The Roma Community in Palazu Mare during the Holocaust

In 1930, 117 people lived in Palazu Mare who declared themselves Roma from an ethnic point of view. Existing data on the deportations of Roma from the locality indicate, however, that their number was at least 280 people.

Before the Second World War, there was no official racial policy of the Romanian state. It appeared during the years of Antonescu’s rule, being exclusively his work. At the level of rulers, the first measures were circulated in the last days of the national-legionary government. Thus, on January 18th, 1941, the possibility of banning mixed marriages between Romanians and Roma and their isolation was discussed. The following month, General Ion Antonescu proposed the evacuation of the Roma from Bucharest to Bărăgan. All these measures have not been implemented.

The deportation of the Roma was the initiative of Ion Antonescu, being verbally ordered in May 1942, after conducting a census of “problem Roma people”. Thus, the first deportations took place in June 1942. From the commune of Palazu Mare, 280 Roma were deported. They, along with other Roma from rural areas, were transported by train to Tighina, and from here they arrived in Grigorești, Oceacov County. After getting off the trains, they were transferred to several localities. Some arrived in Karanika in the winter of 1942, and others were in 1944 in Varbarovka, Trihati, Suha Balka, or other localities.

According to existing information, during the deportation, the Roma were kept in “atrocious” conditions, without food, clothes, firewood, and medicines, which also favoured the outbreak of a typhus epidemic. Many died because of this. The deported Roma were used to work in agriculture or to build railways. By December 1942, 12 of the 280 Roma deported from Palazu Mare had died.

However, the total number of victims is not known. At the end of the Second World War, 8 families returned to Palazu Mare.

Petre Matei, Palazu Mare-Constanța, accessible online at http://www.inshr-ew.ro/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Palazu-Mare-CONSTANȚA.pdf 

Comisia Internațională pentru Studierea Holocaustului în România [International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania], Raport Final [Final Report], Iași, Polirom, 2004, pp. 227-229, 232.