“It was better under the Romanians”: the bitter truth of the occupation of Odessa

April 10, 1944 was the day of the liberation of Odessa from the occupation that lasted almost three years. The city was taken heavily - with minimal use of artillery in order to avoid its destruction, because of which the Red Army had to conduct street battles already in the city limits. And after the tired Red Army soldiers, the harsh officers of the NKVD and SMERSH entered the “pearl by the sea," who launched full-scale work almost instantly. The first summons with an urgent request to come to the "bodies" for an intimate conversation began to come to Odessa citizens in a day or two. And it so happened that for many of the residents of the city this challenge did not end with anything good. By the beginning of 1945, thousands of them had to redeem cooperation with the invaders with hard work in not very pleasant places.





According to some researchers, as of January 1, 1945, almost 250 thousand of the 90 thousand inhabitants of Odessa who met the liberators "disappeared". It is hardly believed in this, and, besides, it should be remembered that in Odessa, as in all other liberated territories, of course, mobilization was carried out in the Red Army - so that part of its inhabitants did not leave the city at all in “camp cliffs”, but in soldier's overcoats. Nevertheless, the fact that the work of the fighters with spies and traitors of the motherland in the "pearl of the sea" was a bit much even for that harsh time, is obvious. "Endless Stalinist repression against the innocent?" "The next atrocities of the bloody Beria executioners"? Let's not rush to conclusions. The truth about the life of the inhabitants of Odessa in the occupation is so unsightly that it was kept under wraps and carefully avoided (especially - well-meaning Soviet historians) for many years.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to know her. In truth, I also walked away from this topic for a while - I really did not want to write about this on the eve of the Great Victory. However, photographs and videos from the Nazi-Bandera procession, which took place in Odessa this year on the big anniversary of the tragic events on Kulikovo Field and just before May 9, dispelled the last doubts. Still, the roots of many current events should be sought in the past - including in the distant years of World War II ...

When the Romanians were better!

This phrase, sounding in the talented, though godlessly sinning places against the historical truth, the television series “Liquidation”, is just not the fruit of the author’s fiction of the director or scriptwriter of the film. Odessans, who believed that way, were more than enough. Another thing is that it is unlikely that anyone would dare to pronounce these words openly, and, even more so, to throw them in the face of an employee of the "organs". Odessa, as such, did not know the German occupation. In fact, immediately after its abandonment by the Red Army, Odessa did not join the Reich Commissariat "Ukraine", but turned out to be part of the Transnistrian Romanian governorate. The power in the city, represented by the mayor of Hermann Punti and the governor, Professor Aleksyan, was exclusively Romanian. The dictator Ion Antonescu (personally visiting the city) called him nothing more than “the pearl of the Romanian crown”.

How did Odessa live? First of all - satisfying. All eyewitnesses of that time directly admire the abundance of grocery reigning on the shelves of markets and shops. Private business in all forms was not only permitted by the invaders, but was encouraged and encouraged in every way. Odessa again, as in the “old regime”, was full of private shops, shops, cafes and restaurants. Moreover, already in the first year of the occupation, more than two and a half thousand inhabitants of Odessa returned their private property, which had been seized by the Soviet government at one time. This, as you know, is not about small things, but about houses, enterprises, objects of trade. All temples of various faiths were opened, which by that time had not been destroyed. In the spring of 1942 on Easter in the city the curfew was even canceled - as it was written in the corresponding order, not only in honor of the holiday, but also “because of the complete loyalty of the local population to the Romanian authorities”.

Pre-revolutionary names were returned to all the streets of the city. Unless Karl Marx at the same time turned into Adolf Hitler Street, and in addition, the names of Mussolini and five other “major statesmen" of Romania appeared on the map of Odessa, but the townspeople somehow survived this. As well as the removal from all libraries of "communist" literature and, in general, all the books of Soviet writers. And the appearance of the lessons of the Law of God in schools, however, with a “weight” in the form of a compulsory study of the Romanian language, many even welcomed. Reminds nothing - of the present? Indeed, why would Odessa residents complain? Water supply, power plants and all other utilities were functioning properly in the city, trams were running, hospitals were operating. Performances and operas were given in theaters, paintings were shown in theaters, jazz was played on the streets ... Well, perhaps the Romanians surprised the townspeople with orders banning the use of bicycles, as well as selling seeds and eating them on the streets. The strictest execution was vigilantly watched by curfews.

True, we must not forget that all this grace was intended exclusively for those residents of the city who were not Jews, and there were, according to various estimates, up to 90 thousand people in Odessa at the time of the occupation. By the beginning of World War II, Jews made up 30% of the population of the city (180 thousand). Fortunately, half of them managed to evacuate or was drafted into the ranks of the Red Army. These inhabitants of Odessa were very lucky - in comparison with the rest. The first repressions against the Jewish population, the invaders began, almost immediately after the capture of the city. Its representatives were forced to register and began to drive into prison on the Fontana Road. Then the first executions began. However, the real hell for the Jews came after October 22, 1941, when the former building of the NKVD was blown up, in which the Romanian commandant’s office and the headquarters of the 10th Infantry Division were already freely located.

Successfully carried out sabotage cost the occupiers many lives, but at the same time caused a wave of incredible atrocities. A wave of pogroms and arrests swept through the city, during which people were killed right on the doorstep of their own houses and hung on street lamp posts. A huge number of unfortunates were driven into the powder depots on the Lussdorf road. All nine buildings were packed to full with Jews and captured Red Army soldiers, after which they were doused with gasoline and set on fire. The emergency commission that worked after the city’s liberation announced the discovery of the remains of at least 25 thousand people. Odessa Jews who survived this wave of terror were waiting for the death camp, scattered throughout the territory of the current Odessa and Nikolaev regions. The most terrible memory in themselves was left by the camps in the villages of Dalnik, Bogdanovka, Golta ... The exact number of the destroyed Odessa Jews cannot be called. Many researchers are inclined to believe that by the time the city was liberated, less than a thousand were still alive.

Odessans, stop informing each other!

It was this phrase that came out of the loudspeakers placed on the cars traveling around the city during the occupation. The box established by the "new government", in which everyone could put their own written complaints or statements executed in writing, was overwhelmed almost instantly. Basically - just precisely by denunciations of their own neighbors in a house or communal apartment. The Romanians quickly realized that with such a shaft of “signals” their siguranza simply could not cope. By the way, when the invaders among the townspeople announced a recruitment to the local police, there was no end to those who wanted it. The contest, according to eyewitnesses, was huge.

The Odessa janitors became a special category that was “noted” in the dirty deed of knocking and extraditing the invaders not only the same Jews, but also communists and other “unreliable” ones. The memory of their activities during the years of the Romanian occupation left the most vile. There are documentary recollections of residents of the city, which say, for example, how one of these same janitors handed over two Red Navy men to the Romanians who tried to escape after entering the invaders in Odessa. Then they were seen in a crowd of prisoners who were led to the Lusdorf warehouses with their arms wrapped in barbed wire and hung on locks through their mouths with punched lips. There, sailors, no doubt, expected a martyrdom. By the way, one of the characteristic moments of this story is the mention of its author that both the Romanian accomplice and his family calmly lived in Odessa for many years after the war. This is about the issue of “mass repressions” ... As you can see, there were even flaws. However, in order to punish all inhabitants of Odessa without exception, who somehow cooperated with the occupiers, the city really would have to be depopulated.

Odessa underground ... The topic that Soviet historiography, as far as possible, was eagerly silent. No one is trying to question the feat of the heroes of the catacombs or those units that really tried to fight against the invaders, but ... The thing is that these were just the units, and, besides, the Odessa underground was almost immediately subjected to a brutal defeat in force almost general treason in his ranks. The first secretary of the Odessa regional party committee, who was supposed to lead a secret war with the invaders, simply fled the city, “transferring” this matter to his deputies. One of these deputies is Petrovsky and subsequently surrendered 265 underground to the Romanian counterintelligence. The most successful group, led by a staff member of the NKVD Vladimir Molodtsov (Badayev), also died due to the fact that a certain Boyko, who turned out to be an agent of the Sigurans, was originally introduced into it. In reality, in Odessa during the years of occupation, not a single major act of sabotage was registered (including - at enterprises working for the needs of the occupying army), not a single sabotage - with the exception of the explosion mentioned above. Real underground members were destroyed.

But there were others who survived the occupation quite safely and subsequently reached such impudence that they began to scribble reports on their own “heroic struggle” to the relevant authorities. For example, a certain Bugaenko, who called himself “the commander of a partisan detachment” and tried to “unsubscribe” from the NKVD investigators by delusional fables that he had opened a shoe booth in his courtyard in order to “carry out clandestine work ...” by carrying out poor-quality repairs to them shoes "! The “underground” was also attacked by a certain Golovanov, who opened a private eatery “to solder Romanian soldiers and officers”, as well as “heroine of resistance” Agafya Lyushkova, who allegedly “added arsenic to dishes that were served to soldiers and officers of the Romanian army” in a private restaurant where she worked. There is no doubt - there was nothing of the kind and was not close! Cause her "sabotage" at least one serious poisoning - would be hung right at the door of the tavern. And this is even in the best case ... If SMERSH eventually “drove” all of the mentioned company into camps, then I personally am only ready to applaud him!

At the same time, the Institute of Anti-Communist Studies, which was opened there in May 1942 and was jam-packed with eminent professors, acted beautifully in Odessa. Some of the pundits who worked on this field, the "Stalinist state security organs" subsequently "brutally tortured", of course - "for nothing" ... In general, the "pearl by the sea" has become a city where with great power, almost on a large scale in the whole territory occupied by the invaders, the uninformed White Guards became more active. Already in December 1941, an initiative group of "former officers and lower ranks of the Russian Imperial Army and the Armed Forces of the South of Russia" was created there. The main task was proclaimed "the struggle against Bolshevism", of course. Moreover, most of the members of this company ended up in the ranks of the punitive and anti-partisan units of the Wehrmacht.

No conclusions and generalizations will be made. Each of the readers is free to do (or not do) them on their own. Perhaps some people after reading a few will be somewhat less surprised by the fact that in Odessa, which some people hurried to proclaim a “Russian city” a priori in 2014, the vast majority of residents stared indifferently at the blazing House of Trade Unions, but today they also calmly and detachedly perceive abuse of the memory of his victims and arrests of veterans for the St. George ribbon attached to the uniform on May 9. These are just the descendants of those who “were better with the Romanians” ...