Holocaust in Romania (5)

8. What Does the Cartea Neagra (Black Book) Tell Us?

The Cartea Neagra (Black Book) is a vast tome, in three volumes, edited by the Jew Matatias Carp, for a time the secretary of Wilhelm Filderman. Therefore, he was a contemporary to the described and commented events: the Legionnaire Government, the Pogrom at Yassy, and the “holocaust” in Transnistria. Of course, the term holocaust had not yet been launched during the late ‘40s when Matatias Carp’s work was published. It contains both authentic documents of historical and documentary significance, as well as propaganda and political literature, from which one learns only a distortion of the truth. The holocaust in Romania enters into this history as a dishonorable chapter for those who penned it.
Among the books about the holocaust, the Cartea Neagra (Black Book) appears to have been written and arranged with an added measure of good faith (or naiveté) compared with the works written after that. Thus, a competent study could produce a sufficient argument from the authentic published documents which invalidate the book’s theme and its corollary of today: Order no. 31/2002. Otherwise, the bad faith of Matatias Carp is often enervating in its stridency and flurry.
The main conclusion from the lecture of Cartea Neagra is that the author does not succeed in identifying, from the hundreds, maybe thousands of documents analyzed, the slightest bit of evidence that the Romanian authorities perpetrated, attempted or even intended a program of extermination against the Jews in Romania! Or even a persecution of Jews! The published documents are convincing exactly because of the absence of records that incriminate Marshall Antonescu or even the Legionnaires.
On the contrary, the Cartea Neagra contains sufficient elements that, with attentive and honest study, can only result in the rejection of the belief that a holocaust occurred in Romania. We shall present some of them, concluded from reading Volume III, subtitled “Transnistria”:
First of all we note that a series of documents convincingly illustrates the fact that many Jews suffered and were murdered in Bessarabia and Transnistria after July 1, 1941. In contrast with the authors of today, however, Matatias Carp published a small part of these documents that attests to the fact that Jews “incited” this, that the madness of Bolshevism drove many Jews to commit crimes against Romanians. I believe that we should remain indebted to Matatias Carp for the publication of the letters written by the Marshall in response to W. Filderman and H. Clejan, letters which authors such as Z. Ornea, Lia Benjamin, Dinu Giurescu, Radu Ioanid, etc., eiusdem farinae1, have neglected to ever mention or even discuss. From the documents published by Carp one may deduce the physical and numerical dimensions of the hecatomb! Much, very much below the dimensions (figures) written in stone at the Coral Temple in Bucharest. Probably correctly, the documents published in the Cartea Neagra also establish the fact that the majority of Jews known to have been murdered in Bessarabia and Bukovina were executed by the German Army. Matatias Carp does attempt to hide one “detail”: these mass executions were often military repressions, which are practiced by every army in every war, including World War II, including the Germans as well as the English, and the Japanese as well as the Americans, and the Jews who are soldiers in Israel! Even in our days! From this point of view, a German document in which the commandant of the 11th Army, addressing the Romanian officer corps, severely criticizes the murder of forty Jews at Taura Noua, is absolutely remarkable. Here is the text:
(36.) “In reference to the murder of Jews at Taura Noua. (…) The attitude and behavior demonstrated in the report of certain representatives of the Romanian forces serves only to diminish the prestige of the Romanian Army, and at the same time that of the German Army, in the arena of public opinion (sic!). Again we ask, this time with urgency, for you to be careful and to apply the most severe methods to the whole of Romanian soldiery, so that other incidents will not be repeated.” signed “Staff Major Ranck”, (p. 59)
In agreement with this document, there are many documents from the Romanian authorities which prove their care to put an end or hinder the abuses against Jews, to combat the temptation of some Romanian soldiers to give themselves over to individual acts of repression without the command of a superior. Evidently, as in any war, there were crimes, theft and rape in Transnistria. But the Cartea Neagra contains a whole series of documents that quite correctly illustrate the preoccupation of the Romanian authorities with the punishment and discouraging of such acts (see documents 5–30, first chapter, and others).
Some documents tell of Jews who were evacuated or simply left from Bessarabia together with the Soviet armies and who the Romanian Army found rambling across the Dnister.
(37.) “I respectfully report that on the date of August 9, this year, a group of approx. 2,000 of the Jews who fled together with the Soviet armies arrived at Roscov. These Jews were collected from the area by Romanian army and sent to their homes. (…) I request orders for the marching troops to no longer congregate Jews and send them back, but rather to push them farther (east), otherwise we will fill the Dnister bank toward the Ukraine with all the Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina.” (p.104)
(38.) “I respectfully report that in Edinti village, County Hotin, there are approximately 10,000 Jews. These live in abandoned homes, in great squalor. They have no soap, no possibility to wash or delouse. Among them are many sick persons. The Jews are not isolated or guarded, and constitute a focus of infection and a permanent hazard to passing persons and military forces. (…) I respectfully request your goodwill in ordering the Inspectorate of Cernauti to send the Commandant of the Hotin Legion himself to these locations in order to organize the guarding of these camps, and the conclusive organization of a method of provision.” (p.105)
(39.) “The Soroca Gendarme Legion reports that on the 5th of August, the Germans moved 3,000 of 12,000 Jews, who had crossed the Dnister at Moghilev, back across the Dnister to Atachi. The return of the others is anticipated. Issue an order that halts them in a camp further back.” (p.102)
(40.) “The Soroca Gendarme Legion reports that on the night of August 4–5 this year, on the Lipnic–Atachi Highway, there are c. 20,000 Jews amassed from Hotin and Storojinet. They can no longer pass through Moghilev, being refused by Germans. The order was given for their return to those respective legions.” (p.102)
(41.) “Through the point of Atachi Hotin, 570 Jews who willingly fled Bessarabia, as well as 50 Ukrainian undesirables, were sent back.” (p.102)
(42.) “We report that on the night of August 17–18, 1941, 12,500 Jews were passed from the Ukraine into Bessarabia. Issue the order via telegraph to immediately return them across the Dnister into the Ukraine.” (p.111)
It is not hard to imagine the human tragedy hidden behind these emotionless statements, the tragedy of tens of thousands of Jews who left themselves being deceived by Bolshevik propaganda and abandoned their homes! But, I this case, what responsibility falls upon the Romanian authorities for the fate of these unfortunates? Why does not one Jewish author lament about the foolishness of those who abandoned Bessarabia and Bukovina as enemies of the Romanian People, or the infamy of those who manipulated them in this way? Thus, it is known that Jews, when they act en masse, act according to someone’s council, and not always according to the Rabbi from Buhusi! Why do the Jews not attempt to identify those who planned such hostile behavior toward Romanians? The drama of the Jews devoured in Transnistria must be investigated from this point of view as well! This is the drama of the responsibility of those Jews who lead the other Jews to do that which they have done, attracting consequences upon them for the guilt of the former! Sometimes the guilty are primarily Jews, Jewish communists, false prophets of the all-victoriously Bolshevism!
Considering this disloyal behavior of the majority of Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina, we are not so strongly surprised by the declarations of Mihai Antonescu:
(43.) “I am for the forced migration of the entire Jewish element (emphasis added) from Bessarabia and Bukovina, which must be kicked across the border. I am also for the forced migration of the Ukrainian element, who doesn’t have a reason to be here at this time.” (p.96)
This is about, nota bene, emigration rather than extermination. Of course, many Jews did not deserve such treatment, but when the majority of Jews willingly “migrated” to the USSR in order to escape lawful punishment, the other Jews could not expect a response detached from these unexpected events, from this inadmissible Jewish behavior.
Of interest are the documents that present (44.) “the state of Jewish colonies and villages, marking the houses, gardens, properties and industrial assets remained from the Jews who fled to the USSR.” (p.113) From these can be deduced that only the abandoned properties of Jewish “refugees” to the Soviet Union, virtual “deserters”, were placed under a system of confiscation!
Communiqué (“Timpul”, November 6, 1942):
(44.) “In the city of Bacau, a number of Jews , with the complicity of certain corrupt functionaries, have tried to procure acts that prove participation in the war of 1916–1919, in the line of fire.
The Jews were immediately sent to Transnistria, and the functionaries, after executing the punishment decreed by the courts, will be interned for two years in a work camp.
It is thereby declared to the general public, via this medium, that a period of two months, from the issue of this statement, has been accorded for all Jews or foreigners who have used false acts to declare this to the Interior Minister. Upon the expiration of this term, those discovered to be using such documents will be sent to Transnistria, in the case of Jews, or deported, in the case of foreigners.” (p.270)
(46.) “It has been established that Jews seek to flee from the villages where they have been settled, heading into the nation, even though by Order no. 23 of Transnistria Government, all of these are being considered spies and treated accordingly.” (p.332)
(47.) “It has been advertised that a group of German soldiers from Moghilau have begun to bring Jews to the nation, in exchange for sums of 50,000–60,000 lei per person. (…) The Jews are transported in German vehicles, under the pretext that they are being sent to work. A portion of these Jews have even arrived in Bucharest.” (p.332)
(48.) “The Third Army has ordered to us the following measures to be taken in order to prevent Jews from continuing to abandon the colonies and internment camps:(…) in each colony one Jew who has been repeatedly caught leaving the designated location is to be executed.” (p.371)
(49.) “Order no. 23:
Given that in Transnistria territory there is a great Jewish population, which has been evacuated from various war zones, in order to assure the rear areas;
Given the necessity of organizing the collective sustenance of this evacuated population;
Given that this population must be able to find a means of living by their own enterprise and labor (emphasis added);
On the basis of the powers decreed by Act no. 1 of August 1941, issued at Tighina,
We order:
(…) Jews will be housed, with consideration of the number of members in a family, in domiciles abandoned by Russian or Jewish refugees. Each Jewish family that receives a home will be responsible for its immediate restoration and upkeep. (…) In exchange for work actually rendered, a laborer will receive a food stamp equal in value to one working day, a day of work considered to be worth a mark per day for a manual worker, and 2 marks per day for a qualified professional worker. (…) Any Jew found in other village than their fixed domiciles, without the approval of the authorities, will be considered a spy and condemned immediately, according to the military laws in a time of war.” (p.407-408)
(50.) Law no. 688, 22 September 1942:
“The death penalty is instituted for Jews of both sexes, over 15 years of age, deported to Transnistria, who illegally enter the country.” (p.410)
This penalty was instituted, but not once applied.
What can be learned from the preceding documents? We believe that it is very clear the fact that Jews did not arrive in Transnistria because they were Jews, but due to the fact that they were guilty of having committed a crime punishable by law. This included Jews and other foreigners, as well as Romanians themselves. If he had been able, Antonescu would have deported these recalcitrant Jews to other countries. That’s why he allowed them to leave for Palestine. On November 22, 1942, long before the sudden turn that the fate of war would take at Stalingrad, when, therefore, the hopes of an Axis victory were still real, Radu Lecca, charged with the “Jewish problem” by the Romanian Government, called a meeting with all the Jewish leaders in order to express the proposal of the government that all the Jews in Transnistria to be repatriated, returned from the camps with the condition that they emigrate immediately! Where, one may ask, in Nazi-occupied Europe did Jews receive such an offer?!
Who were these Jews that became so undesirable to the Romanian Government? We quote a document signed by the Interior Minister:
(51.) “The following categories of Jews have been evacuated to Transnistria:
1. Communist agitators
2. Those evacuated from Bessarabia and Bukovina
3. Those who requested repatriation in the USSR
4. Those against the writ regarding the obligatory labor.” (p.451)
As for Jewish communists deported only because they were known to be “communist agitators”, we learn that they lived “unrestricted in Transnistria or in the Vapniarca camp”, their punishment consisting of “not being allowed to return to the nation.” (p.451) They were prohibited in Romania. Other punishments were not applied! They were persona non grata ! What harm was in this? How is such a measure racist, anti-Semitic or criminal?
(52.) “In the Slivina camp there were the following categories of Jews:
1. Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina who retreated from those provinces together with the Soviet troops.
2. Jews of Transnistrian origin.
3. Jews from the nation who committed infractions and were punished with internment.
4. Jewish habitual criminals who were sent to us by the Police Prefect of the Capital.” (p.450)
(53.) “The deportation of Jews from Bukovina and Bessarabia to Transnistria was a political measure (emphasis added), and of those from the rest of the country was foreseen as a sanction for those who did not fulfill their obligations to the state.” (p.453)
From the Cartea Neagra we learn that the following were also “evacuated”:
(54.) “Christians interned on the basis of differing sentences given in civil and military trials as well as Christians specifically sent on the basis of other decisions.” (p.437)
In order to understand the motivation of the Romanian authorities, we must also consider Law 791 of 1941, according to which:
(55.) “These shall forfeit their Romanian citizenship:
– Those who request, after June 28, 1940, a return to the ceded territories; (…)
– Those who committed antagonistic acts against the Romanian People, who damaged Romanian interests or publicly demonstrated hostile sentiments toward the people or the nation, during the evacuation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina or after this effective date.” (p. 405)
Who could pretend that this law was racist, criminal, anti-Semitic? In its principles, this law is at al times and all places applicable, as it connects the nationality (or, more properly, citizenship) to loyalty, condition that is perfectly normal for any righteous state.
Matatias Carp also recorded the reaction of General Picky Vasiliu, the Interior Minister, when confronted with the “invasion” of Jews from Poland and Hungary, who combined with some hundreds of Jews from France:
(56.) “Romania cannot receive all the Jews. Each Jew must deal with his fate in his own nation.” (p. 469)
Therefore, in light of the fact that Jews from all of Europe dreamed of arriving and living in Romania – which was synonymous with survival, the lack of loyalty of Jews who took part in anti-Romanian actions, in the interest of Russian Bolshevism,
is both unfathomable and condemnable even today, sixty years later.
(57.) “The General Inspectorate of the Gendarmes have been informed that offices charged with the execution of these operations (military and civilian) have committed a series of abuses, and large sums of money and valuables taken from Jews, without being destined for accounts, have been found on some of these persons. With the purpose of discovering these, you must proceed even to inquiries and perquisition.” (p.197)
(58.) “Drawing Your Honor’s attention to the above, I pray your grace in appreciating and deciding the measures that are to be taken because the above-named administrative functionaries have been guilty of the following infractions:
1. Moral: They have embezzled and created funds which profoundly insult National Pride via the subversion of orders meant to clear the nation of hostile Jewish elements and those who represent a danger to state security. (emphasis added)
2. Penal: The abuse of power, Articles 245–248 of the Penal Code; bribery, Articles 250–251 of the Penal Code; unjustly takeovers, Articles 238–241 of the Penal Code; violation of the articles of the Laws of Public Accountability.” (p.199)
As we have stated above, there are more than a few documents which denote that the Romanian authorities, learning about the abuses and infractions which certain public officials committed against Jews, correctly reacted against these abuses, even when the victims were “hostile Jewish elements and those who represent a danger to state security.” One even arrives in the following situation: the authorities realized that the evacuated Jews, terrified by the situation in which they found themselves, supported abuses and did not have the courage to protest them. Thus the secret services resorted to an ingenious stratagem: the placement of a Jew, a security agent, among the Jews in the camp in order to discover the abuses produced against those Jews:
(59.) “There has been, and continues to be, a commission not only of abuses on the part of local authorities, but also the intervention of private persons who, abusing the circumstances in which the Jews from Moghilau find themselves, cheat them of great amounts of money, promising them removal from that region, or the delivery of foodstuffs, letters, etc. In order to identify these abuses and particularly those who practice them (emphasis added) it is absolutely necessary to plant agents in that region who can keep us informed of everything that happens in that region. Keeping in mind that Jews, even when swindled, do not complain and do not denounce the authorities who cheat them, I propose that the agent to be sent to Moghilau should be of Jewish origin, (…) with the mission of informing you of all abuses committed in connection with the evacuated Jews.” (p. 347)
The document cited is from January 8, 1942, from the Head of the Special Office of the Gendarmerie, that is, a week after the murder of the 260,000 Jews recorded in the courtyard of the Coral Temple in Bucharest! The Romanian Gendarmerie has often been cited as one of the authors of the holocaust in Romania! How it is possible that this Gendarmerie, the murderer of tens of thousands of Jews, is at the same time concerned about abuses committed against the Jewish evacuees?!
Let us also note the information contained in the published document on pages 129–130:
(60.) “Commandants of the Legion, together with administrative authorities, will endow each convoy with 50 wagons, which will transport baggage and the infirm, unable to execute a march. (…) For the officers conducting the convoys, we inform them to alert the escort not to steal from the Jews, and those who commit such crimes will be shot (emphasis added). The received order includes measures for the convoys and the execution by firing squad of those who steal.” (emphasis added)
Where is the criminal attitude of the Romanian civilian and military authorities?
The Cartea Neagra also contains some memos to the Jewish Central of Romania edited by S. Jägendorf, President of the Jewish Commission of Moghilau, a village in Transnistria often mentioned in connection with the Jewish evacuees, tens of thousands of whom passed through that respective region. Therefore, it concerns texts and the messages of a Jew from Transnistria to the Jews in Bucharest. The content of these notes refers, of course, to the problems, misfortunes and sufferings of the Jews in Transnistria, more or less recent. But nothing, absolutely nothing in the texts agrees with the idea that in Transnistria, by the hands or by the guilt of the Romanian authorities, tens of thousands of Jews died; in fact, not tens of thousands died, not even hundreds or thousands of Jews!
Only in the declarations of one M. Katz, former President of the Jewish Commission of Moghilau, which were made after the assumption of power by communists, both Jewish and Romanian, do we encounter the stunning affirmations that twist the psyche: (61.) “Those interned in the camps, not having the possibility of re-supply with food, fed themselves with human excrement, and later, human corpses. The number of the dead in this camp approached a percentage of 80%, the other 20% succeeding to escape.” (p. 380) I believe that the complete publication of the recollections of “Mr. M. Katz” would be useful in order to understand the psychology that gave birth, after the war, to the images of soap from the fat of Jews, the lampshades from the skin of Jews, or the bodies of Jews hung, as kosher meat, in the slaughterhouse! The memories of Mr. M. Katz would make a beautiful pair to the grave statements of the state’s witnesses at the so-called Trial of the Great National Treason, also present in a fragmentary form in the Cartea Neagra. Of course, in any serious discussion, these texts cannot be considered to possess the quality of honesty.
We do accord such value, however, to the notes and memoirs forwarded to the government after his return from Transnistria by Dr. Wilhelm Filderman, “the true lieder of the Jewish People,” as named by Matatias Carp. The subject of those intercessions: the return to the nation of Jews from Transnistria, particularly of orphans. There is no further mention of the mass murder of Jews, or of atrocities committed against Jews from that point on! Exactly the opposite occurred: the return of the deported and expelled Jews from Transnistria was necessary because the movement of the front lines would expose those Jews to the peril of death both on the part of the Germans, then in retreat, as well as on the part of the Soviets, then on the offensive. Therefore, these are requests for Jews to benefit from the regime that Romanians had always placed upon Jews, a regime, in those historic times, of protection! In such a memoir, W. Filderman gives us the real figures of Jewish survivors in Transnistria!
It must be appreciated that the Jews have always attempted to avoid any census taken by foreigners, from various motives, one being duties and taxation. Many experts appreciate that in the inter-war Romania there were many more Jews than were listed in the 1930 census. And today it is the same, Jews in Romania are more numerous and have a different age distribution than appears in official statistics.
In reference to the number of Jewish survivors in Transnistria, at the time that they asked for the return of Jews to the nation, the leadership of the Jewish communities was interested in the presentation of actual figures, because for these Jews arrangements for transport and living quarters in Romania needed to be made. These Jews, in the groups returned to the nation, were to be numbered by the authorities. Thus, the number of Jewish survivors in Transnistria, until then “fixed” at 50,000, begins to…grow:
(62.) “Between 1941–1943, due to the epidemics that erupted and the impossibility of medical assistance and prophylaxis, a number of these Jews died and, from a statistic made on September 1, 1945, of 110,033 Jews deported, some 50,741 have remained.” (p. 464), as presented in a document from the Interior Minister.
(63.) “According to figures issued by the Interior Minister on November 10,” as stated in a letter from the architect H. Clejan to Marshall Ion Antonescu, “on February 2, 1944, 55,000 of 110,000 Jewish deportees still remained. Of these, 6,300 people from Dorohoi and 700 political deportees were repatriated, totaling c. 7000 repatriated, therefore there remain 48,000. But from the data collected by the Commission, 58,000 should have remained.” (p. 473)
Finally, according to W. Filderman:
(64.) “There are not more than 78,000 Jews in Transnistria.” (p. 463), a figure which, if we add the 7,000 repatriated according to H. Clejan, results in the number of 85,000 Jews still found in Transnistria in the beginning of 1944, of the 110,000 initially evacuated. The difference would have been of c. 25,000 missing Jews. But “missing” does not necessarily mean “dead”, and “dead” does not necessarily mean murdered by Romanian authorities! It is known to the whole world how easily the Jews – especially the young ones – could disappear from the so-called camps in Transnistria. And many, it is known, clandestinely left in order to return to the country, to Bucharest. Some Jews made this trip, paying for this, in the trucks of the SS troops! Therefore, the figure of 25,000 is too large for those who, according to the counting made in the courtyard at the Coral Temple, have grown to 180,000!
Let us see what “ missing Jews” means for the Romanian authorities:
(65.) “It is confirmed that Jews seek to flee from the villages where they are situated, heading toward the country, even though by Order no. 23 of Transnistria Government, all of these are considered to be spies and treated accordingly. Orders have been given to the gendarmes for the pursuit and capture of these missing Jews.” (p. 332) As for these “missing Jews”, however many or few there were, Matatias Carp and those who came after him do not wish to know a thing! The greatest numbers of the holocaust supporters don’t even mention this category of Jews.
Let us mention yet another selection from a text addressed by Radu Lecca to the Jewish Central of Romania:
(66.) “Therefore we invite you to intensify collections for a speedy and substantial relief of your religious brethren, knowing that complete responsibility for the neglect of obligations that are exclusively the duties of the Jewish communities falls upon you (emphasis added), with all the consequences of such neglect of these responsibilities.” (p. 387)
Is this not the occasion, at least now, to clarify which are these pertinent obligations? The obligations of the Jewish community in Bucharest toward Jews from Transnistria who awaited the packages! Which packages? Perhaps those bought with money sent by Occidental Jews, particularly from America, to Bucharest in order to help the Jews in Transnistria?
As it is known – but by only a few persons – both before August of 1944, as well as after, important Jewish personalities have been accused, in penal processes, of the theft of funds marked for the Jews in Transnistria. Why does Judaism prefer to remain silent about this episode? Are there not texts written and signed by the individuals proven to be dishonest, larcenous and deceitful in these trials somehow considered to be accurate historical testimony at the Holocaust Museum? Let us note that after 1944, Radu Lecca, arrested and interrogated by the Securitate, was confronted with Misu Benvenisti, one of the Jewish leaders involved in the relief efforts from Bucharest for the Jews in Transnistria.
Misu Benvenisti was for many long years the leader of Zionist Jews in Romania. The confrontation between these two is rewritten from the Securitate Archives (SRI), by Teodor Wexler and Mihaela Popov in the already-cited work Anchete si Procese Uitate, Volume I, pp. 326–-332. What we can learn from this extraordinary scene of confrontation between a leader of the Antonescu Regime, trusted with the resolution of the “Jewish problem”, Radu Lecca, and Misu Benvenisti, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Romania, leader of the Zionist Jews? The former, in front of the officer-inspector of the Securitate, brings the following accusations which Benvenisti does not refute:
1. Misu Benvenisti was a friend of Mihai Antonescu, the no. 2 man in the so-called Nazi military dictatorship;
2. Misu Benvenisti (67.) “was to travel as the courier of Mihai Antonescu to neutral nations, in order to convince Jews from these nations and America that here in Romania Jews were defended by Mihai Antonescu and his government (emphasis added). Mr. Benvenisti effusively agreed to this, according all merit to Mihai Antonescu. In an ulterior discussion, Mihai Antonescu communicated to Benvenisti that the interests of both Jews and Romanians demand that Romania be occupied by Anglo-American troops, and not Soviets, a statement that Benvenisti enthusiastically supported.”
3. “Mr. Benvenisti obtained massive amounts of money from his religious brethren in foreign lands, in order to support the unfortunate Jews in Transnistria and to support the movement of the youth preparing to colonize Palestine. From this money Mr. Benvenisti did not utilize one leu in the abovementioned scope.” (emphasis added) (cit. p. 330)
4. “Mr. Benvenisti during the entire existence of the Central was protected by Mr. Mihai Antonescu.” (ibid.)
5. Benvenisti, in letters sent to the West, “maintains that together with his halutimii (young Jews who prepared to colonize Palestine – our note), will destroy bridges and will liberate prisoners from the Polish camps. I have never taken these affirmations seriously, I knew that they intended only to collect money from foreign sources for acts of imaginary heroism (…) Charlatans, not heroes!” (emphasis added)
During this confrontation, when Misu Benvenisti attempted to respond to the accusations, Radu Lecca asked, “Can Mr. Benvenisti name one individual or institution which received monetary help from his self?” The question remained unanswered!
How do these affirmations about the leader of Zionist Jews in Romania correspond with the holocaust theory? How was it possible for the leader of the Zionists to be the good friend of the leader of a government that put to death almost 300,000 Jews?

9. The Courtyard of Lies?

If one wishes to trust the figures located in the courtyard of the Coral Temple in Bucharest – figures which, we have no doubt, are precisely the same as at the Holocaust Museum in the American capital – there are several issues that must be explained. These numbers at once accuse “German, Romanian and Hungarian Fascists”, that which provokes from the very beginning the following question: what was the actual contribution of the “Romanian fascists”, fascists who were first and foremost Romanian? We shall not say that to the degree that a Romanian is fascist he ceases being Romanian. Lately I have encountered such absurd sophistry: Jewish communists, who revealed themselves through their crimes and abuses, before or after 1944, to the degree that they were communist, they cease being Jewish – “these persons ceased being Jewish when they entered in the ranks of the Communist Party (Wexler, Teodor, and Popov, Mihaela, cit. op. p. 10).” Applying this principle, that is, removing the Jewish communists from the multitude called Jews, would mean to severely diminish the number of Jews “maliciously slain”. It appears, however, that Jewish communists become good Jews when they are suppressed in any way, but cease being Jewish when they are found guilty of crimes and deception. As a mental exercise, can we not imagine what would remain of the entire holocaust saga if the Germans would have said that “these persons ceased being German when they entered in the ranks of the Nazi Party”!… The entirety of the “holo-cash” would completely disappear!
We do not ever think of attempting to evade the responsibility for the deeds of anterior generations, of our Romanian parents and ancestors! Good or bad, being Romanian is a characteristic with which you are born and can never remove! It is even less possible to cut this root in order to gain some advantage or privilege! I am Romanian and nothing Romanian is foreign to me!
This is why, we request that all who accuse us of crimes, of genocide, at least do this in more exact terms. Of the c. 400,000 Jews “maliciously slain” at the courtyard of the Coral Temple, for example, tell us how many were Jews murdered by Germans or Hungarians, and how many were Jews murdered by Romanians? (We renounce the use of the determinant fascist, which implies an attempt to move the responsibility into the hands of another. Let us be realistic: at this time, the world and public opinion is judging on simple and fundamental terms: Jews, Germans, Romanians, etc.).
If these circumstances are clear for the Hungarians, i.e. c. 130,000 victims among the Jews, the responsibility for the rest (c. 270,000) would fall on the Germans and Romanians. In the above-mentioned text signed by Nicolae Minei Grünberg, it is stated that in Transnistria the Germans would have killed many more times the number of Jews as did Romanians (“a multitude”, writes the author). At Yassy, in the book prefaced by Nicolae Minei Grünberg, the same conclusion is deduced, that the pogrom was mainly planed and executed by Germans. Documents presented in the Cartea Neagra give about the same result, both at Yassy and in Transnistria. We thereby consider that, in order to be taken seriously, the accusers of Romanians must be more exact and must tell us how many victims are due to Romanians and how many are due to Germans!
We have already accepted that this entire process of mass murder was instrumented without revealing the body of a victim or even the name of a victim! In the vast majority of cases, of the 270,000 Jews “maliciously slain by German and Romanian fascists”, neither a single corpse nor a list of the dead has been presented. Only numbers!
We accepted that the basis for the calculation was taken from the 1930 Census, even though it is known that after 1930 many Jews left Bessarabia for America! Especially wealthy Jews who were warned about what could happen in the future. The case of the family of the man who would become the well-known journalist Walter Lipman was not at all unique. But it appears to us that the accused are far too often identified singularly: German or Romanian fascists. We wish to know how many of the 260,000 Jews who do not count for in acts and who are considered to have been “maliciously slain” were the victims of Romanian malice!
As long as the explanation of this figure does not concern the accusers, their accusation shall have no validity!
Unfortunately, the above phrase is valid only between persons of reason, persons of good faith. And in the world in which we live, such persons are very rare, the majority of persons living and thinking under their mental regimen more emotional than rational. Thus it has finally transpired that, from all that is written in the courtyard of the Coral Temple, the “world” has read an even shorter statement, which almost all the mass-media now expresses: “Of 6,000,000 Jews, 400,000 died in Romania”, murdered, it is deduced, by Romanians! We ourselves must respond in front of the world to these accusations! You can number on one hand the people who, upon reading the text from the memorial, would object: “Fine, but of these 400,000 Jews, how many were murdered by Romanians themselves or the Romanian authorities?”
We therefore make the demand, which is absolutely legitimate, that (1.) the Jews murdered by Romanians be “inventoried” at the courtyard of the Coral Temple, separate from Jews murdered by Germans and Hungarians!
And among those Jews, it would do no harm to tell us (2.) how many were communists, therefore no longer Jews when Antonescu deported and killed them! Because it appears that a Jew, at the moment when he enrolls in the Communist Party, he is growing the “missing piece”!
Otherwise, as can now be seen, the text from the above-mentioned courtyard, a veritable courtyard of lies, (sic!), is an erroneous and misleading text, which manipulates the perception of the unwary reader, planting in his mind the idea that Romania, that is, the Romanians, murdered 400,000 Jews. Under these conditions, we should not be surprised that other, more “informed” authors have raised the figure to 700,000 Jews “maliciously slain by Romanian fascists”, that is, Romanians.
Let us once again note that the 130,000 Jews “maliciously slain by Hungarian fascists” are properly registered, with names and addresses, with the date and location of death well established. In contrast, not even the names of the 270,000 Jews that remain attributed to “German and Romanian fascists” are know, only the number deduced from the comparison of figures. The figure that begins the calculation represents the Jews counted in 1930. How accurate was this figure, from 1930, in 1941?
Additionally, this concerns persons about whom we know nothing positive: their names, their addresses, where they died, why no remains were discovered, how was mentioned their death, etc. It is well known that Jews keep meticulous and exact registers of births and deaths! Unfortunately and inexplicably, these registers are not accessible to those investigating the “holocaust” in Romania! Such an attitude is neither understandable nor acceptable! To say that this is unacceptable means to refuse to take seriously the accusations coming from those who do not open the archives for an exhaustive examination of those documents! Such persons cannot be partners to a dialogue between honest and decent persons.
Let us further add, that is underline, the fact that there have already been criminal trials for the murder of Jews in Yassy and Transnistria, and these judiciary processes have established that German military authorities are responsible for the great majority of Jews murdered or disappeared at Yassy and in Transnistria, and those responsible paid with their lives or their freedom for their deeds!
We solicit the same treatment for the Romanians. As the participants at the symposium Holocaust in Romania?, it is incomprehensible why, on the part of the assigned Israeli authorities, there is no interest to identify the Romanians guilty of committing the crimes blamed on Romanians. The crime of genocide does not expire! With all this, no one has striven to find and punish all of the guilty. There were certain processes that condemned the so-called moral authors. But as for the properly-called perpetrators, those who implemented the political crimes “in the field”, no one has labored to find them out, to punish them and to finally establish how many Jews, and when, where and how they were murdered by Romanian fascists. And especially, who were these Romanian fascists, i.e. names and addresses, etc. We find ourselves in the 20th Century, a century much bureaucratized! And yet we cannot present either the body of the victim, or the name of the victim, or even the name of the criminal! And it is thus for over 250,000 cases! This is not somehow a bit too imprecise for such a grave accusation? A greater accusation is, after all, not possible.