Accounts of the Final Solution in Bulgaria and Romania often stress the differences between the two countries, attributing Bulgaria's relatively low victimization rate (18 percent) and Romania's relatively high one (approximately 50 percent) to differing levels of anti-Semitism or local attitudes toward Jews. This article argues that, broken down by region, Bulgaria and Romania were actually quite similar, in that both countries participated in the victimization of Jews in newly acquired territories while protecting those in the “home country.” By investigating the complex negotiations between Nazi Germany and local officials in each of these countries, the author shows that because of their close alliance with Nazi Germany (and not despite this), the governments of Bulgaria and Romania were both able to protect their own Jewish citizens. Both countries essentially traded loyalty in military and economic affairs for concessions, delays, and limitations in the Final Solution. This observation has fascinating moral implications, since it suggests that countries could only protect their own citizens by cooperating with Nazi Germany. It also illustrates that far from being passive subjects of coercion, weak states in imperial relationships can actually bargain to change the terms of their own subjugation. Imperial hegemony is partly a product of negotiation and international contracting, not unmitigated coercion.
See Lucy S. Dawidowicz , The War against the Jews, 1933-1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston , 1975), 403; and Ronnie S. Landau , The Nazi Holocaust (Chicago : Ivan R. Dee, 1994), which both list victimization figures of 50 percent. Israel Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, vol. 4 (New York: Macmillan, 1990) gives a figure of 46 percent; and Asher Cohen, "Pétain, Horthy, Antonescu and the Jews, 1942-1944: Toward a Comparative View," in The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Destruction of the European Jews, vol. 4, The "Final Solution" Outside Germany, ed. Michael R. Marrus (Westport, CT: Meckler, 1989), 63-98, gives the lowest figure, 24 percent, but suggests that this may only include Jews who were killed and thus not include those who survived deportation or expulsion. The figures for Romania vary widely due to disputes about the actual number of Jews killed, definitions of victimization, and disputes about which territories should be included in the calculations. These issues are discussed in greater detail below. Because my primary concern is to measure institutional efficiency in the implementation of the Final Solution, I define victimization rate as the percentage of Jewish people from a given territory who were deported and/or killed. Thus, "victims" include both those persons who survived deportation and those who were killed locally without first being deported.
2.
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil ( New York: Penguin, 1994), 190.
3.
Tzvetan Todorov, The Fragility of Goodness: Why Bulgaria's Jews Survived the Holocaust, trans. Arthur Denner (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2001), 2.
4.
For a sharp analysis on the differing level and character of anti-Semitism in Bulgaria and Romania before the Holocaust, see William I. Brustein and Ryan D. King, "Balkan Anti-Semitism: The Cases of Bulgaria and Romania before the Holocaust," East European Politics and Societies18, no. 3 (2004): 43-54.
5.
"Bulgaria depended on German trade more than any other country in southeastern Europe" (Marshall Lee Miller, Bulgaria during the Second World War [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press , 1975], 6).
6.
Because of her oil reserves, "Romania could stave off German economic hegemony longer than her neighbors could" ( Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two World Wars [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974], 312). Nevertheless, Stavrianos observes that the "Romanian economy, like that of the rest of the Balkans, came increasingly under German control in the late 1930's" ( L.S. Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1953 [New York: Rinehart & Company, 1959], 704).
7.
On Romania, see Rothschild: "[T]hough it put her raw materials at Germany's disposal, . . . economic agreements [between Germany and Romania] were not ipso facto disadvantageous to Romania, as her agricultural surpluses were henceforth absorbed at high prices by Germany and her industrial economy was modernized and rationalized by German capital and expertise" (Rothschild, East Central Europe, 312).
8.
On the importance of military preparedness in the Balkans in the interwar period, see Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans: Twentieth Century, vol. 2 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 242. Marshall Miller(Bulgaria during the Second World War, 13) suggests that trade in arms is as political as it is economic, since buying a country's weapons entails future dependence (e.g., for the replacement of those weapons, etc.).
9.
On the relationship between economic integration and international hierarchy, see Lake (forthcoming), Hierarchy in International Relations: Authority, Sovereignty, and the New Structure of World Politics.
10.
Marilynn Giroux Hitchens, Germany, Russia, and the Balkans: Prelude to the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 7.
11.
Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1953, 704.
12.
See Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 235: "Like Hungary, Bulgaria was a strongly revisionist country. Changes in its frontiers were more likely to be achieved in agreement with Germany than with any alternative available ally."
13.
Rothschild, East Central Europe, 312.
14.
Ibid., 314.
15.
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York : Homes & Meier, 1985), 759; see also Rothschild , East Central Europe, 317.
16.
Norman Rich, Hitler's War Aims: The Establishment of the New World Order, vol. II (New York: Norton , 1974), 258.
17.
Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 1291.
18.
For further comparisons of German hierarchy in Bulgaria and Romania, see Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing ( Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 298: " The Axis allies [had] real though varying freedom of action- Hungary least, then Romania, then Bulgaria." Norman Rich (Hitler's War Aims, 252) elaborates on the fiction of Romanian autonomy, saying that Antonescu cooperated with Germany as the "only means of preserving what was left of Rumania's independence."
19.
The book, mostly a collection of primary documents, is subtitled Why Bulgaria's Jews Survived the Holocaust.
20.
Todorov, Fragility of Goodness , 1-2.
21.
One important difference, to be discussed later, is the fact that grassroots opposition to the persecution in Bulgaria was channeled through existing governmental institutions (by way of demonstrations, lobbying, parliamentary action, and the like). Needless to say, such opposition was only possible where normal government institutions were still in existence.
22.
Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 188. Nissan Oren begins his discussion of "The Bulgarian Exception" by noting that "[t]he deliverance of Bulgarian Jewry from the Holocaust continues to loom large and bright on the dark horizons of the tragic fate of the Jews of Europe." He adds that "[n]ext to the salvation of the Jews of Denmark, Bulgarian Jewry's escape [is] probably the most significant exception of any Jewish group in Nazi occupied Europe" (Nissan Oren, "The Bulgarian Exception: A Reassessment of the Salvation of the Jewish Community," in The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Destruction of the European Jews, vol. 4, The "Final Solution" Outside Germany, ed. Michael R. Marrus [Westport, CT: Meckler, 1989], 393), although his work is ultimately a "reassessment," and Oren deserves credit (as does Frederick Chary) for modifying such "idealization" in the extant literature.
23.
Oren, "Bulgarian Exception ," 401; also see below.
24.
Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem , 185.
25.
In other words, nationalist factions looked to Italy and Germany; liberals, to Great Britain and France; and leftists, to the Soviet Union. Marshall Miller (Bulgaria during the Second World War, 6) observes that the situation was similar to that in Jeffersonian America, where opposing attitudes toward Britain and France found deep resonance in the country's domestic political factions; also see Frederick B. Chary, The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 1940-1944 (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972), 10.
26.
Stephane Groueff , Crown of Thorns (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1987), 251-2.
27.
As we have seen, Bulgaria's geopolitical interests also had an economic basis.
28.
See Miller, Bulgaria during the Second World War, 8: "[T]he United States . . . seemed all but oblivious to the very existence of Bulgaria."
29.
See Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 233: "Bulgarian interests, unlike those of the other Balkan states, were favorably affected by the Nazi-Soviet Pact, since the agreement united the two powers having a primary position in the country." After the pact, communists and pro-Russian elements in Bulgaria "concentrated their major attacks on the Western powers."
30.
Chary (Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 18) explains that Boris's pick of Filov had as much to do with Boris's ability to control the "colorless" professor of art history as with the latter's Germanophilia.
31.
Ibid.
32.
Although it had not yet signed the Tripartite Pact, the Bulgarian government later (December 1940) permitted the entrance of "small numbers of German troops; their presence, however, was publicly denied" (Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 234).
33.
Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1953, 756.
34.
Williamson Murray and Allan R.Millett, A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), 103.
35.
Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 236-7.
36.
As quoted in Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 21 (my italics).
37.
Bulgaria's role in this capacity had already been mentioned in meetings between German General Field Marshal List and representatives of the Bulgarian General Staff on 8 February 1941 (PS-1746, Nuremberg Military Tribunal document. Collected by Paris Story [PS]. Signatures and citations are in accordance with the archives at the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung at the Technische Universität Berlin).
38.
Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 44.
39.
Ibid., 45.
40.
The Jews in Macedonia had already been subjected to Yugoslav anti-Jewish legislation dating back to 1939. To Greek Jews in Thrace, however, the Bulgarian legislation was entirely new.
41.
As quoted in Todorov, Fragility of Goodness, 5-6. Married women were permitted to take their husbands' (non-Jewish) citizenship.
42.
Oren, "Bulgarian Exception ," 400. Oren adds, " Fundamentally, political institutions remained as they had been before the war."
43.
Rich, Hitler's War Aims , 259. Rich adds, " Attached to the German legation were specialists for economic, police, and other matters; but throughout the war the German government endeavored to restrict its military as well as civilian personnel in Bulgaria to a minimum ."
44.
Beckerle succeeded the career diplomat Herbert Freiherr von Richthofen in the spring of 1941 and served until the end of the war.
45.
Hilberg, Destruction, 745.
46.
Todorov, Fragility of Goodness , 4.
47.
Oren, "Bulgarian Exception ," 398.
48.
Deák, " Heroes and Victims," 51; and Oren, "Bulgarian Exception," 398.
49.
Hilberg, Destruction, 744, 748; and World Jewish Congress (WJC), Hitler's Ten-Year War on the Jews (New York: World Jewish Congress, 1943), 112-3.
50.
Oren, "Bulgarian Exception ," 396.
51.
Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 265, 933.
52.
Oren, " Bulgarian Exception," 397; and Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 28-9.
53.
WJC, Hitler's Ten-Year War, 113.
54.
NG-2357, 2 ("NG-" followed by a document number indicates a Nuremberg Military Tribunal document: Nuremberg, Government [NG]. Signatures and citations are in accordance with the archives at the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung at the Technische Universität Berlin).
55.
NG-2357, 2-3.
56.
Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 36.
57.
See Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 266; and Oren, "Bulgarian Exception," 403.
58.
Hilberg (Destruction, 746) argues that the "Bulgarian definition was somewhat milder than the German in its total effect but sharper in some of its provisions."
59.
Hannah Arendt (Eichmann in Jerusalem, 186) observes that the loophole resulted in "an epidemic of conversions."
60.
See Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 186; and Hilberg, Destruction, 747-8.
61.
Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 52.
62.
Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 37. Stephane Groueff (Crown of Thorns, 319) argues that the King "accepted the new legislation as the lesser of two evils, as the only possible way to gain time with the Nazis and prevent the worst." He adds, Queen Giovanna later revealed that the king was "absolutely determined to avert" delivering the Bulgarian Jews into German hands (p. 319).
63.
Oren, "Bulgarian Exception ," 404.
64.
Until September 1942, only Jews in forced labor had been required to wear the Jewish star.
65.
NG-5351, 4 (underlining in original).
66.
Ibid, 2.
67.
Ibid, 6. It is interesting and, in fact, crucial to note that German officials recognized the electricity shortage as a pretext. In my other research, I have argued that German officials were willing to "look the other way" when otherwise cooperative collaborators shirked in their duties regarding the Final Solution. Schellenberg's description of the situation shows that Germany was not entirely "duped" by the Bulgarians but aware of their procrastination and willing to let it proceed. See Ethan J. Hollander, Swords or Shields? Implementing and Subverting the Final Solution in German-Occupied Europe (PhD diss., University of California-San Diego, 2006).
68.
NG-5351, 6 (underlining in original).
69.
Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 50.
70.
Hilberg, Destruction, 751.
71.
Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 71.
72.
Ibid, 75.
73.
See ibid, 72, 76. It should be remembered that as a corporatist state, the Bulgarian government probably already held some Jewish communal assets in public trust.
74.
The Dannecker-Belev Agreement is presented in full in Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, Appendix II, 208-10.
75.
Ibid, 209.
76.
To be exact, Article 1 of the agreement states, "After confirmation by the Council of Ministers, will be prepared 20,000 Jews-without regard to age and sex-for deportation" (made by hand in the original document; see below).
77.
Groueff, Crown of Thorns , 324. Oren ("Bulgarian Exception," 405) says, "Belev knew perfectly well that the total number of Jews in Thrace and Macedonia was only somewhat more than ten thousand." Chary, compiling census data from Greece (1928), Yugoslavia (1931), and Bulgaria (1934 and 1941), indicates that there were about 4,000 Jews in Western (i.e., Bulgarian-occupied) Thrace and 7,400 in Macedonia (and Pirot)-making for a total of 11,400 (see Appendix I in Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 58, 203-7).
78.
Hilberg, Destruction, 754.
79.
Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 77.
80.
Belev instructed his staff to deport "all Jews of Thrace and Macedonia and a definite number of Jews from the old boundaries, in all 20,000 people, by the end of the month of May 1943 at the latest, according to the agreement with Germany." In response, the Komisarstvo za evreiskite vuprosi (KEV) developed a plan calling for the deportation of six thousand Jews from Thrace, eight thousand from Macedonia and Pirot, and six thousand from the old territorial boundaries (see Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 80).
81.
Oren, "Bulgarian Exception ," 406.
82.
The German version is evidently not to be found.
83.
See Natan Grinberg's Dokumenti (as cited in Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 84, 208) and Groueff, Crown of Thorns, 324.
84.
Petur Gabrovski's warrant issued to the KEV (as reprinted in Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, Appendix III, 212; my italics).
85.
Chary (Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 82-4) offers fascinating hypotheses as to the source of the discrepancy but notes that any conclusions must be considered speculative.
86.
German and Bulgarian officials, of course, were quick to attribute such attitudes to Thracian Greeks; however, there is no evidence that local Slavs were any less sympathetic to their Jewish neighbors (Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 101-2).
87.
Ibid, 101-14.
88.
Of the 4,273 Jews living in Thrace, 4,075 were eventually deported, but the number of Jews initially arrested is unavailable. In Macedonia, 7,215 of 7,381 Jews (97.8 percent) were arrested, with 7,160 eventually deported. There were some 200 Jews living in Pirot prior to the operation, 186 of them non-Bulgarians. The 186 Jews arrested, however, included 27 Bulgarian citizens who were later released; in the end, 158 Jews were deported from Pirot. (One person [186- 27 = 159] is not accounted for.) Thus, the deportation rate from Bulgarian-occupied territories was 96.2 percent (11,393 ÷ 11,840); the victimization rate for the area would be at least that, since it would also include the number of Jews who died in captivity before deportation. See Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 101-28, especially 127.
89.
Quoted in Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 86.
90.
In selecting 8,400 Jews, Belev exceeded the 6,000 initially promised from Old Bulgaria. However, since there were only about 11,500 Jews in Macedonia and Thrace (as opposed to the 14,000 that both he and Dannecker discussed), Belev might simply have been hoping to make up for the anticipated shortfall.
91.
The source of the leak was Liliana Panitsa, Belev's personal secretary, who, unbeknownst to Belev, of course, was acquainted with one of the families on the list of deportees.
92.
According to Chary (Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 95), the members of parliament threatened to raise the matter in the Subranie, causing "at least a public scandal and perhaps even a government crisis." Gutman (Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 269) notes that a number of the more nationalist members of parliament threatened the minister with "`personal sanctions' (i.e., assassination) if he did not call off the deportation"; see also Oren, "Bulgarian Exception," 407.
93.
In some places, word of the reversal did not reach local officials until the next day, in which case Jews who had already been arrested and assembled were released.
94.
The entire letter is printed in Todorov, Fragility of Goodness, 78-80. Chary (Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 214-5) provides a complete list of the signatories.
95.
Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 97. The list of signatories also included Aleksandur Tsankov, a member of the right-wing opposition and the darling of Berlin, although Tsankov may have been motivated more by his desire to embarrass the government than by his sympathy for Bulgarian Jews.
96.
Quoted in Todorov, Fragility of Goodness, 86.
97.
Public disapproval of the deportations went far beyond the chamber of the Subranie. Metropolitan Kiril, the Bulgarian Orthodox bishop of Plovdiv, sent a telegram to the king wherein he threatened to lie on railroad tracks to prevent the deportation trains from leaving. A number of prominent writers also lobbied the king and prime minister on behalf of Bulgarian Jews.
98.
István Deák , "Heroes and Victims," The New York Times Review of BooksXLVIII, no. 9 (31 May 2001): 52. Also see Oren, "Bulgarian Exception," 409: "Following the parliamentary upheavals of late March, the government showed clear signs of vacillation"; and Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 269: "[T]he Bulgarian government was beginning to have its doubts [about deportations from Bulgaria proper], under the impact of the tumult in parliament and the mood of the people."
99.
NG-062, 3.
100.
See Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 141. Chary himself does not believe that the king was contacted at the time the deportations were canceled (p. 95).
101.
Sofia's chief rabbi, Asher Hananel, was placed under house arrest (and not taken to Samovit or expelled) because he was a decorated war hero. While in detention, however, Hananel was subjected to a severe scolding by Belev himself, who said, "You should be thankful that you have support, powerful support behind you; if this were not so, I would lock you and your entire spiritual community up this evening and send you to Germany, not Poland" (quoted in Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 151). The commissar's statement is revealing on a number of levels: First, the threat that the Jews would have been sent "to Germany, not Poland" gives us some indication as to how much Belev knew of the Final Solution. More important, however, the statement gives explicit credence to one of the counterfactuals suggested in this project: Were it not for the protection of the Bulgarian leadership (or, in what amounts to the same thing, had the Bulgarian leadership not maintained its position of power), Bulgaria's Jews would have been deported. Also see Hollander, Swords or Shields?
102.
"Although [the] expulsion was the climax of Jewish persecutions," Gutman (Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 269) observes, it "also removed the threat of deportation to the extermination camps." See also Chary (Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 152): "[D]espite the reality of expulsion, the protest by prominent Bulgarians . . . against the government's proposed Jewish measures had forced Boris and Filov to reconsider their policy of deportation"; and Oren ("Bulgarian Exception," 409): "The high mark of actual persecution was reached, but the gravest danger of deportation to the German occupied Eastern Territories had passed."
103.
NG-2357, 3.
104.
See Todorov (Fragility of Goodness, 40): "The [Bulgarian] people were opposed to anti-Semitic measures, but a community is powerless without leaders." See also Chary (Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 197): "It was not primarily through an enraged public or defiant anti-Nazis that the Jews escaped deportation, but first through the action of the government and its supporters. Anti-Nazis, such as Metropolitan Stefan, were instrumental in convincing the government to change its plans, but Peshev took the initial step in reversing deportations, and the government itself had to make the final decision."
105.
In the introduction to his monograph, Chary (Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, xiv) suggests that the Bulgarian deportations constitute "a case study for other areas of Nazi Europe."
106.
In the German case, the debate centers around whether or who or when anyone in Germany's chain of command ordered the Final Solution, as opposed to whether Germany's collaborators conspired to sabotage it.
107.
Chary, Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 199.
108.
Hilberg, Destruction, 759; and Gutman , Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 1291.
109.
Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem , 191; see also Rich, Hitler's War Aims , 257.
110.
Arendt (Eichmann in Jerusalem, 190, 193) calls it "hardly an exaggeration to say that Rumania was the most anti-Semitic country in prewar Europe." She also calls Romania "the most corrupt country in the Balkans." On Romanian versus Bulgarian anti-Semitism, see Brustein and King, "Balkan Anti-Semitism."
111.
Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 1289, 1283; Hilberg , Destruction, 760.
112.
Generally speaking, I have taken to referring to these territories collectively as "Old Romania," which refers to the area under Romanian control immediately preceding the German invasion of the Soviet Union. It should be noted, however, that the word Old begs the question as to whether it refers to the boundaries of Romania before the territorial losses of 1940 or before the territorial gains of 1918.
113.
Julius S. Fisher , Transnistria: The Forgotten Cemetery (New York: South Brunswick, 1969), 24.The Iron Guard had been outlawed, along with other political parties, in 1938, and Carol ordered the execution of its leaders. Carol's treatment of the Iron Guard "incensed Hitler" and might have contributed to Germany's anti-Romanian position in the territorial revisions of 1940.
114.
Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews, 383.
115.
Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 1290-1.
116.
Ibid, 1294.
117.
Stephen Fischer-Galati , "Fascism, Communism, and the Jewish Question in Romania," in Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe 1918-1945 , ed. Bela Vago and George L. Mosse (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1974), 170 (my italics).
118.
Ibid. (my italics).
119.
In fact, even under Carol, German policy makers supported the monarch's restraint on the Jewish Question, which was motivated, in turn, by fears among the Romanian elite that actions against Romanian Jews would endanger the Romanian economy (Fischer-Galati, "Fascism, Communism, and the Jewish Question," 167-9).
120.
Th. Lavi , "The Background to the Rescue of Romanian Jewry during the Period of the Holocaust," in Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe 1918-1945, ed. Bela Vago and George L. Mosse (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1974), 180-6; see also Rich, Hitler's War Aims , 257.
121.
Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 192.
122.
Jean Ancel, "Plans for Deportation of the Rumanian Jews and Their Discontinuation in Light of Documentary Evidence (July-October 1942)," in Yad Vashem Studies, vol. XVI, ed. Aharon Weiss (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1984), 337. This form of direct access is unprecedented for a formally independent country. It means that the Germans were working directly with Romania's commissar for Jewish affairs. In Bulgaria, the Germans tended to work through Minister of the Interior Gabrovski, who, in turn, passed on orders to Belev (who was, in any case, increasingly ignored).
123.
Yeshayahu Jelinek , "The Holocaust and the Internal Policies of the Nazi Satellites in Eastern Europe: A Comparative Study," in The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Destruction of the European Jews, vol. 4, The "Final Solution" Outside Germany, ed. Michael R. Marrus (Westport, CT: Meckler, 1989), 292.
124.
Rich, Hitler's War Aims, 258.
125.
Hilberg, Destruction, 767.
126.
Joseph B. Shechtman , "The Transnistria Reservation," in The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Destruction of the European Jews, vol. 4, The "Final Solution" Outside Germany, ed. Michael R. Marrus (Westport, CT: Meckler, 1989), 375-6. The precise number of Jews in the area is difficult to establish (see n. 141 below). According to several sources, the area had about 300,000 Jews at the start of hostilities (see Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945, trans. Ina Friedman and Haya Galai [New York: Oxford University Press , 1990], 344; Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 1473), but as many as 60 to 70 percent may have escaped during the Soviet withdrawal and the prolonged siege of Odessa. Many thousands must have also been killed by the German and Romanian armies or by Einsatzgruppe D during the initial phase of the occupation (see Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 1473; and Jean Ancel, "The Romanian Way of Solving the `Jewish Problem' in Bessarabia and Bukovina, June-July 1941," in Yad Vashem Studies, vol. XIX, ed. Aharon Weiss [Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1988], 187-232 passim), and thousands more might have been deported by the Soviets themselves in the days before the Axis invasion (Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 262).
127.
Ancel ("The Romanian Way," 207) notes, "`Cleansing the ground' was the Romanian euphemism for the extermination and deportation of the Jews. It both resembled and differed from the Nazi `Final Solution'-being similar in that it meant, in the final analysis, extermination, but different in that it signified the fulfillment of the Romanian anti-Semitic dream within a limited territory: Bessarabia and Bukovina."
128.
Ion Antonescu, as quoted in Ancel, "The Romanian Way," 190
129.
Quoted in ibid., 190.
130.
Ibid, 194. Ancel adds, "[E]very Christian in Bessarabia and Bukovina knew that it was the Jews' destiny to be killed or deported to die" (p. 194).
131.
Ibid, 196-8.
132.
Ibid, 195: "Antonescu was named commander-in-chief of all troops-German as well as Romanian."
133.
Ancel (ibid., 217) observes, "The Romanian and German soldiers did not stop to kill every Jew they encountered. Many of the first troops to arrive did not consider the shooting of Jews as part of their job."
134.
It should be noted that in these areas, which had always remained a part of Romania, Romanian troops operated alone, without the help of their Axis partners.
135.
Hilberg, Destruction, 776.
136.
Ancel, " The Romanian Way," 229.
137.
See Krista Zach , "Rumänien," in Dimension des Völkermords: Die Zahl der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, ed. Wolfgang Benz, (München : Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag), 408-9; Fisher, Transnistria, 135; Hilberg , Destruction, 768; and Rich, Hitler's War Aims, 257.
138.
Hilberg (Destruction, 768) claims that the number of "deportees, evacuees, and refugees" from the Soviet-occupied areas "likely" exceeds 100,000. Gutman's (Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 207-8) figures are somewhat smaller: thirty to forty thousand Jews fled Bessarabia with the retreating Soviet forces, but about twenty-five thousand were captured by the Soviet army and driven back; Gutman adds that "[o]nly a few" Jews escaped Bukovina before the Romanian reconquest; however, the Soviets themselves exiled at least four thousand Jewish leaders and activists to Siberia just before the invasion (p. 262).
139.
Before Transnistria had been handed over to the Romanians, a German unit there attempted to drive twelve to fifteen thousand Jews into Bessarabia, which had just been recovered by Romania. It is not clear if these Jews were Transnistrian natives or if they had first been expelled from Bessarabia by advancing Romanian forces. One German Einsatzgruppe surmised that the Romanians had been "playing a deliberate game of driving Jews back and forth" across the Dniester in hopes of getting rid of the Jews by mere attrition (Hilberg, Destruction, 769; see also Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 208).
140.
The deportation area included Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (both of which had been reconquered from the Soviet Union in June 1941) and also Southern Bukovina (which had remained in Romanian hands throughout the Soviet occupation) and the region of Dorohoi (which had been incorporated into Bukovina in 1938 [Hilberg, Destruction, 771]); Gutman (Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 400) suggests that Dorohoi was only "administratively attached to Bukovina" for the purpose of deportations in November 1941.
141.
Estimates for the number of Jews who remained in the region after the Soviet retreat start at 100,000 to 120,000, although the actual number could have been much higher; for the total number of victims, estimates cited in the literature range from 110,000 to 185,000 (see Shechtman, "Transnistria Reservation," 374-92; Radu Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944, trans. Marc J. Masurovsky, CyberTrans International (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), 177; Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 1473, 1475; Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 344; Fisher, Transnistria, 136, but see also p. 125; and Hilberg, Destruction, 759.
142.
Fisher (Transnistria, 136) says that "[o]f those deported to Transnistria . . . [a] total of 87,757 Rumanian Jews perished, of whom the Germans destroyed 18,800. This means, then, that the Rumanians destroyed 68,957 of their own Jewish countrymen." Elsewhere, he writes, "Within a half year between Oct. 16, 1941 and April, 1942, approximately 132,000 local Jews who had resided between the Prut and Bug were destroyed-92,000 at the hand of the Rumanians . . . , 40,000 by the Germans" (p. 125). (I believe Fisher intended to say "between the Dniester and the Bug"; the region between the Prut and the Bug would include Bessarabia and part of Northern Bukovina [as well as Transnistria] and by Fisher's own account, would thus include far more than 132,000 Jews.)
143.
In fact, Jews in Romania were subjected to the strictest regimen of anti-Jewish legislation in Europe, Germany included (Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 191).
144.
Fischer-Galati, "Fascism, Communism, and the Jewish Question," 168.
145.
See Hilberg, Destruction, 780; and Fischer-Galati, "Fascism, Communism, and the Jewish Question," 168.
146.
Hilberg, Destruction, 780.
147.
Ancel, " Plans for Deportation," 337.
148.
Cohen, " Pétain, Horthy, Antonescu and the Jews," 88.
149.
See Ancel, " Plans for Deportation," 335. Ancel says, "The fact that Richter took great pains to obtain a written pledge from the deputy of the Rumanian `führer,' Ion Antonescu, reveals the delicate and special situation of Eichmann's subordinates in countries like Bulgaria, Rumania and Italy, in which, although they were allied with Germany, the Nazis could not enforce deportations directly, requiring the cooperation of the governments in question. Eichmann said that Richter had been ordered to obtain such a pledge in writing, confirming that [Eichmann] and his men could not carry out deportations in the allied countries without their explicit consent."
150.
Lecca's plan quoted in Ancel, "Plans for Deportation," 349-51.
151.
It should be added that Lecca suggested that his plan applied only to the Jewish population "from Banat and the western frontier areas," presumably Southern Transylvania.
152.
That is to say, the Romanians watered down the German plan to such a degree during its implementation that it ended up looking like the plan they (the Romanians) had originally envisaged.
153.
Ancel, " Plans for Deportation," 341.
154.
One of these was Iuliu Maniu, leader of the National Peasants' Party and an outspoken anti-Semite.
155.
In a "very forcefully worded letter" to Mihai Antonescu via the Swiss embassy in Bucharest, the American government threatened "reprisals" against Romanians living the United States if the Romanian government did not stop deportations that were already under way (quoted in Ancel, "Plans for Deportation," 352). Although the letter clearly arrived too late to affect the hundreds of thousands of Jews who had already been deported from the reacquired territories, it "made a very strong impression on ruling circles in Rumania" (Ancel, "Plans for Deportation," 341; see also Cohen, "Pétain, Horthy, Antonescu and the Jews," 90). Indeed, the force of Hull's letter might have been amplified by Romanian anti-Semitism, which held that Jews were behind the Allied cause in the first place.
156.
Ancel, " Plans for Deportation," 340.
157.
Ibid.
158.
Hilberg (Destruction, 785-6) suggests that Lecca changed his mind regarding deportations after a visit to Berlin, where German officials apparently gave him the cold shoulder.
159.
Antonescu quoted in ibid., 788.
160.
Fischer-Galati, "Fascism, Communism, and the Jewish Question," 171-2; and Cohen, "Pétain, Horthy, Antonescu and the Jews ," 91.
161.
Hilberg, Destruction, 785-6.
162.
See Hilberg, Destruction, 795. Fischer-Galati does not agree with this assessment (see "Fascism, Communism, and the Jewish Question," 170).
163.
Leni Yahil, The Rescue of Danish Jewry: Test of a Democracy, trans. Morris Gradel (Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1969).
164.
Cohen, "Pétain, Horthy, Antonescu and the Jews ," 90; and Ancel, " Plans for Deportation," 340.
165.
Indeed, Romania was the only Axis state where such high officials as a cabinet minister and the mayor of the capital city had to be dismissed for the illegal use of seized Jewish property (Hilberg, Destruction, 759; see also p. 760).
166.
Yehuda Bauer, Jews for Sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945 ( New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994).
167.
Fischer-Galati, "Fascism, Communism, and the Jewish Question," 171.
168.
Hilberg (Destruction, 760) characterizes the Romanian genocidal apparatus as "an unreliable machine." Its action was "unplanned and uneven, sporadic and erratic, [and] was the outcome of an opportunism that was mixed with destructiveness, a lethargy periodically interrupted by outbursts of violence."
