Three colonels, one major and four non-commissioned officers of the former Rumanian security police will shortly go on trial here on charges of having murdered some 2,000 civilians, most of whom were Jews, during the war, it was announced today. Seven other members of the police who have not been apprehended will be tried in absentia.
The murders occurred after June, 1941, when the Rumanian Army reoccupied the province of Bessarabia which had been under Russian control for over a year. The security police killed men, women and children on the charge that they had fraternized with the Russians. The indictment against the defendants includes an order issued by one of them, Col. Nicolai Caracas, to troops under his command in the Soroca district to “shoot every Jew” who crossed their paths.
Meanwhile, the press reported the conviction of a former Sergeant Ion Flueras of the security police on charges of having murdered seven Jews during 1941. The seven were members of a party of prisoners whom he was escorting from Bucovina and Bessarabia to Transnistrian camps. When they were physically unable to keep up with the party Flueras shot them. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
