ROMANIAN ARCHITECTS IN ODESSA (1941-1944) AND THEIR SUBSEQUENT FATE

Abstract

The topic of Holocaust is mostly mentioned in reference to Transnistria in the years of 1941-1944. Our research studies concerning the rapport between the officials and the architects/architecture during the totalitarian regimes in Romania unveiled the opportunity for us to discover new information and elements helping to give a more definite shape and enliven a plethora of issues, left neglected and even forgotten until today. A good example of the above is the activity of the Romanian architects in Odessa and their later destiny, marred almost to its end by the horrors lived through during the Second World War. Hence the main thesis of our article. Documents in the Romanian Securitate archives are assisting us to build their professional and human portrait, along with other enthralling elements, trying to find out how their lifes – both social and professional – were affected by what happened in 1941-1944. We already knew that the vast majority of Transnistria government’s officials were convinted for war crimes or crimes against the pease by the people’s court (1945-1946), but the fate of these architects remained unknown – or, at last, forgotten – until our research. Following the idea that they were simple technicians, our initial intuition was confirmed. Although they were arrested and investigated, in the end they were exonerated of any accusation related to their activity in Transnistria. However, from a double perspective – both the criminal record from 1945 and their belonging to a social class destined to disappear – they were under the Securitate’s lens for many years, having a series of both social problems and, above all, professional. Their ascension was completely blocked, they were constantly under surveillance, their involvement in other political processes was attempted, their transformation into Securitate’s collaborators was desired. The irony of fate is precisely that, relying exclusively on the documents of the former Securitate, we can recreate today the portraits of two architects who otherwise would have remained completely unknow.