1. The Pogrom and Death-Trains from Iasi

Only one week after the outbreak of the war, during the period from June 29th, to July 1st 1941, a pogrom took place in Iasi, organized with premeditation by the Romanian authorities and Nazi Germans.

A rumor was launched as a diversion, namely that the Jews had shot at Romanian and German soldiers and that they had transmitted luminous signs to Soviet airplanes. The reports drawn up by the police of the city Iasi proved the inconsistency of such rumors and defamation and ascertained clearly that not even one Romanian or German soldier had been killed or injured.

In the memorial, presented on the 2nd of July 1941 to General Antonescu, by General Leoveanu Emanoil, general director of the police it is said:

"No injured and no dead existed in the Romanian troops which were supposedly shot at, and no bullet signs were found on the houses or windows

Nor had the Germans any dead or injured. Consequently the so called attack was a simulacrum executed with toy arms (at the place cartridges of this category were found, and crackers which simulated the firing of automatic arms)"

"I suppose that the attackers were legionaries and thieves who wanted to produce panic, in view to devastate subsequently. They could disappear in the dark without being discovered." ¹)

But let us see how events took place.

The shots, plunders and crimes against the Jews had begun sporadically since June 27th and 28th, 1941.

In the morning of Sunday, the June 29th 1941, the megaphones of the local authorities called the Jews to present themselves at the police station, to be given some certificates. Some of the Jews showed up freely, others were fetched by force.

At the police station, the Jews, several thousands, were plundered, beaten and tortured. Then, the shooting at the crowd started, a big number of victims were found in the courtyard of the police station. Those who succeeded to run away were caught, beaten to blood and brought back together with other Jews found in the city. Thus the ferocious massacre went on for many hours.

In some quarters and public squares of the city, plunders, tortures and assassinations against the Jews took place too.

These massacres were made by Romanian and German militaries, to which déclassé elements of the local population joined.

The Jews, who survived the massacre at the police station, were formed in columns and led to the railway station. During the night and the next morning, they were embarked in two "death trains", 100-150 persons crowded in cattle wagons, hardly being able to stand person beside person, tormented by the suffocating heat, thirst and lack of air. About 5,000 Jews were transported in these trains for several days, to Podul Iloaiei respectively Calarasi

Most of them succumbed in unimaginable conditions, many of them coming up to drink their own urine or to lose their minds before dying.

Over all Europe the Jews were exterminated by different methods: gassing, shooting, starving etc. But embarking Jews in hermetically closed cattle wagons, with lattice windows covered at the outside by boards, and killing them through suffocation and dehydration was a method used only in Romania.

Unlike the behavior of the criminals from Iasi, we want to mention that of the Romanian woman, Viorica Agarici, who in the railway station Roman succeeded to convince the guard to open the wagon doors and give the dying and thirsty Jews water.

As Dr. Alexandru Safran, The Great Rabbi of Geneva says, this woman, as many other Romanian saviors, represents "the Romanian soul in those times of Jewish suffering".

Among the survivors of the death train from Podul Ilioaiei, as an irony of the fate, was the citizen Marcu Traian, a Christian Romanian, thrown by error by the criminals in this train. After establishing his identity on the basis of his wedding certificate No. 47/1940 the gendarmes allowed him to return home.

Iancu Tucherman (b. Oct 30, 1922, Iasi - ) Photo Credit: The editor

Among the survivors of the train Iasi-Podul Ilioaiei is Eng. Iancu Tucherman, actually residing in Bucharest. That's how this witness describes what happened in the wagon where he was embarked; "We were crowded in wagons, 100-150 persons. I was embarked in a wagon in with other 137 persons.

In the wagon in which I got, like in many other wagons, there was a layer of cow- manure on the floor, and over it lime powder was spread.

A worker of the railway station, dressed with a specific uniform and a red cap, saw that the small shutters of the wagon were opened inwardly. He brought a ladder and some planks, and closed from outside all these small windows, reducing like this the possibility to have any fresh air in the wagon.

The train started. The manure and lime gave out a terrible heat. All of us, closed in the wagon, began to strip our clothes, some remaining after a time even in the nude. Then we realized that something tragic would happen. The train continued its way with numerous stops and shunting to secondary lines. It was a very hot summer; the heat in the wagon became unbearable. Without air and water, after the first half-hour we had the first victim.

Some, very thirsty, began to drink their own urine, some got mad flinging themselves over others, looking in despair and delirium for a bit of water from one end of the wagon to the other. You could not know who is dead or who was still alive.

At 2 PM after nine hours of torment, which seemed to me eternity, the train stopped in Podu Ilioaiei, a small railway station. The doors of the wagon opened. From our wagon only 8 survivors got out, the rest of 129 had passed away, suffocated and dehydrated".

It has to be mentioned that the death train to Calarasi reached to the destination after 7 days.

The survivors of the death trains were interned in the camps as Podu Ilioaiei and Calarasi, and could return home only after six months.

The total number of victims of the pogrom from Iasi and the death trains, as established by the judiciary investigation, was nearly 8.000 people. ²)

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¹⁾ See, M. Carp: "The Black Book," vol. II, p. 119, Diogene Publishing House, 1996.
See also, Dinu G. Giurescu, Historical Magazine No. 11 (368), November 1997.

²⁾ See, "Martyrdom of Jews from Romania," p. 7, Hasefer Publishing House, 1991.