page_title: History of the Jews in Romania
section_title: Antonescu's régime
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Romania / 20th century / The Holocaust / Antonescu's régime
caption_attribution_description: English: Victims of Iași Pogrom Monument, Iași (Iassy), RomaniaRomână: Monumentul Victimelor Pogromului de la Iaşi, Iași, Romania This is a photo of a historic monument in județul Iași, classified with number IS-III-m-B-04301
context_page_description: The history of the Jews in Romania concerns the Jews both of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is present-day Romanian territory. Minimal until the 18th century, the size of the Jewish population increased after around 1850, and more especially after the establishment of Greater Romania in the aftermath of World War I. A diverse community, albeit an overwhelmingly urban one, Jews were a target of religious persecution and racism in Romanian society – from the late-19th century debate over the "Jewish Question" and the Jewish residents' right to citizenship, to the genocide carried out in the lands of Romania as part of the Holocaust. The latter, coupled with successive waves of aliyah, has accounted for a dramatic decrease in the overall size of Romania's present-day Jewish community.
  Jewish communities existed in Romanian territory in the 2nd century AD. During the reign of Peter the Lame the Jews of Moldavia, mainly traders from Poland who were competing with locals, were taxed and ultimately expelled. The authorities decided in 1650 and 1741 that Jews have to wear clothing evidencing their status and ethnicity.
context_section_description: After Romania entered the war at the start of Operation Barbarossa atrocities against the Jews became common, starting with the Iași pogrom - on June 27, 1941, Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu telephoned Col. Constantin Lupu, commander of the Iași garrison, telling him formally to "cleanse Iași of its Jewish population", though plans for the pogrom had been laid even earlier - 13,266 Jews, according to Romanian authorities, were killed in July 1941.
  In July–August 1941, the yellow badge was imposed by local initiatives in several cities (Iași, Bacău, Cernăuți). A similar measure imposed by the national government lasted only five days (between September 3 and September 8, 1941), before being annulled on Antonescu's order. However, on local initiative, the badge was still worn especially in the towns of Moldavia, Bessarabia and Bukovina (Bacău, Iași, Câmpulung, Botoșani, Cernăuți, etc.).
  In 1941, following the advancing Romanian Army during Operation Barbarossa, and, according to Antonescu propaganda, alleged attacks by Jews, who were considered en masse "Communist agents" by the official propaganda, Antonescu ordered the deportation to Transnistria, of all Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina. "Deportation" however was a euphemism, as part of the process involved mass killing of Jews before deporting the rest in the "trains of death" (in reality long exhausting marches on foot) to the East. It is estimated that, in July–September 1941, the number of Jews killed, in Bukovina and Bessarabia, by the Romanian Army and the Romanian Gendarmerie in cooperation with the German Army and the Einsatzgruppen, is more than 45,000 people but probably closer to 60,000. Of those who escaped the initial ethnic cleansing in Bukovina and Bessarabia, only very few managed to survive "trains" and the concentration camps set up in the Transnistria Governorate. In 1941–1942, the total number of deportees from Bessarabia, Bukovina, Dorohoi and the Regat was between 154,449 and 170,737 people.
  Further killings perpetrated by Antonescu's death squads (documents prove his direct orders) in collaboration with the German Einsatzkommando, the SS squads of local Ukrainian Germans (Sonderkommando Russland and Selbstschutz), and the Ukrainian militia targeted the local Jewish population that the Romanian Army managed to round up when occupying Transnistria. Over one hundred thousand of these were killed in massacres staged in such places as Odessa (see Odessa massacre), Bogdanovka, Akmechetka, Pechora in 1941 and 1942.
  Antonescu's government also made plans for mass deportations of the Romanian Jews community from the rest of the country (the Regat and southern Transylvania), numbering 292,149 people (according to a May 1942 census), to Transnistria region, or, in collaboration with the German government, to the Belzec extermination camp, but these had never been carried out.
  The change in policy toward the Jews began in October 1942, and by March–April 1943, Antonescu permanently stopped all deportations despite German pressure, as he began to seek peace with the Allies, although at the same time he levied heavy taxes and forced labor on the remaining Jewish communities. Also, sometimes with the encouragement of Antonescu's regime, thirteen boats left Romania for the British Mandate of Palestine during the war, carrying 13,000 Jews (two of these ships were sunk by the Soviets (see Struma disaster), and the effort was discontinued after German pressure was applied).
  Discussions regarding the repatriation of deported Jews followed, and in January 1943, the leader of the Romanian-Jewish community Wilhelm Filderman began talks with the Romanian government in order to start repatriating Romanian Jews deported to Transnistria. On November 15, 1943, an official report of the Romanian government indicated that 49,927 Romanian Jews were alive in Transnistria (of which 6,425 were originally from the Regat). In December 1943, partial repatriation began, and in March 1944, Antonescu government ordered general repatriation for all Romanian Jews deportees from Transnistri
caption: Victims of Iași Pogrom Monument
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