On June 22, 1941, Romania joined in Germany's surprise attack on the Soviet Union, and retook Bessarabia. The Jews of Chișinău were trapped under a military occupation, and had to move into a Ghetto, delineated in the late days of July. On August 1 the Ghetto Committee was created by the Romanians. It had Landau as its president, with Avraham Șapira and E. Bittman assisting him, and 19 other intellectuals serving as regular members. Landau personally obtained that he be allowed to open a bakery and a hospital (the latter of which was staffed by the Army), and negotiated the conditions of forced labor by the Jewish captives. The situation soon deteriorated, with food becoming scarce and some 15 or 30 people dying each day within the Ghetto. The hospital was also dismantled, with the Army taking back its donations for reasons of "military expediency". By August, Jewish labor squadrons were randomly murdered by the soldiers. In one such incident, Captain Radu Ionescu ordered his machine-gun company to fire into a crowd of Jewish workers.