Tag Archives: Romania

Fântâna Albă Massacre—Soviet War Crime

Of all the atrocities Nazis committed prior to and during World War II, one could not forget that the USSR also committed awful crimes. In fact, between 23 August 1939 and 22 June 1941, Germany and the USSR were partners via the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

A German and a Soviet officer shaking hands.

After signing the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in 1939, the USSR occupied Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertza region in 1940. Thus, overnight, approximately three million displaced Romanians found themselves in foreign territory; where their traditions, origins, culture, and religion they practised, were not accepted.

Many arrested Romanians from Bukovina were killed or deported; churches were closed; properties confiscated; and many families began to cross the new border and went to Romania.

In January 1941, the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) issued rumours that people would be allowed to cross the border. As a result of this information, on 1 April 1941, on Easter day, a large group of people from several villages in the Siret Valley headed to the Soviet-Romanian border carrying a white flag and religious insignia (icons, church flags, and crosses).

Approximately 2,000 to 3,000 unarmed civilians walked together towards the new Soviet-Romanian border. The Soviet border guards attempted to turn back the group several times, issuing a final verbal warning and firing shots in the air when the people arrived at Varnystia, near the border.[12] After the convoy pressed on, the border guards began to shoot, reportedly after a few members fired. According to the Soviet official report, casualty figures amounted to 44 people (17 from Pătrăuții de Jos, 12 from Trestiana, five each from Cupca and Suceveni, three from Pătrăuții de Sus, two from Oprișeni), and although the numbers were reportedly higher according to survivor testimonies. Partial listings of victims later identified some of them. Most of them were cut by bullets and thrown into mass graves, some buried alive. The pursued were re-captured, tortured, and then deported. Today, Fântâna Albă (now Stary Vovchynets or Bila Krinicya) location is in the territory of Ukraine.

sources

80th anniversary of the Fântâna Albă Massacre
https://bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com/2021/03/31/what-was-the-fantana-alba-massacre-1941/
75 years since ‘the Romanian Katyn’ massacre at Fântâna Albă – 3,000 Romanians killed
Masacrul de la Fântâna Albă: Preţul pe care l-au plătit românii care au vrut să treacă graniţa în 1941, în ziua de Paşte. ”A fost un genocid”

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My Interview with Charlotte Tomic

Charlotte was born in Paris, a child of two survivors of the Holocaust, my parents did everything they could to provide a good education for their three children. I love my career in public relations, my family and friends and travel. Charlotte enjoys helping to brand individuals, organizations and companies of all sizes. Her expertise is in media relations, public affairs and crisis management.
In the interview we talk about her parents’ experiences, surviving the Holocaust and the impact it had on her . Also we talk about her career in public relations and her work in educating people against anti semitism.

She grew up in Queens New York. Her Mother Hilda Frenkel is a survivor of the camps in Transnistria and turned 102 in June, her survival story is truly amazing..

Transnistria was conquered by the Germans and Romanians in the summer of 1941. Before the war, some 300,000 Jews lived in the region. Tens of thousands were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen D, commanded by Otto Ohlendorf, as well as by German and Romanian soldiers. After the occupation, Transnistria became a concentration point for Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina deported there at the command of Ion Antonescu. The few survivors of the mass murders in Bessarabia and northern Bukovina were mostly deported and concentrated in ghettos and camps in northern and central Transnistria. They were forbidden to travel or choose where to live, and were sent to forced labor.

“The people that died at Transnistria died of disease, malnutrition, and overwork.”-Andre Kessler

source

https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/communities/balti/transnistria.asp

Iași pogrom-Holocaust in Romania

This is a point I have made before, the Holocaust was not perpetrated by Germans alone, there were many more who committed awful crimes. If we only put the blame on the Germans we allow others to get away with it.

During World War II, one of the worst massacres of war took place in Romania. In the country’s second city of Iași. More than 13,000 people, approximately about 10 % of the population, were murdered in the space of a few days, simply because they were Jews. More than 80 years after the Iasi pogrom, most people in Romania know little about these atrocities.

In September 1940, Ion Antonescu rose to power in Romania, and systematic persecution of the Jews began.

On 28 June 1941, Romanian and German soldiers, police, and masses of residents participated in an assault on the Jews of Iasi. Thousands were murdered in their homes and in the streets; additional thousands were arrested and taken to police headquarters. The next day, Romanian soldiers shot thousands of Jews who had been held in the police headquarters yard. The approximately 4,300 survivors of the assault and other Jews who had been rounded up from all parts of Iasi, were loaded onto sealed boxcars and deported. About 2,600 died en route due to thirst and suffocation.

Romania, an ally of the Third Reich, prior to entering the the war, It was commonly but wrongly believed, in 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”- greatly served to increase the anti-Semitic paranoia of the Romanian government.

Prior to the Second World War, the Romanian Jewish community was one of the largest in Europe

Marcel, a Jewish survivor from Iași recounted:

“I remember that the real danger for the Jews started on June 29, 1941. It was a big surprise for all the Jews. We were forced to wear the yellow stars of David on our clothes. We could not buy or sell food anymore. For certain hours, we didn’t have access to some public places. At that time there were cellars where Jews hid. It was difficult for the police to search the cellars. So, in order to make us come to the commissariat, they distributed a sort of ticket with the word “Free” written on it in a Jewish district. The Jews thought that if they showed up at the commissariat they could be set free, could again buy commodities. But it was a trap – instead of receiving freedom, we met death”

A report which was commissioned by, and also accepted by the Romanian government, found that:

“Those participating in the manhunt launched on the night of June 28/29 were, first and foremost, the Iași police, backed by the Bessarabia police and gendarmerie units. Other participants were army soldiers, young people armed by SSI agents, and mobs who robbed and killed, knowing they would not have to account for their actions….In addition to informing on Jews, directing soldiers to Jewish homes and refuges, and even breaking into homes themselves, some Romanian residents of Iaşi also took part in the arrests and humiliation forced upon the convoys of Jews on their way to the Chestura. The perpetrators included neighbors of Jews, known and lesser-known supporters of antisemitic movements, students, poorly-paid, low-level officials, railway workers, craftsmen frustrated by Jewish competition, “white-collar” workers, retirees and military veterans”

At times those who were involved in the crimes, showed some ‘mercy’ by just shooting their victims. An eyewitness later testified:

“Sometimes, those who attempted to defend the Jews were killed with them. This was the case with engineer Naum, a gentile, brother-in-law of Chief Public Prosecutor Casian. Naum, a former Assistant Professor of Medical Chemistry at the Iași Institute of Hygiene, well-known in select circles as an eloquent defender of liberal views, attempted to save a Jew on Pacurari Street, outside the Ferdinand Foundation. The Romanian officer who was about to kill the Jew said to Naum, ‘You dog, die with the kike you are defending!’, and shot him point-blank. The priest Razmerita was shot on Sararie Street while attempting to save several Jews, dying with the victims he was trying to protect. While trying to defend some Jews on Zugravilor Street, outside Rampa, the lathe operator Ioan Gheorghiu was killed by railroad workers”

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 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.

sources

http://yahadmap.org/#village/ia-i-yas-jassy-iassy-iassi-ia-i-romania.687

Click to access chapter_05.pdf

https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/this-month/june/1941-3.html

https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/news-archive/commemorating-80th-anniversary-iasi-pogromhttps://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/revisited/20220325-romania-s-ia%C8%99i-pogrom-one-of-the-worst-massacres-of-jews-during-wwii

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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Moshe Hecht- A cheeky boy

This little cheeky boy is called Moshe Hecht.

I would like to tell you his story. When you Google his name you will see that Moshe Hecht is a singer in a band, the Moshe Hecht band.

However the cheeky boy Moshe Hecht is not that Moshe Hecht.

I would like to tell you that Moshe Hecht grew up to become a successful business man, an award winning entrepeneur. Or that he grew up to become a great surgeon, but he is not that Moshe Hecht. in fact I don’t even know if there is a business man with that name

I perhaps could tell you that Moshe Hecht was a carpenter who fixed the stairs in our house when I was 7 years old, but he is not that man.

However that beautiful cheeky little chap. Moshe Hecht. did not to grow up passed the age of 7. He was murdered in Auschwitz om the 14th of May 1942.

A 7 year old boy who was not allowed to live just because he was Jewish. His life was taken from him, his talents were taken from us, but his smile remains as a reminder to us of his innocence.

I am

eva

I am a child

I am innocent

I am a daughter.

I am a primary school pupil

I am a young girl.

I am a human being

I am human

I am a child with a whole future ahead of herself

I am a potential future painter,decorator,dentist, neurosurgeon,homemaker,artist,musician,dancer,actress, virologist, someone who finds the cure for cancer, a mother, wife,girlfriend, I am all that and more.

I am a product of love

I am someone hated by an evil regime.

I am someone who was murdered ,maybe by someone who had a daughter the same age as me.

I am murdered by someone who maybe goes to church every sunday and prays to the same god tat I believe in ut in a different way.

I am murdered in Auschwitz in a gas chamber as are my parents.

I am Eva Gersch aged 7 or 8, daughter Rudolph Gersch and Elisabeth Grunfeld Gersch.

I am

 

 

 

Then something inside me broke.

Franziska

I have done a few hundred of these blogs now, blogs about children where I tried to bring them back to live a small bit,

But when I saw the picture of Franciska Weisz something inside me broke, I know thst she is just one of 1.5 million children who were brutally murdered. I then realised that I am not able to write all those 1.5 Million + stories, but I want to because they need to be told.

Franciska Weisz was born on August 22,1937 I believe she was born in Secuieni, Romania. She did not get to celebrate a 7th birthday because she was murdered in May 1944 in Auschwitz Birkenau.

August 22, 1937 was a Sunday it was 30,273 days ago. Manfred von Brauchitsch of Germany won the Monaco Grand Prix. There are still people around who were born on August 22,1937. People like Donald Whyte MacLeary for exmple, a retired British ballet dancer, a former principal dancer and a ballet master with the Royal Ballet.

Franciska could have been a Ballet dancer, or a jazz singer. Or she could  have been a dentist, a home maker. a top fashion model. Maybe she could have been a scientist an immunologist perhaps.

But none of that was to be, she was seen as a sub human, vermin that needed to be destroyed. Just sit back and think of that for a moment. Someone looked at that angelic smiley face, those sparkling eyes which radiate a joy of life, there was no hate to be found, yet this person decided Franciska had to die because she did not fit into the ideology of a regime that only knew hate and destruction. She was sent to Auschwitz Birkenau where she was murdered by the Nazi regime. A regime that didn’t even have the originality to create their own symbols, all they had was copied from other regimes from another time, thousands of years ago.

A regime based on lies and deception and false promises, yet people listened and did little to stop it when they finally discovered what the regime was really about. Therefore allowing children like Franciska and 1.5 Million other children to be brutally murdered.

When I thought of that, something inside of me broke. But I will be unbroken and tell as many stories as I can.

There is no place for hate in this world.

ivan

You killing me did not stop your hate. Hate is like a disease, a cancer, it eats on you bit by bit , the more you hate the sicker you get. Hate is like a tumout in your head,it drives you insane. Up to the point that you don’t even realize anymore that killing an 8 months old baby is an act of depravity.

I am Ivan Rozenbaum , born in Romania. I was 8 months young when you killed me in Auschwitz. Your hate died with you but the love for me grew stronger each day.

When people see my face they are equally amused and saddened. Amused because who doesn’t smile when they see the innocence of an infant. Saddened because they cannot comprehend the hate that killed me.

J am Ivan Rozenbaum, for ever remembered as a product of love between 2 people.

Don’t you realize that your birth was a result of an act of love. If there had been no love, there had been no you. Yet you wasted your time and energy with hate.

You should have spent your time learning about me and my people. We did not ask for you to become like us, all we wanted was for you to respect and except us. We will never become special by being the same, it is our differences that makes us special. But your hate stopped you seeing this. Your color was black and white and you missed out on all those colours in between.

Do I feel sorry for you? No! I pity you and the pathetic ideology you followed. An ideology based on hate. If you had only had the epiphany that Love is the strongest weapon you have, yet you never used it.

I am Ivan Rozenbaum and it saddens me that so many decades after my murder, some people still are not able to use that powerful weapon called love.

There is no place for hate in this world. But alas there are those who are so eager to create some space for hate. But hate will never win. It might win a few battles but never the war.

 

Poor,poor Ivan

ivan

I can never understand hate.

I can’t understand hating a human being I don’t know.

I just can’t and I never will.

I understand love

I understand love but can’t describe that warm feeling when you are close to someone you love.

I can understand that feeling when you look at a baby, so pure and innocent, that feeling of wanting to become a better man.

Love is what I understand

Yet so many have no notion about the concept of love. All they see is hate,death and destruction.

It is because their own life is so pathetic and insignificant that the only way they feel they can make a mark is by destroying everything that is pure and innocent.

 

Poor,poor Ivan Rozenbaum you were only 8 months when you were killed in Auschwitz.WHY,WHY,WHY????

Pure innocence

Zuzanna

I have literally seen thousands of graphic Holocaust pictures. At the start they really had an effect on me, physically they made me sick.

However such is the human psyche that after a while you get desensitized by them. They still upset you but not to the same extend as they did before.

But looking into the vivid eyes of pure innocent lives like the eyes of Zsuszanna Kovari have such a profound effect. Those beautiful eyes are so haunting that they leave a lasting mark.

Zsuszanna Kovari  was born 1942 in Szatmarnementi, Romania. She was murdered on May 25, 1944 at Auschwitz-Birkenau, She was only 2.

Two, the same number of words to describe her “Pure Innocence”

Pure, not tainted by the sick ideology that caused her death

Innocence, was  her only ‘crime’.

Regardless on what your policies of hate are. If you kill pure innocence like that, you are not worthy to be called a human being.

It would be relatively easy for me to find out who killed this little angel , but the sick evil individual who did does not deserve my breath nor time.

The focus is remembering a precious gift that was give to this world.

Tonight when I look up in the sky I will scan the firmament for stars and when I see a bright one, I will pretend that star is you. For somewhere up there your star is shining.

The Axis laws

640px-rgbl_i_1935_s_1145

The Nuremberg Laws (German: Nürnberger Gesetze) were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany. They were introduced on 15 September 1935 by the Reichstag at a special meeting convened at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party (NSDAP).

Nürnberg, Reichsparteitag, Grundstein Kongreßhalle

The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households, and the Reich Citizenship Law, which declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were classed as state subjects, without citizenship rights.

However the Nuremberg laws were not the only laws imposed. Most of Germany’s allies had their antisemitic laws.

Italy

corriere_testata_1938

Le Leggi razziali: were a set of laws promulgated by Fascist Italy from 1938 to 1943 to enforce racial discrimination in Italy, directed mainly against the Italian Jews and the native inhabitants of the colonies.

manifesto-razzismo-italiano

The first and most important of the leggi razziali was the Regio Decreto 17 Novembre 1938 Nr. 1728. It restricted civil rights of Jews, banned their books and excluded Jews from public office and higher education. Additional laws stripped Jews of their assets, restricted travel and finally provided for their internship in internal exile, as was done for political prisoners.

The promulgation of the racial laws was preceded by a long press campaign and by publication of the “Manifesto of Race” earlier in 1938, a purportedly-scientific report by fascist scientists and supporters that asserted racial principles, including the superiority of Europeans over other races. The final decision about the law was made during the meeting of the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo, which took place on the night between 6 and 7 October 1938 in Rome, Palazzo Venezia.

gran_consiglio_fascismo

Not all Fascists supported discrimination: while the pro-German, anti-Jewish Roberto Farinacci and Giovanni Preziosi strongly pushed for them, Italo Balbo strongly opposed the laws.The Italian Racial Laws were unpopular with most ordinary Italians; the Jews were a small minority in the country and had integrated deeply into Italian society and culture

After the fall of Benito Mussolini on July 25, 1943, the Badoglio government suppressed the laws. They remained in force in the territories ruled by the Italian Social Republic until the end of the war (and were made more severe).

Bulgaria

Law for Protection of the Nation

the_law_for_protection_of_the_nation_bulgaria

The Law for protection of the nation was a Bulgarian law, effective from 23 January 1941 to 27 November 1944, which directed measures against Jews and others. This law was passed along the example of the Nuremberg Laws.

The law ordered measures for:

  • Changes in the names of Jews
  • Rules about their place of residence
  • Confiscation of their possessions
  • Their exclusion from the public service
  • Prohibition of economic and professional activity

Citizens of Jewish origin were also banned from certain public areas, restricted economically, and marriages between Jews and Bulgarians were prohibited. Jews were forced to pay a one-time tax of 20 percent of their net worth The legislation also established quotas that limited the number of Jews in Bulgarian universities.Jewish leaders protested against the law, and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, some professional organizations, and twenty-one writers also opposed it.

This law suppressed all Freemasonry lodges and all other secret organizations.

The Law for protection of the nation, was passed under direct influence from Nazi Germany, but did not lead to the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews to Nazi extermination camps, except for the Jewish people from former Greek and Yugoslavian territories occupied by Bulgaria.

France

statut_des_juifs_-_page_1

Anti-Jewish laws were enacted by the Vichy France government in 1940 and 1941 affecting metropolitan France and its overseas territories during World War II. These laws were, in fact, decrees of head of state Marshal Philippe Pétain, since Parliament was no longer in office as of 11 July 1940.

philippe_petain_en_civil_autour_de_1930

The motivation for the legislation was spontaneous and was not mandated by Germany. These laws were declared null and void on 9 August 1944 after liberation and on the restoration of republican legality.

The statutes were aimed at depriving Jews of the right to hold public office, designating them as a lower class, and depriving them of citizenship. Jews were subsequently rounded up at Drancy internment camp before being deported for extermination in Nazi concentration camps.

The denaturalization law was enacted on 16 July 1940, barely a month after the announcement of the Vichy regime of Petain. On 22 July 1940, the Deputy Secretary of State Raphaël Alibert created a committee to review 500,000 naturalisations given since 1927.

c-raphael-alibert-1245530592

This resulted in 15,000 people having their French nationality revoked, of whom 40% were Jews. Alibert was the signatory of the Statutes on Jews.

Romania

In August 1940, the Romanian government passed legislation that Jews who converted to Christianity would be regarded as Jews for legal purposes, and barred from marriage with ethnic Christians; by defining Jews not based on religion this was the first step, and a large one at that, to further racial legislation.

Nuncio to Bucharest Andrea Cassulo’s “early efforts on behalf of Jews concerned almost exclusively those who had been baptized Catholic”

download

He passed on to the Vatican in 1939, but did not pursue, a project to emigrate the 150,000 converted Jews of Romania to Spain.From 1940 to 1941, his primary diplomatic responsibility was to protest various pieces of legislation insofar as they infringed on the rights of baptized Jews, particularly with respect to intermarriage and attendance of baptized Jews to Catholic schools, which were protected by the Romanian concordat.

Cassulo made three protests to Ion Antonescu: on November 20, 1940, December 2, 1940, and February 14, 1941.

800px-ion_antonescu

Five days after the last protest, Antonescu informed the nuncio of his signing a decree allowing students of any ethnic origin to attend their own religious schools.

However, “much more worrisome to the Vatican” was a March 18, 1941, decree forbidding the conversion of Jews to Christianity, with severe penalties for Jews attempting to convert and cooperating priests. Again, Cassulo protested that this violated the concordat, but the Romanian government replied that the decree did not because it would only affect the “civil status” of baptized Jews.Bypassing the “blatant racism” of this reply, Maglione’s “sole interest” was that the rights of the concordat be extended to baptized Jews. The Vatican considered the matter settled after a July 21, 1941, note from the minister of foreign affairs granted the enumerated demands of Maglione: “free profession of the Catholic faith, admission to Catholic schools, religious instruction, and spiritual assistance in various areas of society.

Most of the other Axis countries adopted laws based on the Nuremberg laws.

nuremberg_laws

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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