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The Odessa massacre was the extermination of Jews and suspected communists in Odessa and the surrounding area in Transnistria during October 1941 in a series of reprisals and massacres by Romanian forces. The events refer to the arrests, executions and forced removals of October 22–24, 1941 in which around 500 suspected communists, most of them Jews, were executed by fire squadron and hanging as an organized reprisal and further 20,000 Jews were ordered to leave Odessa, out of whom between 1500 and 3000 were murdered before the order was rescinded and the column turned back.
Before the massacre
Odessa had a large Jewish population of approximately 100,000, or 30% of the total, before the war. By the time that the Romanians had taken the city, between 40,000 and 50,000 Jews remained, the rest having fled or been evacuated by the Soviets.
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, some right away which were carried out without orders which however account for a small number of victims and most during the early hours of the next day after gen. Iacobici, the commander of the IV Army issued a reprisal order according to which communist Jews which were already in custody before the 22nd as known or suspected NKVD collaborators or agents were to be publicly executed. This order lead to the execution of around 500 individuals. Judged from current laws this order is criminal. Judged by the international law of 1941, including the 1907 Hague Convention, the order which applied to individuals in detention under suspicion or having been condemned of being NKVD and Soviet collaborators or partisans, is not illegal when judged for those already condemned and who were awaiting their sentence, which was almost universally death, to be carried out. However the order is a criminal one in regard to those who had not yet been sentenced. Further the unauthorized shooting of civilians during that night, which amounts to a limited number of victims, also represents a war crime.
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. Before the Romanian mayor of Odessa would, under his own responsibility demand and obtain from the military authorities the cancellation of the deportation order between 1500-3000 Jews would allegedly remain in military custody the rest being able to return to Odessa where the local population was already in the process of robbing their houses and properties and which would lead to further minor clashes resulting in deaths in the Jewish community.
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.[1]
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
10,000 Jews from Odessa 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.[2]
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 the fact that massacres did take place are not doubted by historians 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. 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.