46°27′58″N 30°43′59″E / 46.466°N 30.733°E / 46.466; 30.733

The Odessa massacre was the extermination of Jews in Odessa and surrounding towns in Transnistria during the autumn of 1941 and the winter of 1942 in a series of massacres and killings during the Holocaust by Romanian forces, under German control, encouragement and instruction. Depending on the definition, it can either refer to the events of October 22–24, 1941 in which between 25,000 and 34,000 Jews were shot or burned alive, or to the murder of well over 100,000 Ukrainian Jews in the town and the areas between Dniestr and Bug rivers, over the course of the Romanian and German occupation.

Before the massacre

Odessa had a large Jewish population of approximately 180,000, or 30% of the total, before the war. By the time that the Romanians had taken the city, between 80,000 and 90,000 Jews remained, the rest having fled or been evacuated by the Soviets. As the massacres occurred, Jews from surrounding villages would be concentrated in Odessa and Romanian concentration camps set up in surrounding areas.

On October 16, the Germans and the Romanians captured Odessa following a two-month siege. On October 22, a delayed bomb set by the Soviets detonated in the Romanian HQ, killing 67 people including General Glogojeanu, the Romanian commander, 16 other Romanian officers, and 4 German naval officers.

Massacres of October 22–24

Blaming the Jews and communists for the bomb, the Romanian troops began reprisals that same evening. By noon of the following day, October 23, 5,000 civilians had been seized and shot, most of them Jews.

On the morning of October 23, over 19,000 Jews were assembled into a square near the port, sprayed with gasoline, and burnt alive.

That same afternoon, over 20,000 Jews were led out of the city in a long column in the direction of the village of Dalnik. When they reached Dalnik, they were tied together in groups of 40-50 people, thrown into an anti-tank ditch and shot. When the Romanians grew concerned that the killings would take too long, they moved the rest of the Jews into four large warehouses in which they made holes for machine guns. The doors were closed and the soldiers fired into the buildings. In order to make sure that all those inside the buildings were killed, at 17:00 hours on the following day, October 24, they set fire to three of the buildings, which were filled mainly with women and children. Those who tried to escape through windows or holes in the roofs were shot or met with hand grenades. On October 25, the fourth building, which was filled with men was shelled. These massacres were carried out under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Nicolae Deleanu and Lieutenant-Colonel C.D. Nicolescu. German soldiers also took part in the shooting.^[1]

Around 35,000 – 40,000 of the Jews that remained were moved into the ghetto in the suburb of Slobodka where most of the buildings were destroyed, and left outdoors for ten days, between October 25 and November 3, and many Jews froze to death.^[2][3]

The fate of the Jews which were reportedly kept under military authority near Dalnik remains disputed. According to the testimony of Alexe Neacsu, a Romanian officer who claims to have witnessed the events, and is subsequently the only one who ever claimed to have done so, the Jews were killed by being shot either in anti-tank ditches or in 4 warehouses which were then burned to make sure no victims would survive. However the events remain largely disputed, the testimony of Alexe Neacsu is legally null and void, the Tribunal which judged based on it was composed of 2 magistrates and 7 communist appointees etc. Any moral and legal evidence that this witness provided has been tarnished by the Stalinist regime that recorded and used it.^[4]

There is no doubt however that a large number of Jews, over 1000, were unaccounted for after the column was returned to Odessa and it is safe to presume that these were murdered by Romanian Police and military units acting without orders but who's behavior was never punished by the legal authorities thus making these at least moral accomplices.

There is also no doubt that besides the ordered executions of around 500 convicted or suspected communist collaborators, most of whom were Jews, many others were summary shot by Romanian and German units in Odessa following the terrorist attack on the HQ of the Romanian 10th Division.

Following these events around 35,000 – 40,000 of the Jews that remained were moved into the ghetto in the suburb of Slobodka where most of the buildings had been destroyed either during the siege of Odessa or during the withdraw of Soviet troops, and left outdoors for ten days, between October 25 and November 3, and many Jews froze to death.

Further massacres of the Jews of Odessa

On October 28, a new massacre was started when 4,000-5,000 Jews were herded into stables and shot. By the end of December, an additional 50,000 Jews from the concentration camp at Bogdanovka had been killed. A further 10,000 Jews were taken on a death march to three concentration camps near Golta: Bogdanovka, Domanovka and Acmecetca. Those who survived the journey were murdered two months later, along with tens of thousands of other Jews who had been brought to these camps from northern Transnistria and Bessarabia.^[5]

In January 1942, the extermination ended with the killing of those who remained in Slobodka. From January 12–23, the last 19,582 Jews were transported in cattle wagons to Berezovka from where they were transported to the concentration camps in Golta. Within eighteen months almost all of them were dead.

Defining the Odessa Holocaust

Although these facts are not doubted by historians^[6] vs.;^[7] some accounts differ (often greatly) in the numbers, partially due to different definitions of what constituted the Odessa massacres, as opposed to other acts of genocide in Transnistria carried out by the Romanians, Germans, and their allies.

The official report on the Romanian role in the Holocaust states that in the city of Odessa from October 18, 1941 until mid-March 1942, the Romanian military, aided by local authorities, murdered up to 25,000 Jews and deported over 35,000, most of whom were later killed. The report also details 50,000 Jews killed in Bogdanovka, and tens of thousands more in Golta and the surrounding areas. The Jewish Virtual Library cites figures of 34,000 Jews murdered during October 22–25, and the US Holocaust Museum concludes that "Romanian and German forces killed almost 100,000 Jews in Odessa during the occupation of the city." In other sources the number of people killed in Transnistria was 115,000 Jews and 15,000 Gypsies.^[8]

Another grave point of contentions especially when dealing with Romanian historians is the Soviet propaganda which covered the facts after the war. One famous example, which is often the basis for other allegations, is the second variant of the prosecutors documents which should have been filed against Ion Antonescu during the trial by the People's Tribunal. The prosecutors, which were Soviet sponsored and cannot be in any way suspected of partisanship with the accused, had two variants one citing 5000 Jews killed in Odessa and surrounding areas between the 22-24 October 1941 and the other citing 20,000 victims. Both documents described in various manners how the killings were carried out. Some of the most cited and at the same time most fantasist refer to the victims being burned alive on the docks of the city after gasoline had been pored on them, others cited the 20,000 victims being all placed in a square and shot with machine-guns, the most fanciful of the allegations cited all 20,000 victims being flocked into 4 barns all at the same time and then shot and burned alive. When the defense pointed out that the barns, who had known dimensions could at best accommodate 1700 individuals if 3 were to occupy a square meter, the prosecutors then dropped the 20,000 number and alleged 5,000 victims.

Despite the mockery that the victorious Soviet authorities made of any real chance to establish the truth right after the war the fact that innocent civilians were massacred remains undisputed. For the Odessa massacres they mean the between 1,500-3,000 which remained unaccounted for from the deportees, the few that were killed by troops right after the bombing of the 22nd and those who died due to neglect after they returned in Odessa. From the 500 communists executed following orders most were Jews but only those who hadn't been yet judged may be classified as innocent victims.

The events of October 1941, no matter how big, if we are to quote the Soviet documents, or small, if we are to judged from official Romanian documents and testimonies, the loss of life was, remain a part of the Holocaust and a deep stain and wound in Romanian civilian and military history.

See also

• Bogdanovka
• Ion Antonescu

References

External links

• "Report on the role of Romania in the Holocaust" (PDF). www.ushmm.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-04-09. Retrieved 2006-07-30. (PDF)
• "The US Holocaust Museum on the Odessa Massacres". www.ushmm.org. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• Weinberg, Robert (1992). "The Pogrom of 1905 in Odessa: A Case Study excerpts". Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History: 248–89. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)