However, Smochină Sr. found himself ill at ease with the Governorate's military and civilian administration, noting instances where Governor Alexianu and Gendarmerie commander Constantin Vasiliu derided their Bessarabian subordinates. Additionally, Smochină described the 1941 Odessa massacre, ordered by Antonescu in retaliation for a supposed Jewish plot against the Romanian command, as a grave error on the Romanians' part: as he noted, both he and Pântea had been informed that the building supposedly bombed by Jewish activists had in fact been mined by the retreating Soviets. Smochină also claimed that Ion Antonescu saw Hitler's war on the "three occult forces" (Jews, Freemasons and the Catholic Church) as a "great mistake" which could lose Germany the war. In Smochină's account, the "Conducător" had gone on to state: "[Hitler] could have easily lured the Jewry on his side, and after the war he'd have been able to wrestle with it, but not in this destructive manner, that one is not humane."