740.00119 Control (Rumania)/1–1345
The American Representative in Rumania (Berry) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 6.]
Sir: I have the honor to attach an English translation of the Note dated January 6, 194517 addressed by General Vinogradov in the name of the Allied Control Commission to General Radescu, President of the Council of Ministers, in which he formally requests that all persons of German descent in Rumania within certain age classifications be mobilized for work wherever the Soviet High Command may direct. The operation of this request and the Rumanian reaction are also described in this despatch. The Rumanian Government protested strongly that the above order was beyond the scope of the armistice terms; that it would seriously disrupt the internal economy of the country; and that for humanitarian reasons this large scale labor [Page 1242] deportation to the Soviet Union should not take place. High Rumanian Government officials have made protests to General Vinogradov, Deputy Chairman of the Allied Control Commission, and a formal protesting memorial on the above lines was planned. However, the Soviet authorities at this date appear inflexible in executing the original demand.
Conforming to the dates contained in the Note, the Soviet authorities, through the Rumanian police, began wholesale roundups on January 10 of all Rumanians of German origin. The exact basis upon which the collection of deportees is made is not clear. A list compiled by the Rumanian authorities shortly after the coup d’état of August 23 with the cooperation of all persons of Saxon or Swabian origin is supposed to be the nominal basis. However, mere denunciation of people as being of German origin and the mere bearing of a German name have been sufficient to place persons in the deportee categories. Actual German citizens are being taken under the order; no distinction is being made between Germans and Austrians; Czech descended persons in some instances are being included; and the Foreign Minister barely prevented the interned German diplomatic personnel from joining the exodus. No exceptions appear to be made at this point, and university professors, government officials, soldiers actually on leave from the front, technicians, and other professions are included within the collections of deportees. The operations are being conducted with celerity. The families of any persons affected that are in hiding are being threatened by the Soviet authorities, and in some cases are being held until the wanted persons are found.
On January 11 some 2,000 people in Bucharest were loaded into non-heated box cars for transportation to Russia without regard for sanitation arrangements or comfort. Each person carried what food he could and these cars were locked and sealed. This office knows of one case of a woman being placed in a car with forty-five men. Departure scenes at the railway station, where the deportees were brought in trucks under armed guard, were tragic between parents and small children and between husbands and wives.
The population of Bucharest, and undoubtedly this is true of other cities in Rumania, is in a turmoil as the result of the forced transportation of the German minority, and rumors are circulating that the Hungarian minority is next for deportation, to be followed by those Rumanians against whom there may be some objection.
The Bucharest press, because of tight Soviet censorship restrictions, has been completely silent upon the matter and, in fact, it appears that the Communist Party within the National Democratic Front approves the deportation action. Peasant Party officials have [Page 1243] remained silent. Only Viitorul, the organ of the National Liberal Party, has made what may be termed an indirect “dignified protest”. It published a front page editorial upon the great difference between the aims and ideals of the Axis and the United Nations. It compared the Axis philosophy of employing “violent action and the brutal violation of all the laws of humanity” with that of “the Allied defenders of democracy and liberty and of the traditions of European civilization”. On January 11 Viitorul contained an editorial indirectly posing the present deportation problem as involving moral and political responsibility both for the United States and Great Britain.
According to the latest available Rumanian census figures of 1930, there were 745,421 Rumanians of German descent which is estimated as having remained virtually constant. In the ceded areas of Bessarabia, Bucovina and part of Dobrudja 157,000 of this German minority were removed from Rumanian jurisdiction. Although the number of civilians leaving with the Germans in the advance of Russian armies is impossible accurately to estimate, the most responsible official sources here claim that they can be said to number about 50,000. The area of Northern Transylvania that is not now under Rumanian administration contains about 55,000 persons of the German minority. With these deductions the official census figures are lowered to 483,421. Likewise, the Rumanian census estimates that 40 percent of the German minority population are within the age groups specified under the Allied Control Commission’s Note. This would involve about 190,000 persons as being affected, but when a further deduction is made for approximately 50,000 young men that are claimed as having been enlisted or conscripted into the Waffen SS, it means that approximately 140,000 people of German origin in Rumania are now subject to deportation.
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed.↩