Deportation

Abstract

In continuance of the policy of ‘cleansing the terrain’, Romanian gendarmes drove columns of Jews on foot from Bukovina and Bessarabia towards the north of the latter province and over the Dniester into what was at the time German-controlled territory. The mass character of the deportation — children, women, the aged and infirm included — shows clearly that Antonescu’s intention was to ethnically cleanse the two provinces of Jews. Those that had the opportunity took with them clothes, food, money and jewellery. The Germans were unwilling to accept large numbers of Jews and sent them back.¹ On 31 July, General Eugen von Schobert, commander of the German 11^th Army, informed the Romanian general staff that the ‘movement of large masses of Jews in the army rear can pose a serious threat to troop supply and is thus intolerable’. He gave a warning that any further ‘deportation of Jews or Russians eastward over the Dniester’ would be prevented by German troops.² The threat was ignored. Romanian gendarmes began to drive the Jews across the river further north. In some cases Romanian army engineers erected pontoon bridges, which were immediately dismantled after the expulsion of the Jews.³ Romanian gendarmes in Soroca, in northern Bessarabia, reported that on 5 August the Germans had sent 3,000 Jews back across the Dniester to Atachi ‘from the 12,000 that had been sent across the Dniester’ by the Romanians at Moghilev (Mohyliv Podil’s’kyi).⁴