Re: [Cz-L] Rescue Operation of Czernowitz Jews - A Joint Venture

Edgar, Many thanks for taking a look at Ghosts of Home. Leo and I have been following your posts about Schellhorn and the ensuing correspondence with enormous interest and have read the Cremer article, but we are traveling and away from our other sources, especially the full text of Carp in the original Romanian and the excellent annotated French translation by Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine. We have also not yet had the chance to read the recent articles by Hausleitner and Solonari. We will write a fuller response to these interesting developments as soon as we do, but, just briefly:

1. It is clear that Cremer's main source is Schellhorn himself, and thus his statements are difficult to check. The first sentence of his second paragraph definitely gives one pause: "Above all, he saved about 20000 people from deportation which would have meant massive death." However we construe the multiple factors that converged to result in the deportation waivers, and whatever Schellhorn's role might have been, and whatever the importance of that morning meeting on October 15, the ca. 20000 waivers that were issued cannot responsibly be said to have been uniquely Schellhorn's accomplishment as this sentence does.

2. There is multiple evidence that there were bribes. We write about it in Ghosts of Home. I believe, with many of you, that Popovici himself meant to have the process be completely honest and above board and that he himself did not take bribes. But someone took bribes, that is absolutely clear, and likely, Popovici did not know that this happened, or did not want to know. We actually discussed this when we are all together in 2006, and a number of you confirmed that you knew about bribes.

More soon, and please do keep sharing personal stories, they are invaluable as evidence.

happy New year,

Marianne
On Dec 28, 2011, at 3:55 PM, Edgar Hauster wrote:

> First of all, thank you so much, Gerhard, Asher, Mimi and Arthur for your most impressive contributions! That's, what we are looking for, eyewitness reports, facts and figures!
>
> Hardy, let me try to give an answer to you, by quoting Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer (Ghosts of Home - The Afterlife of Czernowitz in Jewish Memory, p. 191):
>
> "One name that comes up quite often in connection to Cernauti in this period [June 1942] is that of Lieutenant Stere Marinescu, head of the Office of Jewish Affairs II. This man and his coworkers worked under the governor and took massive bribes both locally, from individual Jews, and from Jewish organizations in Bucharest, always promising not to organize further deportations and assuring the safety of Jews remeining of Cernauti. Many of those who bribed him individually were deported so as not to be able to testify to his corruption."
>
> Fortunately, his plans finally didn't work out
>
> http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=883&dat=19450601&id=abEuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HWEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1787,4189005
>
> but let's continue by quoting Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer (Ghosts of Home - The Afterlife of Czernowitz in Jewish Memory, p. 191):
>
> "It is possible that Marinescu himself, and not directive from Bucharest, ordered the June 1942 deportations of those four thousand Jews who only had Popovici authorizations. The deportation orders were signed by the governor, but Marinescu himself carried out the evacuations with great brutality"
>
> You'll find the basis for this statement at Matatias Carp, Holocaust in Romania, Facts and Documents of the Annihilation of Romania's Jews 1940-1944, pp. 201-222, quoted at:
>
> http://www.holocaustrevealed.org/_domain/holocaustrevealed.org/Romania/Matatias/Transnistria6.htm
>
> In my eyes, the events proceeded completely chaotically in October 1941, no means of transportation were available in due time, no structures were established, even not (yet) for bribing, in marked contrast to June 1942, when the maximum bribing profit could be realized, as the Stere Marinescu case is demonstrating.
>
>
>
>
> Edgar Hauster
> Lent - The Netherlands
>
> http://hauster.blogspot.com/
>
>

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Received on 2011-12-28 17:28:41