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be treated fundamentally as persons of German blood, with the exception of the following cases, in which the persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be considered as Jews:
a) The person of mixed blood of the second degree was
born of a marriage in which both parents are persons
of mixed blood.
b) The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a
racially especially undesirable appearance that marks
him outwardly as a Jew.
c) The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a
particularly bad police and political records that
shows that he feels and behaves like a Jew.
Also, in these cases, exemptions should not be made if the person of mixed blood of the second degree has married a person of German blood.
3) Marriages between Full Jews and Persons of German Blood.
Here it must be decided from case to case whether the Jewish partner will be evacuated or whether, with regard to the effects of such a step on the German relatives, [this mixed marriage] should be sent to an old-age ghetto.
4) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of German Blood.
a) Without Children.
If no children have resulted from the marriage, the
person of mixed blood of the first degree will be
evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto (the same
treatment as in the case of marriages between full
Jews and persons of German blood, point 3).
b) With Children.
If children have resulted from the marriage (persons
of mixed blood of the second degree), they will, if
they are to be treated as Jews, be evacuated or sent
to a ghetto along with the parent of mixed blood of
the first degree. If these children are to be
treated as Germans (regular cases) are exempted
from evacuation as is therefore the parent of mixed
blood of the first degree.
5) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree or Jews.
In these marriages (including the children), all members of the family will be treated as Jews and, therefore, be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto.
6) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of Mixed Blood of the Second Degree.
In these marriages, both partners will be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto without consideration of whether the marriage has produced children since possible children will, as a rule, have stronger Jewish blood than the Jewish person of mixed blood of the second degree.
SS-Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann advocates the opinion that sterilization will have to be widely used since the person of mixed blood who is given the choice of whether he will be evacuated or sterilized would instead undergo sterilization.
State Secretary Dr Stuckart maintains that carrying out in practice the just-mentioned possibilities for solving the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood will create endless administrative work. In the second place, as the biological facts cannot be disregarded in any case, State Secretary Dr Stuckart proposed proceeding with forced sterilization.
Furthermore, to simplify the problem of mixed marriages, possibilities must be considered with the goal of the legislator saying something like: “These marriages have been dissolved.”
Concerning the issue of the effect of the evacuation of Jews on the economy, State Secretary Neumann stated that Jews who are working in industries vital to the war effort, provided that no replacements are available, cannot be evacuated.
SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich indicated that these Jews would not be evacuated according to the rules he had approved for carrying out the evacuations then underway.
State Secretary Dr Buehler stated that the General Government would welcome it if the final solution to this problem could be begun in the General Government since, on the one hand, transportation does not play such a large role here, nor would problems of labour supply hamper this action. Jews must be removed from the territory of the General Government as quickly as possible since it is especially here that the Jew as an epidemic carrier represents an extreme danger, and on the other hand, he is causing permanent chaos in the economic structure of the country through continued black market dealings. Moreover, of the approximately 2-1/2 million Jews concerned, the majority are unfit for work.
State Secretary Dr Buehler stated further that the solution to the Jewish question in the General Government is the responsibility of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD and that his efforts will be supported by the General Government officials. He had only one request: to solve the Jewish question in this area as quickly as possible.
In conclusion, the different types of possible solutions were discussed, during which discussion both Gauleiter Dr Meyer and State Secretary Dr Buehler took the position that certain preparatory activities for the final solution should be carried out immediately in the territories in question, in which process alarming the populace must be avoided.
At the request of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD to the participants, the meeting closed by affording him appropriate support while carrying out the tasks involved in the solution.
Seven months later, on 22 June 1941, Germany invaded the USSR, the start of Operation Barbarossa. At this time, there were rumours that Jews in Romania were outright collaborating with the Soviets and engaging in deception against Romania.
King Carol II of Romania said in January 1938, “It cannot be denied that there is a strong antisemitic feeling in our country. That is an old question in our history.”
From 1940 to 1944, Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany and echoed its anti-Semitic policies. On June 27, 1941, Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu telephoned Colonel Constantin Lupu, commander of the Iaşi garrison, ordering him formally to “cleanse Iaşi of its Jewish population.
On Saturday evening, June 28, 1941, Romanian and German soldiers, members of the Romanian Special Intelligence Service, police, and masses of residents murdered and plundered the Jews of Iasi. Thousands were killed in their homes and on the streets; additional thousands were arrested by patrols of Romanian and German soldiers and taken to police headquarters. Lazar Rozin, who was only fourteen years old in June 1941, describes, “They entered our house, screaming and pillaging all of our belongings. They ordered us all out of the house, as well as my mother and my sisters. We walked to the police station and on the way we saw how people were beaten and bodies of dead Jews were strewn in the streets.”3 The next day, “Black Sunday,” Romanian soldiers shot thousands of Jews who had interned in the police headquarters yard.
Seven thousand more were herded onto trains, with the expectation that most would die from heat, starvation and overcrowding in the locked cars. Bodies were thrown from the trains as they rolled slowly towards their destinations elsewhere in Romania over many days. Only a few thousand passengers survived.
Between 13,000 and 15,000 Jews died in what became known as the Iasi Pogrom.
It was widely believed in interwar Romania that Communism was the work of the Jews, and Romania’s coming entry into the war against the Soviet Union—a war billed as a struggle to “annihilate” the forces of “Judeo-Bolshevism”—extensively served to increase the anti-Semitic paranoia of the Iron Guard Regime. Iași, a city with a large Jewish population located close to the Soviet border, was considered a problem by the dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu, as he considered the Jews of Iași as a fifth column which would sabotage the Romanian war effort.
During the pogrom, the Romanian authorities, together with German soldiers, not only murdered thousands of Jewish residents of Iasi but also sought to destroy an entire community that had existed for more than 300 years.
The following are a few eyewitness accounts.
“The corpses looked strange, frozen in the position in which they had fallen, as if welded together in one mass. The smell in the car was horrible; a mixture of blood, corpses and faeces. It took us a great effort to unglue ourselves from the mass of bodies.” —Israel Schreier
“Jews from Romania, we went through hell, and they didn’t recognize it. We were persecuted and wore yellow stars and the hunger that we went through and everything. I don’t know every place, but I know in Iași what we went through.” —Frances Flesche
“So, therefore, they had a lot of help, and nobody couldn’t escape.”
—Issie Veisfeld
“They piled us into the train…we did not know what was going to happen…we thought that they would not want to set the cars ablaze only because they did not want to destroy the locomotive itself… For five days we suffocated in that crowded train. Most of the people died in the car… we slept on dead bodies.” —Lazar Rodin
“My father, elected Chief Rabbi of Iasi at the young age of 27, had looked upon the fires of Hell to burn his people. How could he rehabilitate his own life, let alone the life of his community? How does the leader of a community see their own destruction wrought in such brutal, unspeakable ways and go on? How does he lead? How does he even dream of renewal…?” —Rabbi Dr Eliyahu Safran
The Italian journalist Curzio Malaparte, who witnessed the pogrom first-hand, wrote about how “detachments of soldiers and gendarmes, groups of working men and women, groups of long-haired Gypsies squabbled, shouting with joy, as they undressed the corpses, lifted them and turned them over.”
The Romanian People’s Tribunals were conducted in 1946, and a total of 57 people were tried for the Iași pogroms: eight from the higher military echelons, the prefect of Iași county and the mayor of Iași, four military figures, 21 civilians and 22 gendarmes. One hundred sixty-five witnesses, mostly survivors of the pogrom, were called to the stand.
Amid the brutality, there were also notable exceptions – for example, in the town of Roman, by Viorica Agarici, chairman of the local Red Cross during World War II and one of the 54 Romanian Righteous Among the Nations commemorated by the Israeli people at Yad Vashem. On the night of 2 July 1941, after caring for the Romanian Army wounded coming from the Russian front, she overheard people moaning from a train transporting Jewish survivors of the Iași pogrom. Taking advantage of her position, she asked and received permission to give food and water to those unfortunate passengers. Her actions were strongly condemned by the Roman community, and she had to move to Bucharest. Her story, as part of the story of the pogrom and its consequences, was vividly presented in the book “Pogrom”, written by Eugen Luca. The book was originally published in Romanian, was then translated into both Hebrew and Czech and can be found at Yad Vashem and the Library of the Holocaust.
Soon after her act of rescue, Agarici was discharged from her job at the Roman branch of the Romanian Red Cross. After the war, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania (Federatia Counitatilor Evreesti din Romania) supported Agarici for many years. On January 3, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Viorica Agarici as a Righteous Among the Nations.
The reason why I started with the Wannsee conference is to illustrate that the Romanian government started mass murder before being ordered to do so by Nazi Germany.
Sources
https://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/wansee-transcript.html
https://www.memoiresdeguerre.com/article-conference-de-wannsee-41847574.html
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Ia%C8%99i_pogrom
https://www.yadvashem.org/education/educational-materials/lesson-plans/iasi-pogrom.html
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