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Last-Modified: 1999/05/27


Most of those deported to Transnistria were also
exterminated, so that in this period, until mid-1942,
between 250,000-300,000 Jews lost their lives (pp. 872 and
876 of Dr. Loewenstein's evidence).  On 18 June 1942, the
Romanian Central Office of Statistics estimates that 290,000
Jews remained in Romania (excluding Transnistria) (T/1018).

An agreement was concluded between the Germans and the
Romanians on 30 August 1941 in regard to the administration
of the area between the Dniester and Bug rivers
(Transnistria) and the area between the Bug and the Dnieper
rivers (T/1002).  With regard to the Jews, it is stated:

     "Deportation of Jews from Transnistria: Their
     deportation across the Bug is not possible at the
     moment.  For this reason, they should be concentrated
     in concentration camps and put to work until it is
     possible to move them to the East after the [military]
     operations are completed."

Nonetheless, the Romanians tried to send Jews who were
concentrated in Transnistria across the Bug river into
German-occupied territory.  A letter sent by the Accused's
office, signed by him on 14 April 1941 (T/1013), shows that
the RSHA and the German Ministry for Eastern Occupied
Territories object to this attempt.  In his letter the
Accused says inter alia:

Even if there is agreement in principle to the Romanian
efforts to get rid of the Jews, this seems at this stage
(these words are emphasized in the original) to be
undesirable for the following reasons:"

The Accused goes into security and economic reasons in
detail and continues:

     "Moreover, this disorderly and premature expulsion of
     Romanian Jews to occupied areas in the East seriously
     endangers the evacuation of German Jews, which is
     already in full swing."

In conclusion, he states that if the Romanians continue the
deportations,

     "I reserve the right to bring the Security Police into
     action."

The import of these last words becomes clear from a
handwritten note on document T/1014, that 28,000 Jews had
been exterminated, and on p. 3074 of his Statement T/37 the
Accused says:

     "This is clear.  If these Jews from Romania were
     marched here illegally now...then the appropriate
     authorities of the Eastern Administration made use of
     his (Himmler's) orders and dealt with the matter in
     their own way through their units."
     
     "Q. By exterminating them?
     
     "A. Yes."

The Romanian gendarmerie reports from March to June 1943
(T/1010-1012) should also be mentioned in this connection in
regard to the killing of Jews by the SS police.

Richter, one of the Accused's men, acts against the Jews in
other parts of Romania as an Adviser for Jewish Affairs
attached to Ambassador Killinger.  Two conversations take
place on 12 December 1941 and on 23 January 1942 between him
and Mihai Antonescu, the Romanian Deputy Prime Minister
(T/1004, T/1008).  The introduction of anti-Jewish
legislation and the prohibition of the emigration of Jews
from Romania were the subjects discussed at these talks.

The evacuation of the Jews from Romania is mentioned for the
first time in a letter from the Accused's office, signed by
Mueller, on 26 July 1942 (T/1021).  The evacuation was to
begin on 10 September 1942, and the plan was to deport them
to the Lublin region,

     "where those who are fit will be put to work, while the
     rest is to undergo the special treatment" (T/1023).

In a memorandum by the German Foreign Ministry, dated 17
August 1942, it is stated (T/1027):

     "According to a request made by Marshal Antonescu,
     authority was given by the Deputy Prime Minister, Mihai
     Antonescu, for the evacuation of Jews from Romania to
     be carried out by German units..."

The German Foreign Ministry informs the Accused on 17
September 1942 that the German Embassy contacted the
Romanian Government, expressing the opinion that preparatory
negotiations were over, and demanding that the Romanian
Government state its final attitude (T/1032).  Talks were
held between the RSHA representative and the representative
of the German Railways on 26 and 28 September 1942, in
connection with the transport of 200,000 Jews from Romania
in the direction of Lvov - the final destination was to be
Belzec (T/1284).  A change occurred, however, in October
1942.  A further conversation took place between Mihai
Antonescu and Richter on 22 October, in which it became
clear to Richter that Marshal Antonescu had rejected the
evacuation (T/1039).

The Accused's Section is active during the following months,
with a view to preventing the immigration of Jews from
Romania to Palestine (see, for example, T/1048, dated
3.3.42, signed by the Accused; T/1049, dated 10.3.43, signed
by Guenther; and T/1054, dated 3.5.43, signed by the
Accused).  But Guenther, the Accused's deputy, on 22 May
1943 once again requests the Foreign Ministry to suggest to
the Romanian Government the evacuation of the Jews of
Transnistria to the East (T/1057).  However, Marshal
Antonescu does not yield to German pressure, and there were
no more deportations from Romanian territory.  The Accused,
his Section and his men, and also the German Foreign
Ministry had therefore, of necessity, to limit their future
activities to the prevention of emigration from Romania.
Dr. Safran, the former Chief Rabbi of Romania, in his
declaration (T/1072) describes how the assistance of the
churches, the Red Cross and neutral countries was mobilized,
in order to bring about the change in Marshal Antonescu's
attitude.  This is how about half of Romanian Jewry was
saved from extermination at the hands of the Germans.

Hungary

111. The last act in the tragedy of European Jewry under the
Hitler regime is the catastrophe which befell Hungarian
Jewry.  This chapter calls for a special place in the
totality of events.  This large Jewish community, which
until then lived comparatively intact in the ocean of
destruction which surrounded it, felt the heavy hand of fate
which erased most of its members suddenly from the Book of
Life within a few weeks.  The Hungarian chapter is different
from those which preceded it in other countries, also so far
as the Accused's activities are concerned, as will be
explained presently.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Hungarian Jewry
numbered 480,000 souls, and increased during the war years
to 800,000, due to the annexation of additional areas to
Hungary.  The official policy of the Hungarian Government
was anti-Semitic even before the War broke out, and it
became intensified especially after Hungary entered the War
on the side of Germany in 1941.  Racial legislation on the
Nuremberg pattern was introduced, as well as laws aimed at
ousting Jews from the economic life of the country.  In the
summer of 1941, a mass deportation of stateless Jews from
Hungary to Galicia was carried out, and 12,000 of them were
killed by the Germans at Kamenets-Podolski.  From 1940, male
Jews were mobilized to work for the Hungarian army, and
60,000-80,000 Jews were sent to work in the German-occupied
areas in Galicia and the Ukraine in the years 1941-1942.  Of
these, some 45,000-50,000 died (evidence of Pinhas
Freudiger, Session 51, Vol. III, pp. 932), but in spite of
this, the storm had not yet hit Hungary itself, and this
land appeared to be a haven of safety for the few refugees,
survivors of the Holocaust, who reached Hungary from
Slovakia and Poland.  As the Red Army approached the gates
of Hungary in March 1944 through the Carpathian Mountains,
Hitler decided to establish his domination in Hungary.  He
summoned the Regent, Horthy, and by the use of threats
extorted from him an agreement to replace the Kalai
government, which was inclined to desert the Axis, by
another government which would do the Germans' bidding.
Hungary was seized by the German army on 19 March 1944, and
the SS units appeared on the scene together with the army.
Hungarian sovereignty became a "farce" from that day, as
Horthy said in his evidence at Nuremberg (T/1246), and the
Germans became masters of the state.  The hour had arrived
for which the Germans had waited, to implement the Final
Solution also against the Jews of Hungary.  Veesenmayer,
whom Hitler later appointed Reich Plenipotentiary in
Hungary, writes, as far back as 10 December 1943, in a
report to the German Foreign Ministry:

     "It appears for a variety of reasons that the order of
     the day is to get a firm hold on the Jewish problem
     (ein gruendliches Anpacken).  The liquidation of this
     problem is a prerequisite for involving Hungary in the
     war conducted by the Reich for its defence and
     existence" (T/1144, p. 28).


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