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The Iași pogrom or Jassy pogrom of June 27, 1941 was one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history, launched by governmental forces in the Romanian city of Iaşi (Jassy) against its Jewish population, resulting in the murder of at least 13,266〔(RICHR, Ch. 5 ), p. 22〕 Jews, according to Romanian authorities, but some Romanian historians contradict these figures. ==Background== During World War II, from 1940 to 1944, Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany, and echoed its anti-Semitic policies. During 1941 and 1942, thirty-two laws, thirty-one decree-laws, and seventeen government resolutions, all sharply anti-Semitic, were published in the Official Gazette ('). Romania also joined Germany in the invasion of the Soviet Union, initially with the purpose of regaining Bessarabia, taken by Soviets in 1940, after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. ==Organizing the Pogrom== It was widely believed in interwar Romania that Communism was the work of the Jews, and Romania's coming entry into the war against the Soviet Union-a war that billed as a struggle to "annihilate" the forces of "Judo-Bolshevism"-greatly served to increase the anti-Semitic paranoia of the Romanian government.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 pages 121-122〕 Operation Barbarossa as the invasion of the Soviet Union was code-named was scheduled to begin on 22 June 1941. Iași, a city with a large Jewish population close to the Soviet border was considered a problem by the extremely anti-Semitic Romanian dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu as he saw the Jews of Iași as a fifth column that would sabotage the Romanian war effort.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 pages 122-123〕 In mid-June 1941, Antonescu ordered that "all the Judeo-Communist coffee shops in Moldavia be closed down, all kikes, Communist agents and sympathizers be identified by region...".〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 122〕 On 21 June 1941, Antonescu signed a degree calling for all Jews between the ages of 18-60 who lived between the Siret and Pruth rivers to be deported to the concentration camp at Tirgu Jiu in the south of Romania.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 122〕 Officers of both the Romanian and German armies about to invade the Soviet Union saw the Jews near the Soviet border as a major internal security threat, and pressed the Romanian government to remove this alleged threat.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 122〕 Lieutenant-Colonel Traian Borcescu of the Special Information Service (SSI) later recalled: "I know for certain that Section II of the Supreme Headquarters was involved with the problem of moving the Jewish population in Moldavia under the auspices of the respective statistics offices, with Colonel Gheorghe Petrescu in charge of this activity".〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 pages 122-123〕 Section II of the Romanian Supreme Headquarters was concerned with monitoring all political parties and all of the ethnic minorities in Romania.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 123〕 The responsibility for organising the pogrom rested with Section II, the SSI (''Serviciul Special de Informaţii''-Special Information Service) as the Romanian secret service was known and with the ''Abwehr''.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 123〕 After the invasion of the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1941, the Special Information Service formed the First Operative Echelon of 160 men who were tasked with crushing any internal security threat that might hamper the war.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 123〕 Colonel Borcescu recalled: "One of the secret and unofficial aims of the expedition of the First Operative Echelon was to do away with the Moldavian Jews by deportation or extermination. For this purpose, SSI department head Florin Becescu-Georgescu, when leaving Bucharest, took along the files on the Jews and Communists. From Iaşi, the Echelon drove to Kishinev, where the Jews were massacred. The same SSI teams that operated in Iaşi operated in Kishinev as well. The Echelon went also to Tighina and Tiraspol, where it committed robberies and to Odessa, where it committed massacres."〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 124〕On the same day that Barbarossa began saw the police force in Iaşi release imprisoned members of the Iron Guard who been held since a failed coup by the Legion in January 1941.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 124〕 The newly freed Legionaries were placed under police command and provided with weapons.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 124〕 Since the Iron Guard was notorious for its virulent antisemitism, the release of the imprisoned Iron Guards suggested that the authorities were already planning to strike against the Jews of Iaşi.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 124〕 On 24 June 1941, Iaşi was bombed by the Soviet Air Force. The raid did little damage, but it produced a hysterical reaction with rumors flying fast that the entire Jewish population of Iaşi were Communist Party members and had lit beacons to guide the Soviet bombers.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 124〕 On 26 June, Iaşi was again bombed and this time substantial damage was inflicted on the city.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 pages 124-125〕 The second bombing killed about 600 people, of whom 38 were Jews.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 124〕 Again, the bombing led to rampant rumors of alleged Jewish fifth column activity in the service of the Soviet Union. The same day saw the arrival of Major Hermann von Stransky of the ''Abwehr'' and Colonel Ionescu Micandru of the SSI in Iaşi-the two men whom witnesses at post-war trials consistently described as the main instigators of the pogrom.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 125〕 On June 27, 1941, Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu telephoned Col. Constantin Lupu, commander of the Iaşi garrison, telling him formally to "cleanse Iaşi of its Jewish population" , though plans for the pogrom had been laid even earlier. Rumors had already been circulating, backed up by the state-run press, that stated that Soviet parachutists had landed outside of Iaşi, and that the Jews were working with them.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 page 128〕 In the week before the pogrom, the signs grew more ominous: houses were marked with crosses if the residents were Christian, Jewish men were forced to dig large ditches in the Jewish cemetery, and soldiers started to break into Jewish homes "searching for evidence." On June 27, the authorities officially accused the Jewish community of sabotage, and assembled the soldiers and police who would spearhead the pogrom, where they were falsely told that Jews had attacked soldiers in the streets.〔Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from ''Contemporary European History'', Volume 2, Issue # 2, July 1993 pages 127-128.〕 Marcel, a Jewish survivor from Iași recounted, "I remember that the real danger for the Jews started on June 29, 1941. It was a big surprise for all the Jews. We were forced to wear the yellow stars of David on our clothes. We could not buy or sell food anymore. For certain hours, we didn’t have access to some public places. At that time there were cellars where Jews hid. It was difficult for the police to search the cellars. So, in order to make us come to the commissariat, they distributed a sort of ticket with the word "Free" written on it in a Jewish district. The Jews thought that if they showed up at the commissariat they could be set free, could again buy commodities. But it was a trap --'Instead of receiving freedom, we met death.'"〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://yahadmap.org/#village/ia-i-yas-jassy-iassy-iassi-ia-i-romania.687 )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Iași pogrom」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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