Report of the "Soviet Extraordinary Commission" for Czernowitz

Chernovtsy regional commission for assistance
in damage accounting and investigation of atrocities
committed by fascist occupiers on
the territory of the Chernovtsy region

City of Chernovtsy

TRANSACTIONS
of the city commission on damage accounting,
summarized information and conclusions
by senior investigator of the Chernovtsy regional
Prosecutor's office on identifying the atrocities
committed by German-fascist
occupiers and their collaborators against
citizens of the USSR. Lists of Soviet
citizens killed and tortured,
exiled, repatriated to Chernovtsy,
and those guilty of the atrocities.
Started: July 27, 1945
Completed: July 31, 1945

238 leafs [written in pencil]

Fonds Number R-653
List Number 1
Item Number 103

[Translation by courtesy of Prof. Iosif Vaisman] 

USHMM: "Reel 21: [...] Fond 653. Opis 1 #103. Soviet Extraordinary Commission. July 1945. Trajan Popovici, Mayor of Cernauti personally commands executions. Killings, torture, etc. List of citizens repatriated to Cernauti. List of those killed by occupiers with indication of ethnicity (almost exclusively Jews.) Letters from Jews from Transnistria to their relatives in Bukovina asking for help. (Russian). List of Soviet citizens deported in Fascist Slavery in Germany with indication of ethnicity (July 5 1945). 50.000 deported. Names of 1,053 identified, the names of the rest impossible to identify. Information of damages inflicted by the occupiers. Declarations of Jews concerning goods that were confiscated from them."

JewishGen: "In 1942 [and the succeeding years], after the Soviet Army recaptured land occupied by Germany [and/or its allies], the USSR established an "Extraordinary State Commission" to document exactly what had happened in every Soviet locality occupied by the Nazis [and/or its alles]. Under the direction of special NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) units, teams were to record the names of those killed.  Property damage was also recorded. In most places NKVD personnel were assisted by local residents. These reports, [partly] handwritten in Russian, are organized geographically by republic, oblast (state), raion (county) and town. They were stored in the Central State Archive of the October Revolution in Moscow, with relevant copies in republic area archives. These reports were microfilmed in Moscow by Yad Vashem in 1990. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington has copies of these microfilms: 27 reels, [RG-22.002M]."

Courtesy: State Archives of Czernowitz Oblast

Poporul acuză! • The People Accuse!

 

Michael Shafir: "Based on the Nuremberg model, People's Tribunals were set up in Romania by a decree issued by King Michael I on April 21, 1945. [...] There were two tribunals, one in Bucharest and the other in Cluj. The Bucharest tribunal sentenced only 187 people, the rest were dealt with by the Cluj one, set up on June 22, 1945, which in general pronounced harsher sentences (thirty people condemned to death and fifty-two to hard labor for life). [...] The first trial held by the Bucharest People's Tribunal ended on May 22, 1945. General Nicolae Macici and Constantin Trestorianu as well as Corneliu Calotescu and others, were found guilty of the massacres perpetrated in occupied Odessa and in nearby Dalnic on October 21-22, 1941 and sentenced to death; other members of the Romanian forces received varying prison sentences. On July 1, 1945, King Michael commuted Macici's sentence to life imprisonment; Macici would eventually die in Aiud prison in 1950. [General Corneliu Calotescu, formerly plenipotentiary Governor of Bukovina, was among this group of 29 officers sentenced to death for war crimes on 22 May 1945. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment but he was released in an amnesty in 1955.] Altogether, fourty-eight death sentences were pronounced by 'Old Kingdom' and southern Transylvania-based People's Tribunal, but only four were actually carried out, the others being either commuted to hard labor for life or decreed in absentia. None of the sentences handed down in northern Transylvania were implemented, and the leading people charged there had anyway left the region together with the Hungarian authorities. Although the People's Tribunals were liquidated in 1946, trials associated with 'crimes against peace' and other war-related charges would continue in the following years on the basis of law No. 291 of 1947, which stipulated sentences of between fifteen years and life imprisonment for such offences."

[Michael  Shafir “Romania’s Tortuous Road to Facing Collaboration”, in Roni Stauber (ed.), Collaboration with the Nazis: Public Discourse After the Holocaust, London and New York, Routledge, 2011, pp. 245 -278.6]

Pogromurile din Bucovina si Dorohoi • The Pogroms of Bukovina and Dorohoi

 

Carmen Tagsorean, PhD Candidate, "Babes-Bolyai" University of Cluj-Napoca:
HE LIVED TO WRITE, HE WROTE TO LIVE – MARIUS MIRCU
Abstract: Some of the most important names of Romanian cultural life belong to the writers of the Jewish community. Whether we refer to the interwar or postwar period, their talent is illustrated both in the press and in the literature of the time. One of the existential dilemmas they had to face was that of their double identity. They belonged to the Jewish community, but, at the same time, to the Romanian society. Many of the Jewish writers put their thoughts on paper either in Romanian or in German (the Jews from Bukovina). Although slightly known in 2014’s Romania, but highly valued and praised in Israel where he was nicknamed "the senior of the Romanian writers", the journalist and writer Marius Mircu was part of the elite group of Jewish intellectuals. His contribution to the preservation of the Jewish history in Romania (nineteenth and twentieth centuries) is still valued by the Jewish community. Marius Mircu’s cultural identity has been created by the blending of three cultures: Jewish, Romanian, and French (he lived and studied in France between 1929 and 1932). Through this study we aim to clarify if the writer was haunted by the anxieties of his cultural identities.

 

Conclusions: Romanians, as well as the Jews in Romania, were really fortunate to have in their service a personality so complex and well-balanced as Marius Mircu. Born and raised in a bicultural community (half Romanian and half Jewish), Marius Mircu learned from early childhood integration and assimilation that over time turned him into a personality with a great potential to represent both cultures in his writings. His dual identity was not a handicap for him; on the contrary, it gave him a vantage point from which he was able to observe, to extract the essential and to give back a wise and colorful picture of the humanity he lived in. He built a bridge between the two communities, dedicating his talent and energy to the cause of love and understanding among peoples. He did it in both languages, for both cultures. A gifted human being, he lived to write and he wrote to live.

Courtesy: Biblioteca Digitala a Bucurestilor

MOARTE CRIMINALILOR DE RĂZBOI • Death to the War Criminals

Death to the War Criminals [10.05.1945, p. 3]
In Front of People's Jurisdiction [13.05.1945, p. 1]
The Bill of Indictment Against the First Lot of War Criminals [13.05.1945, p. 5]
The Bill of Indictment [14.05.1945, p. 1]
The Bill of Indictment Against the First Lot of War Criminals [14.05.1945, p. 3]
The Trial Begins [15.05.1945, p. 1]
The Bill of Indictment Against the First Lot of War Criminals [15.05.1945, p. 2, 3]
The People's Tribunal Will Impose Law [15.05.1945, p. 3]
The First Trial Against the War Criminals was Initiated by the People’s Tribunal [16.05.1945, p. 1]
The Nation Does Not Pardon! [16.05.1945, p. 5]
The War Criminals in Front of People’s Jurisdiction [17.05.1945, p. 1, 5]
Revenge for Innocent Blood! [18.05.1945, p. 1]
The Criminals in Front of People’s Judges [18.05.1945, p. 1]
The Debates During the Trial Against the War Criminals [18.05.1945, p. 2]
A Sadistic War Criminal Investigated by the Public Prosecutors [18.05.1945, p. 3]
The Parade of the War Criminals in Front of the People’s Tribunal [18.05.1945, p. 5]
The Enlightening of Humanity [19.05.1945, p. 1]
The Atrocities of the Murderers in the Cage Dis    closed by Eyewitnesses in Front of the People’s Tribunal [19.05.1945, p. 1]
The People Demand Justice [19.05.1945, p. 1]
The Disclosure of the War Atrocities in Front of the People’s Tribunal [19.05.1945, p. 2]
The Workers of the Capital Demand Deserved Sentences to the War Criminals [19.05.1945, p. 3]
The Port of Galati Dock Workers Demand Harsh Sentences to the War Criminals [19.05.1945, p. 3]
The Citizens of Brăila Demand Harsh Sentences to the War Criminals [19.05.1945, p. 3]
The Citizens of Constanța Demand the Death Penalty for the War Criminals [19.05.1945, p. 3]
The Debates During the Trial Against the War Criminals [19.05.1945, p. 5]
The Atrocities and Murders Visualized by the Eyewitnesses [20.05.1945, p. 1]
The Citizens of the Capital Demand the Death Penalty for the War Criminals [20.05.1945, p. 1]
The Dislosure of the Atrocities in Front of the People’s Tribunal [20.05.1945, p. 2]
A New Listing of War Criminals [20.05.1945, p. 4]
The Citizens of the Capital Demand the Death Penalty for the War Criminals [20.05.1945, p. 4]
The Debates During the Trial Against the War Criminals [20.05.1945, p. 4]
The Summation of the People [21.05.1945, p. 1]
Since Nine Months the Nation is Waiting for this Day of Justice [21.05.1945, p. 1]
The Overwhelming Summation by the Chief Prosecutor A. Bunaciu [21.05.1945, p. 2]
The Whole Nation Demands a Harsh Conviction for the War Criminals [21.05.1945, p. 3]
The War Criminals Pursued by the People’s Tribunal [21.05.1945, p. 3]
The Debates During the Trial Against the War Criminals [21.05.1945, p. 4]
The Summation in the Trial Against the War Criminals [21.05.1945, p. 5]
Death to the War Criminals [21.05.1945, p. 5]
People’s Conviction [24.05.1945, p. 1]
The Sentence in the First Trial Against the War Criminals [24.05.1945, p. 1, 2]
Soldiers and Commanders Notice with Satisfaction the Just Sentence to the War Criminals [26.05.1945, p. 1]
The War Criminals and the Military Uniform [26.05.1945, p. 3]
The Appeal Trial Against the War Criminals [30.05.1945, p. 1]
The Grounds of Appeal Raised by the First Lot of War Criminals Were Rejected by the High Court of Cassation [31.05.1945, p. 1]
The High Court of Cassation has Rejected the Appeals of the War Criminals [02.06.1945, p. 1]
The Maximum Sentence to the Main Culprits [03.06.1945, p. 1]

Michael Shafir: "Based on the Nuremberg model, People's Tribunals were set up in Romania by a decree issued by King Michael I on April 21, 1945. [...] There were two tribunals, one in Bucharest and the other in Cluj. The Bucharest tribunal sentenced only 187 people, the rest were dealt with by the Cluj one, set up on June 22, 1945, which in general pronounced harsher sentences (thirty people condemned to death and fifty-two to hard labor for life). [...] The first trial held by the Bucharest People's Tribunal ended on May 22, 1945. General Nicolae Macici and Constantin Trestorianu as well as Corneliu Calotescu and others, were found guilty of the massacres perpetrated in occupied Odessa and in nearby Dalnic on October 21-22, 1941 and sentenced to death; other members of the Romanian forces received varying prison sentences. On July 1, 1945, King Michael commuted Macici's sentence to life imprisonment; Macici would eventually die in Aiud prison in 1950. [General Corneliu Calotescu, formerly plenipotentiary Governor of Bukovina, was among this group of 29 officers sentenced to death for war crimes on 22 May 1945. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment but he was released in an amnesty in 1955.] Altogether, fourty-eight death sentences were pronounced by 'Old Kingdom' and southern Transylvania-based People's Tribunal, but only four were actually carried out, the others being either commuted to hard labor for life or decreed in absentia. None of the sentences handed down in northern Transylvania were implemented, and the leading people charged there had anyway left the region together with the Hungarian authorities. Although the People's Tribunals were liquidated in 1946, trials associated with 'crimes against peace' and other war-related charges would continue in the following years on the basis of law No. 291 of 1947, which stipulated sentences of between fifteen years and life imprisonment for such offences."

[Michael  Shafir “Romania’s Tortuous Road to Facing Collaboration”, in Roni Stauber (ed.), Collaboration with the Nazis: Public Discourse After the Holocaust, London and New York, Routledge, 2011, pp. 245 -278.6]


Courtesy: Biblioteca Digitală a Bucureștilor

From the Deeps... • Folk Songs from Camps and Ghettos in Poland

Courtesy: Berti Glaubach