Romania's Iași pogrom, one of the worst massacres of Jews during World War II

The Holocaust saw the cold-blooded murder of 6 million Jews. The worst of the tragedy took place in eastern Europe: in Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and Romania. It's estimated that up to 380,000 Jews were killed in Romania: most by the police, but some by ordinary citizens, with the complicity of the dictatorship led by Ion Antonescu. One of the most violent episodes was the Iași pogrom in the summer of 1941.

When Romania, an ally of the Third Reich, sent its army into neighbouring Moldova which was occupied by Soviet forces, the Soviets bombed the city in revenge. Iași was a cradle of several fascist and anti-Semitic movements and the Jewish population was immediately targeted in retaliation, accused of being Communist spies. The police then attacked and were joined by mobs taking up pickaxes and sticks. Many Jewish people were rounded up and shot dead at the police headquarters, or thrown into so-called death trains, where they were crammed one on top of the another in atrocious conditions – many dying of heat, hunger, thirst and suffocation. A tenth of the population of Iași – more than 13,000 people – was massacred in the space of just a few days.

Beyond historians, most people in Romania know little about these atrocities. A law has just been passed to make the education of the Holocaust compulsory in schools, but it has not yet been implemented.   

Meanwhile, the country's far-right party is gaining in strength and took almost 10 percent of the vote in December 2020 elections. Some are nostalgic for what is known as the "Greater Romania" of the interwar period. 

Drone images: Octavian Coman

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