In memory of the victims of the Yassi Pogrom

In the summer of 1941 black was the predominant colour in Yassi. Yellow was the colour of the stars sewn onto the clothing of all Jews.

On July 3, 1941, the Bucharest newspaper published an article by the Dean of Romanian Jewish journalists, Marius Mircu, entitled “Progromul de la Iasi”, announcing the following official government communiqué: “in Yassi, 500 Judeo-Communists were executed. They fired on German and Romanian soldiers from houses.” The newspaper warned that any attempt to repeat these acts of cowardly aggression would be repressed unsparingly, “for every German or Romanian soldier, 50 Judeo-Communists will be executed”.

In Romania, the killing of Jews began in June, 1940 with the retreat of the Romanian army from territories ceded to the Soviet Union. Orders for the extermination policy–-conditions for which had been latent in Romania since late 1920 early 1930–-were received enthusiastically by the military and civil administrators, as well as the infamous fascist Iron Guard.

On June 11 and 12, 1941 the Romanian and German governments signed several accords in Munich and later in Berchtesgaden. Because Romania was easily moved by the wave of events that preceded World War II, not only did it become a most enthusiastic ally of Germany, but Romania was also an unconditional supporter of Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

On the eve of Saturday, June 28, 1941 the chilling cry of air sirens could be heard throughout Yassi. It was a false alarm that had been ordered by those organizing the action. Later the sky was set ablaze by a rocket, a signal to begin the pogrom. The following day, Duminica aceia, “The Sunday That Was”, became known as the bloodiest day in the history of Romanian Jewry. On false pretext, the Yassi Jews were forcibly gathered and brought to police headquarters where they were fired upon randomly. Within twenty-four hours a proud, creative and culturally rich Jewish Community–-the cradle of Abraham Goldfarb’s Yiddish Theatre—was destroyed. Of the 35,000 Jews who lived in Yassi, an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 were brutally murdered or maimed. An additional 2,421 Jews were crammed into two death trains, the inferno of which continues to this day to singe the souls of the few who managed to survive.

The army, the gendarmerie and the Iron Guard fired, without mercy, on an amorphous mass of people who died on their knees like cattle. Some died from gunshots or beatings; others were smothered by the corpses that covered them. Their shrieks and wails went unheard by the souls of those who perpetrated the crime, those who ordered it and those who watched idly and impassively, as if at some spectacle. “By the number of its victims, by the bestiality of the means used to torture and kill, by the vast scope of the pillaging and destruction, by the participation of the agents of the public authorities to whom the life and property of the citizens were entrusted,” writes Matatias Carp in Cartea Neagra, The Black Book, “the pogrom of Yassi marked at the local level the crowning of an accursed, injurious effort which violated the Romanian conscience for a period of three-quarters of a century, and it opens at the worldwide level the most tragic chapter in history. It became the signal, not only to the Romanian Antonescu’s government, but also to all fascist Europe, for massacres which during the following years were to kill six million Jewish people”.

Curzio Malaparte, an Italian journalist in Yassi and correspondent for the Corriere de la Serra at the time, reported that “there were groups of Jews in the street followed by soldiers and inhabitants of the city armed with sticks and iron bars, groups of gendarmes were firing weapons into the doors and windows of Jewish homes”. As Malaporte witnessed; “Packs of dogs ran up to the cadavers of Jews guarded by gendarmes, and soldiers armed with guns were watching over them seeking to separate the corpses and put them at the edge of the street”.

The government’s policy regarding the Jews was clearly stated at a session of the cabinet, as noted in I.C. Butnarw’s “The Silent Holocaust: Ion Antonescu, Romanian: Fuhrer; “It makes no difference to me that we’ll go down in history as barbarians. The Roman Empire performed a series of acts of barbarism according to our present standards, and nevertheless it was considered the most magnificent political establishment. There has not existed a more favourable moment in our history. If it is needed, shoot all of them with machine guns” (emphasis added).

Such are the terrible recollections of the infamous “Sunday That Was”. The Yassi pogrom, which began in Bucharest on January 21, 1941, followed the earlier Durohoi pogrom of 1940. Zakor! Remember!

On December 6, 2006 the Romanian Jewish newspaper, Realitatea Evreiasca published a letter addressed to Romania’s president Traien Basescu, by University Professor, Ion Coja. The following are the “pearls of wisdom” from Coja’s letter: “In Romania there was no Holocaust. Who knows, maybe we will make a Holocaust some time. And we will make it properly”. Holocaust denial is punishable under Romanian law, but no action has been taken by the Romanian government against Professor Coja, notorious antisemite. Today in “democratic” Romania, antisemitism is alive and well, and threatens the country’s remaining 8,000 – 9,000 elderly Jews.