Odessa massacre

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The Odessa massacre was the extermination of Jews in Odessa and surrounding towns in Transnistria during the autumn of 1941 and the winter of 1942 in a series of massacres and killings during the Holocaust by German and Romanian forces. Depending on the definition, it can either refer to the events of October 22 - October 24, 1941 in which between 25,000 and 34,000 Jews were shot or burned alive, or to the murder of well over 100,000 Ukrainian Jews in the town and the areas between Dniestr and Bug rivers, over the course of the Romanian and German occupation.

1 Before the massacre
2 Massacres of October 22-24
3 Further massacres of the Jews of Odessa
4 Defining the Odessa massacres
5 The trial of war criminals
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Before the massacre

Odessa had a large Jewish population of approximately 180,000, or 30% of the total, before the war. By the time that the Germans and Romanians had taken the city, between 80,000 and 90,000 Jews remained, the rest having fled or been evacuated by the Soviets. As the massacres occurred, Jews from surrounding villages would be concentrated in Odessa and Romanian concentration camps set up in surrounding areas.

On October 16, the Germans and the Romanians marched into Odessa following the Soviet evacuation.

One week later on October 22, a bomb detonated in the Romanian HQ, killing the Romanian commander, 16 officers, 9 non-commissioned officers and public servants, and 35 soldiers.

General Ion Antonescu ordered from Bucharest that for every killed Romanian and German officer, 200 Jews were to be killed, and for every soldier, 100 were to be executed. One person was to be taken hostage from every Jewish family. The order, no. 302.826 demanded “immediate retaliatory action, including the liquidation of 18,000 Jews in the ghettos and the hanging in the town squares of at least 100 Jews for every regimental sector."

[edit] Massacres of October 22-24

Blaming the Jews incorrectly for the massacre, and using it as an excuse, the Romanians begin the slaughter of 5,000 Jews in Odessa, on October 23, first shooting them in groups of 30-40 or hanging them.

In the afternoon, more than 25,000 Jews were assembled and taken out to the gates of Dalnik. When they reached the gates, 50 people were moved into the trenches and shot by Lieutenant-Colonel Nicolae Deleanu himself. The Romanians were concerned that the killing would take too long a time and moved the rest of the Jews (approximately 22,000) inside four large storage buildings in which they made holes for machine guns. The doors were closed and the Lieutenant-Colonel Nicolae Deleanu ordered the soldiers to fire into the buildings. In order to make sure that nobody had survived, they set the buildings on fire at 17:00 hours. The next day grenades were thrown into one of the buildings. Other Jews were herded into the harbor square, sprinkled with gasoline, and set on fire. Over 22,000 corpses were found in mass graves after the war.

Around 35,000 – 40,000 of the Jews that remained were moved into the ghetto in the suburb of Slobodka where most of the buildings were destroyed, and left outdoors for ten days, between October 25 and November 3, and many Jews froze to death.

[edit] Further massacres of the Jews of Odessa

On October 28, a new massacre was started when 4,000-5,000 Jews were herded into stables and shot. By the end of December an additional 50,000 Jews from the concentration camp at Bogdanovka had been killed. One month later, 10,000 were taken on a death march to the three concentration camps in Golta.

In January, the extermination was ended, by killing those who remained in Slobodka. From January 12-23, the last 19,582 Jews were transported in cattle wagons to Berezovka from where they were transported to the concentration camps in Golta. Eighteen months later almost everyone had died in Golta.

[edit] Defining the Odessa massacres

Although these facts are not doubted by historians, some accounts differ (often greatly) in the numbers, partially due to different definitions of what constituted the Odessa massacres, as opposed to other acts of genocide in Transnistria carried out by the Germans, Romanians, and their allies.

The official report on the Romanian role in the Holocaust states that in the city of Odessa from October 18, 1941 until mid-March 1942, the Romanian military, aided by local authorities, murdered up to 25,000 Jews and deported over 35,000, most of whom were later killed. The report also details 50,000 Jews killed in Bogdanovka, and tens of thousands more in Golta and the surrounding areas. The Jewish Virtual Library cites figures of 34,000 Jews murdered during October 22-25, and the US Holocaust Museum concludes that "Romanian and German forces killed almost 100,000 Jews in Odessa during the occupation of the city."

[edit] The trial of war criminals

The trial of massacres perpetrated in occupied Odessa and nearby Dalnic on October 21-22, 1941 has been the first trial at the Bucharest People’s Tribunal. It was ended on 22 May 1945. General Nicolae Macici was found guilty of the massacres, and was sentenced to death. Other twenty-eight members of the occupying Romanian forces received prison sentences, the harshest of which were for life and the lightest for one year behind bars. On 1 July 1945, King Michael I commuted Macici’s sentence to life imprisonment; Macici would eventually die in Aiud prison in 1950.