War crimes

[Victor]

Do you have this report?
I found a mention in Romania in al doilea razboi mondial by Dinu Giurescu. All Istoric, 1999, that gen. Macici proved at his trial, with documents, that he was not implicated in the reprisals.

[dragos]

The source where I found these reports is Razboi si societate, Bucuresti, 1999, by Alesandru Dutu and Mihai Retegan.

It appears that Nicolae Macici was one of the supervisors of the reprisals in Odessa, as part of the orders and telegrams were delivered to him directly. However, some of these telegrams specified to be destroyed after being taken note of them.

[Bernard Miclescu]

[quote="Victor"]I cannot give you too many examples, since I could not find many names. Between 14 May and 13 July 1945m, 59 people were put on trial for war crimes.

Some other names: first lot of 38 pax (14-22 mai 1945)
generals: N Macici, N Trestioreanu, Corneliu Calotescu, Florin Ghineraru;
colonels: Mihai Niculescu (contumacy), Stere Marinescu, Gh Zlatescu, I Murgescu, Modest Isopescu,Stefan Gavat, N Patrascoiu
captains: Radu Ionescu, Eugen Balaceanu (contumacy), Sever Buradescu, C Clinceanu
leutenants: Dumitru Ciachir, Grigore Trepadus
sergents: St Solomon (contumacy), Mihail Dumitrescu, N Melinescu

Second lot 28 pax:
Lt col V Agapie (25 years prison), major Dionisie Fotino (life prison), capt St Mihailescu (25 y. prison), Ioan Mihailescu (life prison), Cristodor Popescu (15y. prison) Ion Haranga (8 years), Alfred Follender (8 years), Ilie Juganaru (5 y) Isac Graur, C-tin Ruxandra C-tin Mihailuc (3 years each)
in contumacy: Gh Popescu, Marin Nita (life prison), Pintilie Valuta (25 years) C-tin Ivanovici, C-tin Calugareanu (20 years each),
aquited: major Teodor Delcea, Mihail Paliga, Ion Carneala, Cristu Naum, St Solomon.

source: Dinu C Giurescu "Romaina in al doilea razboi mondial" ed All istoric 1999 pag 165

B Miclescu

[Bernard Miclescu]

sorry second lot had 21 persons.
BM

[Victor]

QUOTE

sorry second lot had 21 persons. BM

Obviously, otherwise 38+28=66, not 59 :wink:

[mabadesc]

The Simon Wiesenthal Holocaust museum website has a description of the "war criminal" Ion Antonescu and the Odessa incident. They draw the conclusion that "25,000 jews were massacred" due to the October explosion which killed and wounded romanian officers and soldiers.
Huge exaggeration, IMO.

I find it hard to believe that the famous order given by Antonescu was actually carried out literally. Any thoughts?

[C-2]

QUOTE

The Simon Wiesenthal Holocaust museum website has a description of the \"war criminal\" Ion Antonescu and the Odessa incident.  They draw the conclusion that \"25,000 jews were massacred\" due to the October explosion which killed and wounded romanian officers and soldiers. Huge exaggeration, IMO. I find it hard to believe that the famous order given by Antonescu was actually carried out literally.  Any thoughts?

I guess will never know the real number just will never know the real nr of people masacred in Bosnia,Cecnia,Cambodia and other places.
Anyway Wiesenthal foundation in a serious one and I don't belive it exageret.

[inahurry]

Victor wrote :

"Ion Antonescu was the one the head of the State and he took the important decisions. He did sanction any authors of executions. The deportations were made at his order. The instructions were to execute the Jews that could not keep up with the convoys. It is also true that he refused to hand over the Jews from the Regat to the Germans. This happened before the Soviet winter offensive at Stalingrad."

The sentence in bold characters is pure fantasy. In fact in these very few sentences there are captured at least 2 of the anti-romanian fetishes : 1. that Antonescu ordered or that he knew and didn't punish. 2. that the policy radically changed after Stalingrad when allegedly Antonescu got scared by the possibility of losing the war. To sweeten the pill it is thrown in a trivial truth - the jews in romanian controlled territory were protected. Quite a performance in falseness and cliches.[/b]

[inahurry]

By the way, repeatedly harrassing people through lawsuits based on the same accusation is common place these days. The only difference - there is no risk for capital punishment.

Also, the legal value of Nurnberg type trials ( Antonescu's - "the trial of the national high treason" how was labeled before it reached its conclusion ) is nil because for anyone with a bit of knowledge in the matter those trials were shameful ( for the idea of justice ) scams. At least Ceausescu's "trial" was so expeditive that no one bothers today to call it justice.

[inahurry]

In WW2 reprisals for killing regular troops in formally declared military occupied territories were accepted by the laws of war. The number executed as reprisals for the terrorist act - yes, that's what it was as long was carried by irregulars - is undetermined, the figure advanced there is a pure extrapolation which by itself proves... the lack of concrete proofs. There were 234 officers and military personnel killed, anyway less than 250, and at 100 to 1 ratio that would make 25,000. That's how it was computed. The ethnicity of those executed is obviously even more difficult to establish.

[Victor]

QUOTE

The instructions were to execute the Jews that could not keep up with the convoys   . . . The sentence in bold characters is pure fantasy.

From Instructiuni relative la deportarea evreilor din lagarulVertujeni-Soroca from 11 September 1941:

The convoys must have maximum 1600 people (including children) and must not walk more than 30 km a day
The Jews that cannot keep up with the convoy be it because of their inability to do so or because of sickness, should be executed.
From 10 to 10 km a mass grave for about 100 people should be dug, where all those that stray behind should be gathered, executed and buried.

Is this fantasy to you?
Please wake up from your dream world and see what actually happened. It is mainly because of people like you that most of the "anti-romanian fetishes" appear. If we would admit what happened and would search for the truth maybe we would end all of those.

QUOTE

that Antonescu ordered or that he knew and didn't punish

Do you actually think that the deportation of 110,033 Jews could have gone unnoticed for the leader of the Romanian state? Not to mention the 24,617 Gypsies deported at his direct order.

QUOTE

that the policy radically changed after Stalingrad when allegedly Antonescu got scared by the possibility of losing the war.

Actually the decision not to deport the Jews from the Regat was taken 5 weeks before the Soviet winter offensive in 1942.

QUOTE

To sweeten the pill it is thrown in a trivial truth - the jews in romanian controlled territory were protected

It was not meant to sweeten the pill. It is already too sour. I, unlike others, prefer to present all the facts.

From the letter addressed by marshal Antonescu to the Federation of the Jewish Community on 19 October 1941:

I have commitments to the Jews in the Old Kingdom. I maintain them. I have not taken any commitment to the Jews in the new territories. These, in their vast majority, are brutes. The ones guilty cannot be found. They are many, they are under cover. [he was referring to the troublemakers of June 1940]
I regret for the nice people. There must be of those also/

[dragos]

QUOTE

In WW2 reprisals for killing regular troops in formally declared military occupied territories were accepted by the laws of war. The number executed as reprisals for the terrorist act - yes, that's what it was as long was carried by irregulars - is undetermined, the figure advanced there is a pure extrapolation which by itself proves...  the lack of concrete proofs. There were 234 officers and military personnel killed, anyway less than 250, and at 100 to 1 ratio that would make 25,000. That's how it was computed. The ethnicity of those executed is obviously even more difficult to establish.

So the actions of the French partisans, even street fightings in Paris when the Allies were approaching, were also "terrorist acts" ? As long as the partisans fight on their ground, they can be called in any way by the invaders, but for their people they are not terrorists.

The reports I posted here about Odessa reprisals have source from archives. If we don't want to take this into consideration, then what should we consider?

The orders stipulated that the reprisals should be undertaken against communists and jews. While to find the jews was very hard when there were entire districts of them, to find communists in a Soviet city is even harder.

[inahurry]

It wasn't "hard" to find jews or to consider all russians communists and kill them all. There is simply no proof about 1. the number of those executed. 2. their exact ethnicity or political ideology. In fact the rather scarce information when you take out the quotes that send the reader to another book and [b]not[/] to the reliable sources remains very thin.

The last "scandal" (july 25, 2003) stirred by Jerusalem Post regarding president Iliescu comments on some holocaust problems proves once again the current figures regarding jews deportation are totally unreliable. Every time they are inflated by simply checking a crystal ball. This is not historical research and for sure there is no interest in discovering the truth. There are too many political, financial and other extra-historical interests at stake. some may argue that killing 1 or a 1 million is the same. It is not so. Morally, killing is wrong but if there is a proven interest to falsify the historical data and even to hunt those who dare dispute figures and facts with documents on their side, well, you may finish the thought yourself. The colporteurs of (to say at lesat) grossly inaccurate data makes me wonder.

I'll return for that "order" when I gather the necessary data. Though it isn't strictly necessary because for those who know the feud between the Legion and Antonescu the case is clear.

[inahurry]

What if we place the discussion in the right context.
Just today the Israeli ambassador in Romania insisted the Romanian authorities must admit that in Romania there was a holocaust during WW2. If you read the papers you can find out the amount of “symbolic reparations”, as Israeli official called them, is estimated to 9 billion dollars. If one adds this sum to the other major blows Romanian economy took it simply means Romanians are condemned to perpetual poverty and wouldn’t surprise me if we witness an economic collapse and possible the disintegration of the state. This while, cynically, the same Israeli authorities are concerned with the rise of neo-fascism ( a wild guess – who might be those rampaging fascists ?) which always seconds the, they say, impoverished nations. The quotes can be found in these last few days papers.
The $9 billion or any other “symbolic reparations” are obviously computed starting with the alleged, never proved, figures of thousands and thousands assassinated by the deliberate “genocidal” policies of former Romanian authorities from WW2, acting head of state then being, of course, Ion Antonescu.
Holocaust equals genocide. There was no genocide in Romania during WW2. There was no official policy to exterminate an entire population. War crimes certainly there were and, morally at least, the Odessa reprisals was such a crime. There existed also moral and legal obligations toward the civilian population in military occupied areas. To my knowledge, from the 11 (or 12) governors of occupied territories in former USSR put to trial only one was acquitted by the Russians, well, only to be sentenced and shot later, along with Antonescu, by the “Romanian” “justice”.
Ion Antonescu or the higher authorities of the state didn’t order or condone genocidal practices. The Romanian army wasn’t involved in genocidal practices, the key word being genocidal because otherwise the horrible brutality of war may be considered a murderous enterprise in itself.
The latest figure advanced during this very recent offensive to force impossible to pay obligations on Romania is 420,000 Jews killed during WW2, as always how is this figure obtained remains a mystery. But illogical as it may be it sheds light on the other grotesquely exaggerated numbers and the insistence with which they are proposed, over and over again, despite the lack of evidence to substantiate even a small fraction.
Due to these huge financial stakes it is hard to conceive how the truth will surface. The gradual censorship imposed on Russian, German, Romanian archives directed especially against those researchers who have no intention to bow before the new “directives” of how to write “proper” history and the rather dangerous activity writing a book on “delicate” history events has become leaves one very skeptical about where we’re heading.
Why certain topics obsessively turn up and why Ion Antonescu (as a side note, the Romans were saying – “if you can’t say anything good about a dead person then be silent”, assuming we are still vaguely related with our ancestors I’d say there is a lot to be said about him) is considered a war criminal, in the process the army which he treasured most and which he would have never used as an instrument for dishonorable purposes being stained and why, as we witness now, those who believe otherwise risk prison ? The answer is not to be found in the archives or history books but it is to be found inside the accountants books.

[Geto-Dacul]

inahurry, you are right... Why must we pay for unproved "war crimes"? And even if those were real, let's be fair : why isn't anybody paying for our own national "holocaust"?
Recently, another book was forbidden (not sure of the title) : Evreii din Romania 1939-1945 (published by a Romanian collective - that collaborated in many other books about the Romanian Army in WW2), just because it exposed a different vision from the official Jewish one of Jean Ancel or Radu Ioanid, but based on historical archives. Just to see how "liberty of expression" is granted today...