Odessa massacre (1941)
The Odessa massacre (Ukrainian: Голокост в Одесі; Romanian: Masacrul de la Odesa) was a massacre of Jews in Odessa, Ukraine between October 22 and 24 1941.[1] 30,000–100,000 Jews are estimated to have been killed within two weeks by the occupation forces of Romania, then-allied with Nazi Germany under the rule of Ion Antonescu.[2] The massacre was part of the Holocaust.[3]
Background
[change | change source]History of Jews in Romania
[change | change source]Classical antiquity
[change | change source]Jews have been living in Romania since the Roman times, mainly along the Black Sea coast, when Romania belonged to the Roman province of Dacia.[4]
Middle Ages
[change | change source]More Jews moved to Romania in the 14th century when the Kingdom of Hungary expelled Jews, many of whom became merchants running the trade route between the Ottoman Empire and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[5]
Early modern period
[change | change source]Later Jewish immigration due to expulsion from Spain and Moldova scattered Jews across Romania, who survived there until the 20th century despite centuries of pogroms, while facilitating Romania's industrialization.[5]
Interwar period
[change | change source]Romania's WWI victory as one of the Entente powers expanded her territory and Jewish population, when some Jews previously under Russian and Austro-Hungarian rule became Romanians, but antisemitism worsened in Romania.[5][6] Adolf Hitler's takeover of Germany in 1933 catalyzed fascism in Europe to which Romania was not immune. Laws were passed in the Romanian parliament to restrict Jews from every part of society, while Jewish members no longer existed in the parliament.[5] Right before WWII, over 43,500 Jews lived and 146 synagogues existed in Iași. As of August 2024, only 326 Jews and two synagogues remained, a 99.3% drop in Iași's Jews in comparison.[7]
World War II
[change | change source]During WWII, after occupying much of Western Europe and the Balkans, Nazi Germany and some of her Axis allies[8][9] launched the Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941 to invade the Soviet Union as part of Hitler's plan to colonize Eastern Europe. They made initial success by capturing most of Ukraine, Belarus and knocking on the gates of Moscow within four months.[9]
On 16 October 1941, Romanian forces took over Odessa, when 70,000–120,000 Jews were trapped in the city, some of whom were Jewish refugees from Bessarabia.[10] The massacre was preceded by escalating violence towards Jews by the antisemitic[11] Romanian troops.[1][3] On 22 October 1941, the Romanian military headquarters in Odessa was blown up mysteriously. Jews were blamed together with communists[11] by Antonescu, who ordered the massacre.[1][3]

Massacre
[change | change source]Within two days, at least 5,000 Jews had been hanged, while another few thousand were deported to the nearby village of Dalnyk. The victims were confined to barns, sheds and warehouses, which were later sprayed with machine gunfire and set ablaze. Jews who tried to escape met their fate immediately, while some buildings with Jews were blown up by Romanian troops, causing thousands to perish instantly. Thousands more were slain in mass shootings, some of whom were also burned alive in artillery warehouses.[1][3]
Around 25,000 Jews who had not been killed were deported to a ghetto in Odessa's neighborhood Slobidka, where they endured cold and hunger for the remainder of the war. Holocaust experts estimated the death toll at Dalnyk alone was at least 20,000.[1][3]
Death march
[change | change source]By the end of October 1941, 25,000–30,000 Jewish deportees were forced on a death march to the Bogdanovka concentration camp, where the deportees were crowded in pigsties. Almost all of them were also slain in subsequent mass shootings or burned alive[12][13] by the end of January 1942, when the Soviets pushed back the Axis invaders from the outskirts of Moscow. Meanwhile, Romanian forces burned the Jewish corpses to destroy evidence of the genocidal massacre. By autumn 1942, over 90% of pre-war Odessa's Jews had already perished.[1][3]
Nazi German involvement
[change | change source]Despite Romanian forces having carried out most of the atrocities in Odessa, they were backed up by the Nazi German SS Einsatzgruppe D, who shot some Jews from the Fontans'ka Street prison and were hunting down Jews until November 1941, whose inflicted death toll numbered in thousands.[10] It is recorded that ethnic Germans in Odessa formed the militias Selbstschutze to facilitate the Holocaust in the area.[1][3]
Aftermath
[change | change source]
Survivors
[change | change source]Around 1,000 Karaite Jews survived the war as Hitler designated them as "Turks" and spared them from death. A handful of other Jews, who were either forced laborers or hiding under false identities, also survived. Vera Bakhmutskaia, an Odessan Jew who survived the war by hiding in the house of a gentile friend, said,
There were very few of us left [. ...] If they [locals] knew [of me being Jewish], they would have denounced me immediately.
The Soviets retook Odessa on 10 April 1944 and conducted a census within two months, finding that Jews in Odessa had fallen from the pre-war level of 200,000 to 2,640, a 98.7% drop.[1][15]
Trial
[change | change source]Together with Ion Antonescu, other instigators including Gheorghe Alexianu,[17] were sentenced to death in 1946.[1][18]
Gentiles who saved Jews
[change | change source]Dozens of gentiles in Odessa who saved Jews have been recognized by the Yad Vashem as the Righteous Among the Nations.[19]
Denial
[change | change source]Communist age (1947 – 1989)
[change | change source]
Under Nicolae Ceaușescu's communist rule,[20][21] Romania's role in the Holocaust was officially denied. It was blamed entirely on the German and Hungarian fascists.[22] Romanians were taught about the "heroic anti-fascist resistance", emphasizing the anti-Nazi battles following Romania's defection to the Allies. Many former subordinates of Ion Antonescu served in the secret police of Nicolae Ceaușescu[22] and to help him oppress Romanians.[20][21]
Meanwhile, Nicolae Ceaușescu reportedly believed lies about Jews, including The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and defined Jew as a "money-changer" and an "extortionist" in an official English–Romanian dictionary.[23]
Post-communist age (1989 – )
[change | change source]Since the fall of Ceaușescu's communist regime,[20][21] a systematic effort to whitewash the war criminals, especially Ion Antonescu, has been observed by scholars. Antonescu is praised by some so-called historians as a hero who waged a "holy war against Bolshevism."[22]
Acts of Holocaust denial[24] by politicians occurred from time to time, notable of whom include Ion Iliescu, the former President of Romania (2000 – 2004). He made similar claims to those of Ceaușescu that there was "no Holocaust within Romania" and that the Poles, Jews and communists "were treated equally", while denying the Romanian role in the Holocaust and the verified Romanian Jewish death toll.[22]
Countermeasures
[change | change source]An international inquiry, led by Romanian-American Jewish writer Elie Wiesel, identified all the evidence of Romania's role in the Holocaust. The Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania (Romanian: Institutul Național pentru Studierea Holocaustului din România „Elie Wiesel”, INSHR), a state-funded Holocaust research center, was also founded in 2005.[25]
In November 2021, the Romanian parliament passed a law, by a large majority, to require the teaching of the Holocaust and Jewish history from 2023. The only group opposing it was the nationalist party Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). The AUR was condemned by the INSHR.[26] Since September 2023, the Holocaust and Jewish history have become part of the high school curriculum in Romania.[27][28]
Related pages
[change | change source]- Babi Yar
- Iași pogrom
- Kristallnacht
- Secondary antisemitism
- Jedwabne pogrom (1941)
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
- Catholic Church and the Independent State of Croatia
References
[change | change source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 "The Holocaust in Odesa". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 /ˌæntəˈnɛskuː/
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6
- International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. Final Report. President of the commission: Elie Wiesel. Edited by Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, and Mihail E. Ionescu. Iași: Polirom, 2004.
- Ioanid, Radu. The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Roma under the Antonescu Regime, 1940–1944. Second edition. Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022.
- Kruglov, Aleksander, and Kiril Feferman. “Bloody Snow: The Mass Slaughter of Odessa Jews in Berezovka Uezd in the First Half of 1941.” Yad Vashem Studies 47, no. 2 (2019): 15.
- Solonari, Vladimir. A Satellite Empire: Romanian Rule in Southwestern Ukraine, 1941–1944. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019.
- Zipperstein, Steven J. The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History, 1794–1881. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.
- ↑
- Yavetz, Zvi (1998). "Latin Authors on Jews and Dacians". Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte. Franz Steiner Verlag: 77–107. JSTOR stable/4436494. Retrieved November 5, 2024.
- Costachie, Silviu (2010). "The Age of the Jewish Population in Romania. First Archaeological Testimonies" (PDF). Universität Potsdam. Retrieved November 5, 2024.
- Volovici, Leon. "Romania (Translated from Romanian by Anca Mircea)". The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "Community in Romania". World Jewish Congress. 2023. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
- ↑ Laqueur, Walter (July 30, 2009). "Towards the Holocaust". The Changing Face of Antisemitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 9780195341218. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- ↑ Coakley, Amanda (August 1, 2024). "In Romania, Students See Parallels Between Today and the Pre-Holocaust Era". New Line Magazine. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- ↑ Italy, Hungary, Finland and Slovakia.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 John Graham Royde-Smith (September 16, 2024). "Operation Barbarossa". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Murder of the Jews of Romania". Yad Vashem. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
Romania [...] had a Jewish population of about 757,000 before World War II. [...] In total, 380,000 – 400,000 Jews [...] were murdered in Romanian-controlled areas under the dictatorship of Antonescu.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Working Definition Of Antisemitism". World Jewish Congress. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism :- Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
- Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
- Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
- Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
- Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
- Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
- Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
- Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
- Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
- Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
- ↑
- "80 years since forgotten Bogdanovka massacre". The Times of Israel. January 1, 2022. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
- Hillen, Aiko (November 10, 2022). ""Taken to German Villages and Liquidated." The "Selbstschutz" Organization and the Bogdanovka Massacre in 1941". Eastern European Holocaust Studies. 1 (2): 551–587. doi:10.1515/eehs-2022-0007. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
- "The Holocaust's forgotten massacre". The Jewish Chronicle. January 26, 2023. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
- ↑
- Ancel, J. 2003. Transnistria. 1941–1942. The Romanian Mass Murder Campaigns. Tel-Aviv: Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center.
- Achim, V. 2009. “Die Deportation der Juden nach Transnistrien im Kontext der Bevölkerungspolitik der Antonescu-Regierung.” In Holocaust an der Peripherie. Judenpolitik und Judenmord in Rumänien und Transnistrien 1940 – 1944, edited by W. Benz, and B. Mihok, 151–61. Berlin: Metropol.
- Desbois, P. 2018. Broad Daylight. The Secret Procedures behind the Holocaust by Bullets. La Vergne: Arcade Publishing.
- ↑ Ukrainian description: Голокост у Подільському районі, Одеська область, Україна.
- ↑ "Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act Report: Romania". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
- ↑ Inscription:
לזכור למען העתיד! ממקום זה התחילה דרך המוות של עשרות אלפי יהודי אודסה אשר גורשו וחוסלו ע"י הנאצים בחדש דצמבר 1941 במחנה השמדה "בוגדנובקה"
במחוז ניקולאיב. אוקראינה
[Remember for the future! From here began the path of death of tens of thousands of Odessa Jews who were deported and exterminated by the Nazis in December 1941 in the Bogdanovka extermination camp in Nikolaev Oblast. Ukraine]
Помнить во имя будущего! С этого места началась дорога смерти для десятков тысяч евреев г.Одессы угнанных и уничтоженных нацистами в декабре 1941 г. на территории лагеря "Богдановка" в Николаевской области. - ↑ Former Romanian fascist governor of Transnistria.
- ↑ "March of Time – outtakes – Russian, Polish, Yugoslav governments; War Crimes Trial: Romanian war criminals". Grinberg Archives. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
- ↑
- "Names and Numbers of Righteous Among the Nations - per Country and Ethnic Origin, as of January 1, 2022". Yad Vashem. January 1, 2022. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- "Righteous Among the Nations". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
- "Number of the Righteous Among the Nations from each country or ethnic background honored between 1963 and 2022". Statista. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- ""Righteous Among the Nations": History & Overview". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- "Righteous Among the Nations". Holocaust Centre of New Zealand. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3
- "ROMANIA: DEATH OF A DICTATOR : Ceausescu – Tyrant Who Posed as a Statesman : Dictatorship: The executed leader will be remembered as a ruler who believed he could stay the same while all around him changed". Los Angeles Times. December 26, 1989. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- Sweeney, John (1991). Life And Evil Times Of Ceausescu. Hutchison. ISBN 9780091746728. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- "Executing a dictator: Open wounds of Romania's Christmas revolution". BBC. December 25, 2019. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- "'Shameful but necessary': How the Romanian rulers who starved their people met their end". The Independent. December 25, 2019. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- "The Rise and Fall of Nicolae Ceausescu, "the Romanian Fuehrer"". Cato Institute. December 31, 2019. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3
- Pacepa, Ion Mihai (1990). Red Horizons: The True Story of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescus' Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption. Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89526-746-7. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- Deletant, Dennis (1994). "The Securitate and the police state in Romania, 1964–89". Intelligence and National Security. 9: 22–49. doi:10.1080/02684529408432238. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- "Inside the Securitate Archives". Wilson Center. March 4, 2005. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- "Ikea funds went to Romanian secret police in communist era". The Guardian. July 4, 2014. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- "Keys, Mikes, Spies – How the Securitate Stole Romania's Privacy". Balkan Insight. December 25, 2019. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 Weinbaum, Laurence (June 1, 2006). "The Banality of History and Memory: Romanian Society and the Holocaust". Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA) (45). Israel Council of Foreign Relations. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
- ↑ Mack, Eitay (December 3, 2019). "Israel embraced Romanian dictator's support — knowing he was anti-Semitic". +972 Magazine. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- ↑ "Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion". International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Retrieved October 17, 2024. Distortion of the Holocaust refers, inter alia, to:
- Intentional efforts to excuse or minimize the the Holocaust or its principal elements, including collaborators and allies of Nazi Germany
- Gross minimization of the number of the victims of the Holocaust in contradiction to reliable sources
- Attempts to blame the Jews for causing their own genocide
- Statements that cast the Holocaust as a positive historical event. Those statements are not Holocaust denial but are closely connected to it as a radical form of antisemitism. They may suggest that the Holocaust did not go far enough in accomplishing its goal of "the Final Solution of the Jewish Question"
- Attempts to blur the responsibility for the establishment of concentration and death camps devised and operated by Nazi Germany by putting blame on other nations or ethnic groups
- ↑ "INSHR – Institutul Național pentru Studierea Holocaustului din România "Elie Wiesel"". Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- ↑ "Romanian Nationalist Party Opposes Holocaust Education in Schools". Balkan Insight. January 4, 2022. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- ↑ "Romania marks decision to teach Jewish history, Holocaust in schools". Reuters. October 3, 2023. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
- ↑ Coakley, Amanda (August 1, 2024). "In Romania, Students See Parallels Between Today and the Pre-Holocaust Era". New Line Magazine. Retrieved November 3, 2024.