ROMANIA'S SALE OF JEWS

Well-kept secret: Romania's sale of Jews following World War II remains one of the 20th century's least-reported stories By Baruch Cohen

Radu Ioanid, The Ransom of the Jews (Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 2005, 213 pp)

According to Ioanid, the idea of selling Jews to Israel started in late 1949 and early 1950, with a ransom of between USD 50 to USD 100 per Jew. Between late 1949 and the end of 1989 (after dictator Ceausescu’s overthrow in Romania), close to 300,000 Romanian Jews were sold to raise American dollars for the cash-strapped country.

Romania had the greatest post-war population of Jews in Europe. Out of a population of almost 800,000 Jews before the war, 350,000 survived the Nazi inflagration. With the rise of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1965, the selling of Jews emerged as a priority. By 1978, writes Ioanid, payments reached between USD 2,000 to USD 50,000 per person. ...

Ceausescu steadily raised the price of each Jewish emigrant. At times, the going rate ranged from USD 826 to USD 10,000 per person. For younger and better-educated Jews, the price went higher and higher. The sky was the limit, says Ioanid: “In special cases Romanian authorities asked for as much as USD 250,000 per person."

The Ransom of the Jews is an incredible story. This is a tale of one of the late twentieth century’s most tragic exchanges of humans for money, driven by sheer greed and disregard for human values. It was a cruel, deplorable and mischievous campaign, involving the selling of thousands of women, men, and children, old and young.

Tellingly, Ioanid writes: “The Romanian government has, to this date not extended an apology to the government of Israel nor to the Romanian Jews (who were) oppressed and sold.”