German-Rumanian Anti-Jewish Policy in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume XXVI

The Escalation of German-Rumanian Anti-Jewish Policy after the Attack on the Soviet Union

The article deals with the deportation of Jews from Bukovina and Bessarabia, the massacre near the Yampol Bridge (over the Dniester River), and the exploitation of Jewish forced labor on the construction of the German DG-4 highway. Utilizing newly-discovered documentation in archives in the former Soviet Union, the article attempts to navigate the complex weave of involvement in anti-Jewish measures in these areas that included Einsatzgruppe D, the Wehrmacht, the Rumanian army, and the Rumanian secret service. It was the last of these that actually initiated anti-Jewish actions, and the Rumanian army pushed thousands of Jews into German-held territory. The resulting power struggle between the Germans and the Rumanians over the Jews’ whereabouts and fate indicates that the Jews in 1941 were viewed as an expendable mass to be exploited and that they were not murdered as part of a systematic annihilation plan.