Deportation of Sedentary Roma from Cerat – Translated

Name of the village: Cerăt (a commune in Dolj County)

Region, country: Oltenia Region (Romania)

Date of deportation: September 1942

Excerpt from testimony:

“Before the war, her parents worked for the marshal harvesting wheat. They were gathered by the gendarmes and taken to the police station. The chief commissioner told them that they were not living a very good life in Romania and that they would be sent to another place where they would have a house and a better life. They were taken to Transnistria, to Kovaliovka, where they lived in miserable conditions. Her parents and three of her six siblings died there. 

The dead were thrown into a pit by the Russians, doused with kerosene, and burned. It took several days for the bodies to burn completely. So many bodies were burned that young girls from the village composed a song: ‘A fire burns near the Bug, bodies are burning.’ They cried as they sang this song. Unmarried boys sang it all the time […].”

Romanian archives (if available): N/A

Historical note on the Roma:

The Roma people represent the second-largest ethnic group after Romanians in the commune of Cerăt. Located in Dolj County, about 40 km from Craiova, the commune had 1,675 inhabitants around the 1890s (MDGR 1899, II: 318). The population increased to 2,811 by 1930, including 40 sedentary Roma (RGP 1930, II: 170-171). According to the testimony of the interviewee, some of these Roma worked in agriculture, employed as day laborers on the estates of large landowners in the region.

Historical note on the deportation:

The Roma from Cerăt were taken from their homes by local gendarmes and evacuated to Băilești at the beginning of September 1942. They were then loaded into freight cars, which were attached to the special train E8, destined for Tighina. On September 12, 1942, train E8 departed from Drobeta Turnu-Severin, and after several days of travel, it reached its destination (ANI, IGJ fund no. 126/1942: f. 109; f. 213-214).

After arriving in Transnistria, the deported Roma were settled in Kovalevka commune (Oceakov district). They endured severe hardships for nearly two years, which led to the deaths of many deportees. The interviewee lost her parents and three siblings. The guards threw the bodies into a pit, poured kerosene over them, and set them on fire (the incineration lasted for several days due to the high number of corpses).

A brief note on an aspect of the Roma community, for example, a group:

Some of the Roma from Cerăt are engaged in agriculture.