To the Dark Side of the River:
The Deportation of Romanian Roma to Transnistria

Deportations by Inspectorate, Deportation Timeline by Location, Type of Action by Location, Reason for Deportation

By Jennifer Cantrell-Sutor, Research Assistant, Belofsky Fellow
posted December 12, 2024

On November 20, 1940, Romania – which had only just become a military dictatorship under General Ion Antonescu – officially allied itself with the National Socialist Regime. Less than one year later, in August 1941, Hitler granted Antonescu jurisdiction over the region between the Dniester and the Bug Rivers. This region, which was aptly renamed “Transnistria,” or “beyond the Dniester,” was eyed by Antonescu as a solution to the country’s so-called “Gypsy Problem.” The highly nationalistic Antonescu viewed the Roma as not just a threat to the country’s “public health,” and “national economy,” but also as undermining his vision of a “Romanian State.” Persecution of the Roma escalated quickly, as concentration camps and ghettos – often referred to as “colonies,” owing to their rustic and primitive nature – were quickly established within this newly-occupied region. The deportation of nomadic Roma began in June 1942, while the deportation of sedentary Roma was initiated in September of that year. Unlike nomadic Roma, who were deported en masse without exception, only those sedentary Roma who were considered “dangerous and undesirable” were slated for arrest, at least on paper. Over this roughly four-month period, 11,441 nomadic Roma and 13,176 sedentary Roma were deported to Transnistria, some by train, but many via foot. At times, entire villages were cleared out in a single day.

Unsurprisingly, contemporary scholars and historians have questioned the culpability of local civilian populations, as mass deportations and communal executions were rarely discreet endeavors, requiring, at a minimum, neighborly apathy, or worse, active collaboration. Notably, however, the data set at hand suggests a clear pattern of non-deportation of sedentary Roma in the south-west region of Romania. Deportation data, for example, indicates that just eight of the nine total Inspectorates – the regional deportation authorities – participated in round-up operations. Via process of elimination, we can identify Timişoara as the non-participating Inspectorate, a region that had come under Romanian rule just two decades earlier and which bordered the Balkan state of Serbia. Conversely, data suggests that the central metropolitan city of Bucharesti most actively participated in deportations, sending 3,291 Roma and 46 dwellings to Transnistria, approximately one-third of the total deportations of all Inspectorates combined. Additional data mapping further confirms a clustering of non-deportation sites in the southwest portion of the country, especially in and around Timişoara and Pitesti, as do scatter plots charting sites of deportation and of non-deportation. Reasonable hypotheses for this anomaly include: 1. the assimilation and social integration of sedentary Roma in these regions; 2. a higher degree of sympathy towards sedentary child deportees in these regions; 3. external influences, possibly owing to the region’s proximity to the rest of Europe or its geographic history; 4. the Roma’s economic function / the division of labor within these smaller cities; or 5. historical factors.

That is not to say that Romani life in Romania was anything but precarious during the Antonescu regime, as each deportation site reflected on the scatter map is indicative of a large deportation action, with victims often numbering in the thousands. Conversely, the sites of non-deportation indicated are more likely representative of smaller, single-digit-sized groups. Moreover, addition data points suggest that life for Romanian Roma between 1942 and 1944 was not unlike that experienced by Roma within greater Germany. “Reason for deportation,” data, for example, indicates that sedentary Roma were deported without additional justification, contrary to Antonescu’s deportation orders. “Deportation justification by family” reveals an equally disturbing pattern – children were deported based on the classification of the parents. Data reveals, for example, that a family of 9 was deported for “insufficient employment,” while 5 family members were deported as a “public danger” and a family of 6 owing to “criminal history.” No less remarkable are the large family sizes, which suggest that many more children were deported than adults.

Notably, more than 85% of the Roma included in this study were deported because of their nomadic lifestyle. Consequently, conclusions drawn from the available data set may be unique to nomadic Roma in this region. A larger data set would be useful in explaining the above anomalies, in particular in drawing parallels with sedentary Roma from this region.