În memoria comunității evreiești din Răducăneni, anihilată de către naziști și colaboratorii lor

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Holocaust memorial

In memory of the Jewish community of Răducăneni, annihilated by the Nazis and their collaborators

אנדרטה לזכר השואה

לזכר קהילת היהודים ברדוקנן שנכחדה על ידי הנאצים ועוזריהם

בקיץ 1940, גורשו יהודי רדוקנן מבתיהם על ידי חברי משמר הברזל. חלקם נכלאו במחנות בעיר חוש ואחרים עברו ליאסי ולמקומות אחרים.

רבים מהם נרצחו אחר כך על ידי הנאצים ועוזריהם. הרשימה למטה מתעדת את שמותיהם של אלה שלגביהם ידוע שנהרגו בנסיבות אלה.

יהודים רבים אחרים, כמו גם צוענים שגרו באזור, נרצחו בלא שנותר מהם זכר.

Romania

In Romania Emergency Ordinance No. 31 of March 13, 2002 prohibits Holocaust denial. It was ratified on May 6, 2006. The law also prohibits racist, fascist, xenophobic symbols, uniforms and gestures: proliferation of which is punishable with imprisonment from between six months to five years.

Emergency Ordinance No. 31 of March 13, 2002

Article 3. – (1) Establishing a fascist, racist or xenophobic organisation is punishable by imprisonment from 5 to 15 years and the loss of certain rights.

Article 4. – (1) The dissemination, sale or manufacture of symbols either fascist, racist or xenophobic, and possession of such symbols is punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years and the loss of certain rights.

Article 5. – Promoting the culture of persons guilty of committing a crime against peace and humanity or promoting fascist, racist or xenophobic ideology, through propaganda, committed by any means, in public, is punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years and the loss of certain rights.

Article 6. – Denial of the Holocaust in public, or to the effects thereof is punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years and the loss of certain rights.^[40]

Quotations by prominent Romanians:

The people of Israel is full of all the qualities and all the flaws caused by unjust suffering. Only those who have suffered and suffer unjustly can understand some of the mystery of this people... They do not have an ordinary faith among the nations, but a tragic destiny..."

"Everybody asks for everything from the Jews; but nobody gives them anything, nobody forgives..." (Petre Pandrea)

"We have similarly considered both the Romanian and the Jewish poets. They all believed in art and suffered in the name of art, which flows beyond national borders (not to mention within them). The Romanian poetry claims them with equal warmth." (Perpessicius)

"The fact that most of the promoters of this literature [avant-garde literature] are Jews can by no means prevent us from noticing that in all the avant-garde movements, be they social... or literary (like the French symbolism or the German expressionism), the Jew's role of propagator of the new is always identical. Far from being harmful, the presence of this agent can be welcome..." (Eugen Lovinescu)

"Just like ourselves, the Jews are equally inclined to love the country they were born in... when they are overtly accused of lack of patriotism, the most appropriate answer they can give is name the Jewish poets who sang in the language of the accusers..." (Gala Galaction)

"There are 40.000 Jews enlisted [in 1913] under the flag of our country and theirs, 40.000 men who are as determined and heroic as all the Romanians. They did not think twice, they did not hesitate for a single instant to sacrifice their blood for the Homeland... these men are happy when we are happy and sorrow over what we sorrow; these good patriots, who were denied, as an ultimate insult, the very right to honesty and to suffering, they all rushed in to help their Homeland, too happy to serve it..." (Tudor Arghezi)

"During our great movement in 1857, some of you [the Jews] spoke their mind with enthusiasm and worked vigorously in support of our great idea: the Union" (Mihail Kogalniceanu)

"But the most important [virtues], which are love for the country, pity for those who suffer, hatred against injustice and despotism, will grow even stronger within this soul, together with stoicism before death and the unaltered belief that God sees everything, and that, one day or the other, the hour of punishment for the evil ones will come, just like the hour for rewarding the good ones will come.

So do not let yourselves be fooled..." (Alexandru Macedonski)

"Knowing these people closely, I became even more convinced that, in a country that has a problem with nationalities, the Jews are the best and the most patriotic citizens, forming the cement that keeps the different nations together...

Acquiring them as a separate nation who loves this country is a matter on which the very existence of the state depends..." (Sebastian Moruzi)

"The fact that Jews do not lie when claiming they care about this country which is theirs too and they cannot be anything else but Romanians of a different religion is proven by the facts and the basic elements of their spirituality." (George Calinescu)

"The Romanian and Jewish writers ought to be brought closer to one another by the love for beauty, like poets of the same religion, and to work together for the purity of the language and solely to its benefit." (D. Nanu)

"...I came to believe it and I repeat it... Jews are a peaceful and grateful people who love their native country... my best, closest and most devoted friends were Jews. They truly appreciate everything that is beautiful, grand, noble and sublime - they definitely appreciate true art..." (Agatha Barsescu)

"Born and raised on this land, do the Jews not have the right to enjoy the same rights as all the others? I believe they do. Because I cannot understand how it is possible for one to be born in a place and not be able to call it one's home, to fill a place in space and still not be anywhere, to love something in this world without receiving love in one's turn. Since all these are true, why would I hesitate, why would I cowardly refuse to speak up in all honesty? Why would I banish them out of the national solidarity and why would I welcome discord-breeding tendencies? The words of insult do not lead to anything good, since, before being Romanians, we are human beings, and before having a national solidarity, we have a human solidarity that is supposed to bind us." (Dimitrie Anghel)

"So many French or Italian politicians had a decisive contribution to the national history. The Jew Daniele Manin, was he not the head of the Venetian revolutionaries in 1848 and the most venerated man in his city?

Nowadays, the Jews are a part of the intelligentsia of our times, and cannot, under no circumstance, be excluded from the life of the human societies. Especially not now, when, on the one hand, we have an intelligentsia that has produced this superb monument that we call modern culture, and, on the other hand, an enormous mass of... people who are incapable of cherishing this millennium-long work, this divine benediction. If today we are facing this great abyss between these two conceptions about life, it is only because of the isolation of the former and the ignorance of the latter. The real scholars must, from now on, waste the highest efforts in order to defend culture, which is a human heritage. All forces are needed for that... And the "fascists in Iasi' had better ask themselves: what positive things have they done for their nation that give them the right to negatively militate against others, involving the entire nation's responsibility through their actions?..." (Nicolae Iorga)

"[Daniel Rosenthar, one] ...of the best, the holiest, the most devoted men that God ever created after His own image. And he died for Romania, he died for its liberties, he died for his Romanian friends, whom he would not discredit, with the price of his own life, he died in pain, tortured, he died like a martyr, and he is still the only martyr of the modern Romania.

Whomever you may be, you who are reading these lines, if you have any feelings for Romania, you must weep over him, for, as members of mankind, you have lost a friend, while Romania has lost a supporter, a loyal son... This friend, this son, this martyr of Romania, was an ISRAELITE - his name was Daniil C. Rosenthal.

Bless this name and, until you can do more for the memory of the martyr, may remembering him make you better, tolerant at least: may thinking of an Israelite make you better Christians." (Maria C. A. Rosetti)

"...C. D. Rosenthal, one of the greatest martyrs of the 1848 revolution..." (Ionel Jianu)

"I am an Israelophile just like I am a Francophile, a Germanophile, a Russophile. I spiritually belong to all the peoples from whose granaries I picked the seeds of wisdom.

Then, I am an Israelophile out of pride. I would be ashamed to admit - through deeds that debase a certain conception - that I fear a handful of people belonging to another race, that we like to think of as declining. This would only mean to loudly assert my own people's inferiority.

"I am an Israelophile because I see in the Jewish element a stimulant, not a threat." (Nicolae Tonitza)

"If Jews only had to face the professional anti-Semites, their drama would simplify a lot... There are hardly any events, misdeeds or catastrophes for which they were not held responsible by their adversaries... yearning for justice... they do not succumb to the evidence of an unjust world..." (E. M. Cioran)

"We greatly esteem and love the Jewish citizens, for they have contributed to the enlargement of the Homeland and fully did their duty, the Jewish soldiers having fought shoulder to shoulder with the Romanian soldiers..." (Gen. Rascanu)

"These last years, the anti-Semite terror in Europe exacerbated their nature. Those who went to Iasi in the fall of 1941, in the aftermath of the German-legionary excesses, could, without having seen anything, sense the horrific atmosphere by noticing the crosses painted in lime by the Romanians on house walls and fences, a hint on the easiness with which victims were picked..."

"...but I wonder: after what they went through, are they not entitled not only to rehabilitation, but also to an extra amount of tenderness and affection?..."

"...Jews need... to feel they are loved in it [the country], that they are beyond any suspicion..." (George Calinescu)

"Race hatred has never got to me, but I notice what goes on in this country... Can't you see how successful the anti-Semite periodicals are?... there is a number of people who see the culture of anti-Semitism as an excellent enterprise in which, with a capital of empty words, one can produce a rich crop of popularity, with the different results that it brings about: position, honors, distinctions etc." (I. L. Caragiale)

"I cannot subscribe without being dishonored to any anti-Semite doctrine, because (among other reasons), I happen to be a mathematician; hence indebted in what I do and write to the thought of so many Jewish mathematicians. To feed on their spirituality and then to declare them racially undesirable is grotesque and immoral..." (Dan Barbilian / Ion Barbu)

"During the legionary regime, my name could be found on various black lists. And under Antonescu's rule, I felt humiliated and cruelly offended as a Romanian by the horrors that were committed then and in the period that followed. The Romanian nation cannot be held entirely responsible though for the deeds of an irresponsible minority...

What could comfort us is the possibility for the deaths and the acts of injustice to be made up for.

After Iasi was dishonored through the crimes against a defenseless population, I could no longer return to the generous city I once knew, to which I feel bound by so many precious memories from my youth..." (Mihail Sadoveanu)

"Any word one might use would be too feeble to render those years of terror under the legionaries and Antonescu. All the baseness of the soul, all the animal instincts that still boil deep down inside the human being poured out like a devastating lava and turned to dust those Jewish streets, that seemed forgotten by people and by the present life..." (Scarlat Callimachi)

"Be an anti-Semite? Hate the Jews? How can I hate them when it is their people that gave us Sulamita, and The Song of songs, and the Rebellion of the Prophets, and the Lamentations of Job?..."

"The anti-Semites - who only gave mankind thieves, murderers and idiots - had better give us a brake with that fairy-tale of the Jewish inferiority..." (N. D. Cocea)

"No matter what you tell me, one cannot blame God's people, like the Jews, for being Jews; as if they had decided, while still in their mothers' bellies, to be born Jews, so that other people, who had no part in deciding they would come out Romanians from their mothers' bellies, can later grow up and shoot the ones who were born in Jewish bellies." (Marin Preda)

"One might say that being an anti-Semite means not being a patriot... Any man is not a patriot when he becomes less than a human being, and anyone who is led by prejudices becomes less than a human being." (Alexandru Macedonski)

"A good patriot cannot approve of the anti-Semite movement..."

"...xenophobia is a sign of primitivism or a sign of degenerate nationalism." (C. Radulescu-Motru)

"The genii produced by this small and scattered people worked for the good of mankind in general and used their intellectual powers to serve all the great causes, all the matters that interested all the nations amidst which these genii lived and worked..." (Mihail Kogalniceanu)

"I deem anti-Semitism an act of poverty of a failed intellectual or a cheap opportunity of self-assertion... anti-Semitism can only be regarded as a stupid ferment of anarchical agitation..." (Ion San-Giorgiu)

"Anti-Semitism... is a frightening state of mind. It is the fear, the jealousy of one who feels weaker than his neighbor; I call it COWARDESS and there is no room for such a feeling towards the Jews in my country, who wishes to become a chief player on the political arena..." (Anton Bibescu)

"Here or abroad, I have lived together with this people to whom mankind owes a part of its progress... I often had the opportunity to appreciate their kindness... had my mind only kept the memory of the kind, good-hearted, humane Herman Binder as the one single Jew persecuted, beaten, ruined by the national hooliganism... I would still tie my faith to the faith of the Jewish people, I would still make its struggle for justice my own, for this is the struggle of all those who are persecuted across this Earth..." (Panait Istrati)

"I did my duty then and I am doing it now: to state that any measure against the Jews is not only a political error, but also, especially in today's circumstances, a really dangerous thing, and that it would be shameful to see university professors and students taking part in such retrograde agitations..." (Titu Maiorescu)

"...I take pride in being the fortunate friend of some very esteemed Jews, Hungarians, Germans... Bulgarians..."

The cult of the anti-Semite hatred will never replace the universal cult of Peace, of the fraternity among people and, especially, of the love for our neighbor...

http://www.romanianjewish.org/en/fedrom_02.html

6 Centuries of coexistence by:

 דבריו של ראש המועצה, מר דודי אריאלי:

Memorialul Ziua Holocaustului în Tivon 
Adresat de dl David Arielli, şef al autorităţii locale.

Tradus de Rahel Shmuel

Melech Leibowitz a locuit în localitatea Răducăneni din România, cu soţia sa şi cei doi fii. El şi-a câştigat existenţa din comerţ, având un  magazin de textile, situat  în centrul oraşului. Cam în Mijlocul lunii iunie 1941, spre sfârşitul zilei de lucru, un vecin creştin l-a avertizat că naziştii intenţionează să treacă în noaptea aceea, prin mai multe oraşe, ca să adune pe toţi bărbaţii evrei, pentru a-i trimite în lagăre în lagărele de muncă. Atunci,  în timpul luptelor celui de-al doilea Război Mondial, mulţi români colaborau cu naziştii , în căutare de forţă de muncă gratis, fără  bani, pentru programul de  ucidere  în masă,creat  de nazişti. Iniţial Lebowitz, refuza sa dea crezare acestui zvon, însa  în drum spre casă, îl tot auzea , pe străduţele orăşelului ,din ce în ce mai mult. Ca să scape de a fi trimis la un lagăr de muncă îndepărtat şi fiind convins  că n-are  şansă, de a rămâne în viaţă acolo,s-a  decis să fugă  la Iaşi, un  oraş mai mare, situat aproximativ la 38 km de Răducăneni. La Iaşi avea rude, şi plănui a se ascunde în casa lor, până va ieşi din  pericol.  Luase cu el mulţi bani în numerar,pentru a-şi  procura marfă, sperând ca va fi capabil să se reîntoarcă la familia sa şi la afaceri ,după ce se vor încheia deportările evreilor de sex masculin, la lagărele de muncă. Fiind naiv, Leibowitz credea, că acest eveniment este ceva trecător. Chiar în acea noapte, s-a pornit  singur la  Iaşi şi a ajuns  dimineaţă, la  verişoara lui Sega,unde familia l-a  ascuns în pivniţă şi l-a  hrănit zi de zi. După o saptămană şi jumatate, văzând că nimeni nu i-a dat mâncare în acea zi, s-a  decis să iasă din ascunzătoare, să afle  ce s-a întâmplat. Aceasta l-a costat cu viaţa.. că tocmai atunci, în momentul când el a ieşit din pivniţă, naziştii şi colaboratorii lor români,  au percheziţionat zona evreiescă, unde fusese ascuns, şi l-au luat, împreună cu toţi cei din casă şi alţi mii de evrei.Cu toţii au fost scoşi la marşul morţii ,pâna la curtea secţiei de poliţie din Iaşi, iar de acolo ,la ceea ce a devenit cunoscut ,ca unul dintre pogromurile cele mai şocante al Holocaustul, şi numit Pogromul de la Iaşi.

Pe 06.29.1941 naziştii au ucis la Iaşi, în România, în numai trei zile , aproximativ 15.000 de evrei. Gândiţi-vă o clipă! 15.000 de evrei, doar în trei zile! Imaginaţi-vă oraşul nostru ,Tivon, cu  15.000 de locuitori, că Ferească Dumnezeu , e complet distrus în trei zile. Ce gând cumplit şi cât de greu este de înţeles magnitudinea răului!! Naziştii au percheziţionat cu violenţă, cartierul evreiesc, i-au târât afară pe toţi bărbaţii evrei si apoi i-au dus la staţia locală de poliţie ,unde i-au împuşcat cu cruzime.

Cei care nu au fost împuşcaţi în curtea secţiei de poliţie, au fost împinşi în câteva trenuri cu vagoane închise: mii de oameni au fost înghesuiţi, într-un număr mic de vagoane, şi conduşi afară, fără destinaţie precisă. Timp de trei zile, vagoanele circulau pe liniile de cale ferată ,până când toţi evreii nefericiţi ,din vagoane, au murit  sufocaţi, în chin teribil.
Pogromul de la Iaşi ,a avut loc,aproximativ ,şase luni înainte de înfiinţarea primului lagăr de concentrare.De fapt ,conform multor cercetori al Holocausului, pogromul de la Iaşi, i-a servit pe nazişti, drept  mijloc de a testa modalităţi de a ucide cât mai multi evrei, în cel mai scurt timp posibil, la un cost minim.
 Melech Leibowitz, Fie-i memoria binecuvântată ,este bunicul meu, pe care n-am avut privilegiul de a-l cunoaşte .Nu-i clar dacă el a fost împuşcat în curtea secţiei de poliţie din Iaşi, sau a murit sufocat în trenurile morţii, însa e clar, care a fost ucis, doar pentru că era evreu.

Pogromului de la Iaşi este una din cea mai oribilă crimă din istoria omenirii.

Niciodată n-a fost pus în aplicare un plan de ucidere atât de vicios, atât de  sistematic, aşa monstruos şi de o amploare atât de mare, a unui popor faţă de altul.

Dintre toate ţările, Germania  era considerată a fi un stat luminat şi civilizat, cu o lungă tradiţie de respect pentru ştiinţă şi artă şi tocmai  Germania, a fost cea care a desfăşurat o campanie oribilă de ucidere în masă, în care 6 milioane din poporul nostru, şi-au pierdut viaţa.

Acest număr este de neînţeles, şi totuşi este întipărit în mintea noastră ,ca şi numerele tatuate rămase pe braţele îndurerate a multor supravieţuitori ai Holocaustului.

Milioane de evrei au fost mânaţi în ghetouri sufocante, situate la marginea localităţilor în care au trăit, şi de acolo duşi ca oile la tăiere,la lagăre de concentrare şi exterminare.

Maşina Morţii nazistă, a funcţionat cu o eficienţă oribilă, însă, şi din fericire, mulţi au supravieţuit lagărelor de exterminare. În fiecare an, sunt cu noi în această seară de comemorare , supravieţuitori ai Holocaustului care au supravieţuit acest infern teribil.

Doamnelor şi domnilor de onoare, Supravieţuitori al Holocaustului, voi care a trecut prin iad şi aţi scăpat Vă salut!
  De multe ori, în Ziua de Memorie a Holocaustului, uităm că această  zi, pe bună dreptate,e numită ziua  Holocaustului şi a Eroismului. Când eram tânăr, eram convins ,că expresia eroică a zilei ,se referă  în  cea mai mare parte,la  lupta eroică împotriva naziştilor,cum ar fi Revolta ghetoului  din Varşovia. De-a lungul anilor, am realizat, că nu numai pe acest motiv,s-a adăugat expresia eroică la Ziua Holocaustului. În opinia mea, imigraţia supravieţuitorilor Holocaustului în ţara lui Israel, reabilitarea lor aici, instituirea de  familii şi de a avea copii - toate acestea în ciuda amintirilor grele, în ciuda coşmarurilor care au rămas cu voi de ani de zile şi care pe unii din voi, înca îi urmăresc până în prezent -- ăsta-i adevaratul eroism, în ochii mei. Încercarea nazistă de a ucide  trupul şi sufletul evreilor a eşuat lamentabil.

Promisiunea divină, dată patriarhului Avraam, că sămânţa lui va fi înmulţită ca nisipul de pe ţărmul mării, încă mai există. Voi, supravieţuitori al Holocaustului,care aţi sosit la Tivon, aţi înfiinţat aici familii minunate, puteţi privi la generaţiile urmaşilor voştri, cu mândrie. Aceşti descendenţi, sunt cel mai bun răspuns, pentru oricine care a încercat să ne şteargă de pe faţa pământului, sau a oricăruia ar putea încerca să facă acelaşi  lucru în viitor.
Memoria Holocaustului va fi întotdeauna cu noi.. Dacă dorim, putem învăţa foarte mult despre puterea interioară a fiinţelor umane. Psihanalistul evreu, dr. Viktor Frankl, care a fost deţinut în lagărul de exterminare Auschwitz-Birkenau, a descris în cartea sa” Omul caută semnificaţie” despre propia lui experienţă de a fi în tabără. Voi cita una dintre concluziile sale cele mai pătrunzătoare.

Modul în care o persoana acceptă soarta lui şi toată suferinţa implicată , îi oferă posibilitatea amplă, chiar şi in cele mai dificile circumstanţe, de a adăuga un sens mai profund existenţei sale.

Oare curajul, onoarea respectul şi dragostea de omenire va ramane în el, ori  poate  în lupta  de  existentă să uite demnitatea de om şi să devină o fiară. Potrivit profesorului Frankel, în orice situaţie, avem libertatea de a alege un comportament de natură morală. Şi este important ca alegeriele pe care le facem  în viaţa, ca naţiune sau ca indivizi, sa fie alegeri care să protejeze imaginea noastră despre noi înşine, ca fiinţe umane şi tot binele pe care este ascuns în fiecare dintre noi.

Holocaust Memorial Day in Tivon 

Address by Mr. David Arielli, Head of Local Authority.
Translated by Dr. Stella Statman

Melech Leibowitz lived in the township of Răducăneni in Romania together with his wife and two sons. He made his living by selling cloth in his shop in the center of the township. In the middle of June 1941, as he was coming to the end of his working day, his neighbor, a non-Jew, approached him and warned him than he had heard that the Nazis intended to go through all the townships that night to round up all the male Jews and take them away to forced labor camps.   This was the time of World War II, a time when many Romanian people cooperated with the Nazis in their search for free labor to operate   the mass murder program they had created. At first, Leibowitz refused to believe   his neighbor but on his way home, he continued to hear the same rumor repeated ever more forcibly in the streets of the township. He then decided to flee to the large city of Iasi, a distance of some 38 kms. from Răducăneni in order to avoid being sent to a labor camp far away, from which he believed he would never return alive. He had relatives living in Iasi and he hoped to hide in their home until the storm had passed.  He took with him a lot of money in cash, planning to buy cloth for his shop after the deportation of the male Jews had ended, when he hoped he would be able to return to his family and his business. In his innocence, he believed that the hell raging in Europe was a passing event. That night, Leibowitz walked alone to Iasi arriving in the morning hours at the home of his cousin, Saga. The family hid him in the cellar and brought him food every day. A week and a half later when no-one had brought him food that day, he decided to leave his hiding place to see what was happening. That decision cost him his life. At the very moment he  came up from the cellar, the Nazis and their Romanian collaborators  raided the Jewish area where he had been hiding  and took him together with every man in the houses and thousands  of others on a death march , leading thousands of Jews  into the courtyard of the police station  in Iasi where they were slaughtered  in  what came to be known  as one  of the most shocking pogroms  of the Holocaust: the pogrom in Iasi.

On 29.6.1941, the Nazis murdered 15,000 Jews in Iasi in the space of only three days. Think about that for a moment. 15,000 Jews in only three days!! Imagine the 15,000 Jews of Tivon, our city, completely wiped out in three days. What a dreadful thought and how hard it is to comprehend the magnitude of the evil! The Nazis raided the Jewish quarter and dragged out all the Jewish men with unbridled violence. They led them to the local police station and shot them mercilessly. Those who were not shot to death in the courtyard of the police station were pushed into sealed railway wagons: thousands were crammed into a small number of wagons that were then driven off with no clear destination. For three days, the wagons clattered on the railway lines until all the unfortunate Jews inside the wagons had suffocated to death in terrible agony.

The Iasi pogrom took place half a year before the first extermination camp was set up. Many researchers on the Holocaust believe that the Iasi pogrom served the Nazis as a way of testing out ways to kill as many Jews as possible in as short a time as possible at minimal cost. 

Melech Leibowitz, of blessed memory, was my grandfather, the grandfather I was never privileged to know.

It is not clear whether my grandfather was shot in the courtyard of the police station in Iasi or suffocated to death in one of the wagons in the death trains but it is clear that he was murdered only because he was a Jew.

The Iasi pogrom is one of the most horrific stories of murder in the history of mankind.  Never before had such an evil plan been put into execution so systematically, a plan so monstrous and of such wide scope, by one people against another.  And of all countries, by Germany, a country considered for many years to be an enlightened, cultured society, with a long tradition of respect for science and the   arts.  Of all countries, Germany was the one to conduct a horrific campaign of mass murder in which 6 million of our people lost their lives. This number is incomprehensible and yet it   is engraved in our consciousness as the concentration camp numbers are carved for ever on the sad arms of so many survivors of the Holocaust.

Millions of Jews were herded together in stifling ghettoes at the edge of the settlements in which they had lived and from there were taken like lambs to the slaughter in the concentration and extermination camps. The Nazi war death machine work functioned with horrible efficiency. In spite of this, fortunately, there were many survivors of that hell   and every year some of them are with us here on these evenings.  Honored ladies and gentlemen, Holocaust survivors, you who went through that hell and were snatched from it- I salute you. 

We sometimes forget that Holocaust Day is called – and correctly so - The Day of Holocaust and Courage.  When I was young, I was convinced that the word "courage" referred mainly to the heroic struggles against the Nazis such as the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto.  As the years passed, I came to realize that it was not only for this reason that the term "courage" is added to Holocaust Day.  In my opinion, the immigration of Holocaust survivors to the land of Israel, their rehabilitation here, the families they established, the children they brought into the world – all in spite of their painful memories, in spite of the horrible nightmares that refused to leave them for many years and in some cases which trouble them to this very day –these for me show real courage. The Nazi attempt to murder the Jews body and soul failed miserably.

The Divine promise to Abraham our father that his seed will be multiplied as the sand on the shore  still exists. You, Holocaust survivors, you who came to Tivon, who raised wonderful families here, can look at the generations of your descendants   with great pride. Your families are the best possible answer to those who tried to wipe us off the face of the earth or to anyone who may try to do so in the future.

The memory of the Holocaust will always be with us. If we but wish it, we can learn a great deal about the inner strength of human beings. The Jewish psychoanalyst, Victor Frankel, himself once an inmate of the extermination camp Auschwitz -Birkenau, described his experiences in his book  Man's Search for Meaning.  I will quote one of his most insightful conclusions.

"The way in which a person accepts his lot and the suffering that is involved in it gives him great opportunity – in spite of the difficult conditions - to give everything deeper meaning. It may be that he will respond with great courage, an increase in his self-respect and love for humanity. It may be that in the bitter struggle for existence, he will forget to respect himself as a man and turn into an animal." According to Professor Frankel, in every situation, we have the freedom to choose behavior of a clearly moral nature. And it is important  that the choices we make in our lifetime  as a collective  or as individual human beings  will be choices  that protect  our image of ourselves as human beings  and all the good  latent in each and every one of us.

Ministry of the Interior

4147/June 21, 1941.

Inspectorate of the Gendarmerie

General Antonescu, Leader of the State orders the following:

1. Every healthy Jew between the age 18 and 40 must be evacuated from the villages between the Seret and Prut either to the concentration camp to Targu Jiu, or to nearby villages. The first trains must depart on June 21 this year.

Members of Jewish families who do not fall into this category, as well as other Jewish families must be evacuated from the villages of Moldova to the county towns capable of ensuring their survival; the county heads are responsible for the execution of this order.

The evacuation must be carried out within 48 hours of receipt of this letter.

Jewish families living in the other villages of the country must be evacuated to the town centres of the given county with provisions necessary for their survival; the county heads are responsible for the execution of this order; the evacuation must be carried out within 4 days of receipt of this letter.

Lists of evacuees' names must be compiled and given to the police offices responsible so that the names can be registered, thus making it easier to identify Jews if they leave the place to which they have been evacuated.

[212] Families must not return to villages from which they been evacuated.

The houses of evacuees as well as other property left behind must be handed over to the local administrative authorities.

 http://www.logon.org/_domain/holocaustrevealed.org/Romania/Matatias/Iasi4.htm

Gen. Antonescu's Answers to 33 Complaints Addressed to him by the Federation of Jewish Communities at the Beginning of October 1940

Communiqué of October 22, 1940 issued by

The Presidency of the Council of Ministers

The Government has received numerous complaints, which have been found not true.

Thus, the President of the Federation of Jewish Communities, Dr. W. Filderman, complained that in Piatra Neamt, the authorities forbid burials in the Jewish cemetery unless an amount of money is paid for the benefit of the Legionary Movement.

The Chief Rabbi in Piatra Neamt and the President of the local Jewish Community declared in writing that the statement is not true.

Mr. Filderman also complained that in Negresti (Vaslui) grain stores of Jewish traders were sealed.

Investigations were made and it was found that only the grains coming from expropriated manors have been blocked, according to the law. In fact, everybody has the right to appeal to Justice.

The same Mr. Filderman complained that Jewish shops have been closed in Raducaneni (Falciu).

This statement is also untrue.

In case of receiving such complaints, it has been further decided that the investigating authority should come to the relevant place and if the complaint is found inaccurate, the plaintiff shall be sued in court for spreading false and tendentious news.

The Boss of Legionary Terror, General C. Petrovicescu, Minister of the Interior named Legionary Plundering "the battle to buy up Jewish shops and real estate. "

Bucharest, December 18, 1940