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Moscow Arranges Repatriation of Jews from Transnistria to Their Homes in Rumania

February 11, 1945
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Jewish leaders here were informed today by the Soviet members of the Allied Control Commission that the Moscow authorities have reached a definite decision on the methods of repatriation of Jews who were deported by the former pro-Nazi Rumanian regime from various sections of Rumania to devastated parts of the Ukraine which the Rumanians name Transnistria.

It is understood that the Moscow decision provides for the repatriation of only those Jews who were born in Southern Bukovina and in the part of Rumania known as the Old Kingdom. Jews born in Bessarabia or in the section of Bukovina which is claimed by the Soviet authorities as integral part of the USSR, are considered Soviet citizens and are not to be repatriated.

Jewish organizations here today opened negotiations with the Allied Armistice Commission to permit their representatives to participate in the work of receiving the repatriated Jews and of organizing for them any assistance they may need.

Radu Lecca, Commissar for Jewish Affairs under the pro-Nazi government of Gen. Antonescu, is included in a new list of war criminal made public here today.

Leoca, who accumulated a huge fortune as a result of blackmailing Jews by threatening them with deportation to Transnintria, was arrested soon after the Russian Army liberated Rumania, but succeeded in escaping. The police finally recaptured him and he was handed over to the Allied Control Commission after an interrogation as to his activities under the pro-Nazi regime.

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