Tamna Roma Deportations – Translated

Name of the village: Tâmna (village in the homonymous commune)

Region, country: Mehedinți County, Oltenia region (Romania)

Date of deportation: September 1942 (the exact day and month do not appear in the interview, but
official reports indicate the date as 12.09.1942)

Excerpt from testimony:

“The Roma remained in the courtyard [of the Gendarmerie] for two days, then all the Roma from the region were loaded onto a train with fifteen wagons. There was a gendarme in each wagon. The
Roma were told they were being evacuated to work on collective farms. Food: 400 grams of
cornmeal thrown on the floor, which we shared. No one managed to escape. The journey lasted 15
days. The train passed through Tighina, Tiraspol, Odessa.” 

“[The deported Roma] arrived in the winter of 1942. There were 14,000 of them; by the following summer, only 4,000 Roma were still alive, the rest had died due to typhus, starvation, and other diseases […]”

Romanian archives (if they exist): The Roma deported from the village of Tâmna were mentioned in a series of official documents (reports, nominal lists of deportees, etc.)  Issued by the General Inspectorate of the Gendarmerie (IGJ) between 1942 and 1944. Thus, the local gendarmerie post identified, during the May 1942 census, a number of 123 “problematic Roma” in the commune of Tâmna, who were proposed for deportation (ANIC, IGJ no. 201/1942: f. 161–162). The  same gendarmes compiled nominal lists with the 116 Roma (heads of families, wives, and children) who
were deported from Tâmna on 12.09.1942 (ANIC, IGJ file no. 127/1942: f. 53–55). The name of the interviewed person (Rafael Matei, born in 1930) does not appear on these lists, but the family of a certain Nicolae Matei, deported to Transnistria along with his wife and three daughters, is mentioned (ANIC, IGJ file no. 201/1942: f. 161).

Historical note on the Roma:

Tâmna is a village located in the homonymous commune in Mehedinți County (Oltenia),
approximately 35 km from the city of Turnu–Severin. At the beginning of the 1900s, the commune was of medium size and had 740 inhabitants. Alongside Romanians, there were also several dozen Roma sedentary families. According to the 1930 general population census, Tâmna had 374 inhabitants, of whom 27 were  sedentary Roma who had preserved their mother tongue (RGP 1930,vol. II.1: 284–285). According to the testimony of the interviewed person, the Roma from Tâmna, including his father, were engaged in brick–making. This traditional occupation is still practiced by the Roma brick–makers in Tâmna today.

Historical note on the deportation:

The deportation of the Roma from Tâmna was carried out by local gendarmes around 10.09.1942,
when 116 Roma (14 families) were taken from their homes and  escorted, on foot or by carts, to
Drobeta Turnu–Severin (ANIC IGJ file no. 127/1942, f. 53–55). According to the testimony of the
interviewed person, the deported Roma could only take a small hand luggage with them (their belongings were nationalized). After spending two days in the gendarmerie detention center in Drobeta, the Roma were loaded into 15 wagons, attached to the special train E8, which departed for Tighina on 12.09.1942. After a journey in inhumane conditions, train E8 reached its destination after
almost a week (ANIC, IGJ no. 126/1942, f. 109; 213–214v).
Once they arrived in Transnistria, the Roma were settled in several villages (Koroliovka, Mostovoi,
Varvarovka, Karanika) near the Bug River and forced to work on  collective farms or agricultural
estates. The villages were guarded by gendarmes and militia formed by ethnic Germans (Selbstschutz Volksdeutsche), who treated the Roma with brutality and carried out summary executions. The  interviewed person witnessed the agony of Roma who tried to escape but were caught and burned alive in front of the other deportees. The living conditions in Transnistria were
very harsh, and more than ten  thousand Roma perished due to disease, cold, and hunger. The
interviewed person escaped twice but was caught by German and Romanian troops and interned in
the Trihati camp.
The return to the country took place in the spring of 1944, when an order was issued for the repatriation of Romanian citizens from Transnistria. The interviewed person returned on foot to Tiraspol, then crossed the border back into Romania with his family and  returned to Tâmna (his house had been nationalized).