THE EXISTENCE OF CERTAIN ETHNIC GROUPS IN ODESA IN THE CONDITIONS OF OCCUPATION 1941–1944

Abstract

The article is devoted to the existence of certain ethnic groups in Odesa under the conditions of occupation in 1941–1944. After all, the national policy of the Romanian occupation authorities in Odesa not only directly influenced the life strategy of representatives of certain ethnic groups of the city population, but in some cases the very possibility of survival or death depended on, which was recorded in the passport in the «nationality» column. It has been proved that three ethnic groups received the greatest privileges from the new government: Germans, Romanians and Moldovans. Since the ethnic Germans outside Germany were perceived by the Hitler government as representatives of a superior race, who were to be used in the new territories as allies in the implementation of the occupation policy, a separate unit of the SS «R» was created to work with the German population of Transnistria Governorate, which was subordinate to the Main Board of Repatriation of ethnic Germans «Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle». It was established that the Romanian government understood the need to focus its national policy on the Moldavian ethnic community in the region, because it was this population that was to become the support of the government in the temporarily occupied territory. That is, Moldovans began to be considered an ethnic group of the Romanian population. It is significant that about 250,000 Moldovans lived in the territory between the Dniester and the Bug, who were concentrated as much as possible in the villages along the Dniester. However, despite the loss of population in the first year of the war, the number of such residents decreased to 198,000. The occupiers immediately began to implement the priority policy of this particular nation. Therefore, the main bet was placed on them, as the support of the government in the new territories. Moldovans were declared an ethnic group of the Romanian population. The desire of the Romanian authorities is understandable: in this way they proved that this is historically their territory and they came «to protect their population». As for the attitude towards the Slavic peoples, namely Ukrainians, Russians, Bulgarians and Poles, all the documents show that they had a much lower status in the occupied city. Their position cannot in any way be compared with the attitude of the occupying power towards the privileged Romanians and Germans. Yes, they were not totally exterminated, like Romani people or Jews. Rather, they were seen as a necessary labour resource to be fully subjugated by the new masters. Therefore, in the case of loyalty to the occupiers, nothing formally threatened them, but it is quite difficult to call the conditions of their existence «absolutely favourable». The situation of the local Jews was the most difficult. A sufficient number of documents and studies have been presented, which prove that the policy of the Romanian occupation authorities in relation to them was dictated by the doctrine of the ethnocratic state and, as a result, provided for the total destruction of the local Jewish population. The attitude towards the Jews was understandable and became a continuation of political processes and the involvement of Romania in the sphere of influence of Germany. The Holocaust of the Jews of Bukovina and the Jews of the Old Kingdom, Bessarabia or Transnistria was dictated by the doctrine of the ethnocratic state. At the meeting of the Council of Ministers on February 7, 1941, I. Antonescu first raised the issue of introducing measures against the Romani people. As a result, a number of orders appeared where the main mechanism of the Romanian government became deportation from the territory of Romania to Transnistria. But it is important to note that, we have not found a single document in the archives about the relations between the occupation authorities and the Romani people directly in Odesa. Considering that according to the census of 1942 there were only 5 of them, we can allow not to consider them as a representative separate group. Consequently, Odesa citizens were forced to build a strategy for their survival in the conditions of occupation in accordance with the entry in the column «nationality» in the passport. On the highest steps of this cynical «racial pyramid», the occupiers placed Moldovans, Romanians and Germans. Below them were supposed to be Ukrainians, Russians, Poles and representatives of other ethnic groups of multinational Odesa. And somewhere outside this pyramid, the doomed Jews and Romani people were pushed out.