THE WHITE FOUNTAIN MASSACRE-Erasmus RED

THE WHITE FOUNTAIN MASSACRE

Explanations

Massacre

Mass murder

means the mass killing of a large number of people, this action being carried out by the state, a group, or a single person.

• This differs from genocide which is a narrower term where the extermination is directed towards an ethnic or religious group.

Fântâna Albă

•

It is a village in Adâncata district, Chernivtsi regionUkraine.

North Bucovina

It is the name of Bucovina, which is currently located in the territory of the Chernivtsi region of Ukraine.

• This territory was occupied on June 28, 1940 by the Soviet Union through an ultimatum addressed to the Romanian state following the Ribentrop-Molotov Pact.

The Context

Of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact from 1939

In 1940, the USSR occupied Bessarabia, northern Bucovina and Herta Land;

• approximately 3 million Romanians lived on this Romanian territory.

Romanians started crossing the border

they could no longer endure the transgressions of the new masters; they asked to be allowed to return to Romania for the reunification of their families;

• just as Germans and Poles were allowed to return to their countries.

1.

The Soviet authorities reacted: - they strengthened border patrolling;

2.

- they drew up lists of families who had relatives in Romania; - they declared them traitors to the country; - they deported them to forced labor.

Refuge attempts in Romania:

19th November 1940

- 4o families (105 people) from Suceveni tried to cross the border at Fântâna Albă; - were surprised by Soviet patrols; - they were killed, wounded, captured; - some managed to reach Rădăuți - Romania; - the Soviets decided to deport all the relatives of the 105 people to Siberia.

6th February 1941

- 500 Romanians tried to cross into Romania;

- they were surprised, attacked with machine guns, they were killed; - some managed to take refuge, others were arrested; - were sentenced to death, forced labor and loss of civil rights; - the relatives were declared traitors, arrested and deported to Siberia.

The unfolding of the massacre

After the massacre:

The survivors were chased down and cut down with the sword,

the wounded were tied to the horses' tails and taken to the pit:

5 mass graves dug before shooting them - planned.

They were buried alive or dead: children, adults.

Those arrested, after horrific tortures, were taken to the Jewish cemetery,

they were thrown alive into a mass grave, over which slaked lime was poured

What followed the massacre: Retaliation

Forbidden topic

Romanians were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan;

-he created a program to exterminate the Romanian population.

until 1990 by the Soviet authorities and later by the Ukrainian authorities.

After 2000, the Ukrainian authorities allowed the

officiating of a parastas for the rest of Romanians who wanted to live in Romania.

The exact number of deaths from Fântâna Albă is not known even today.

1991

• for the first time, the victims of the massacres in Fântâna Albă, Lunca and other localities in the north of Bucovina were commemorated

In Romania:

12th April 2011

2015

The Chamber of Deputies adopted legislative proposal no. 796/2010 whereby: on April 1 • is established as a national Day of honoring the memory of Romanians - victims of the massacres at Fântâna Albă and other areas, of deportations, of starvation and of other forms of repression organized by the totalitarian Soviet regime in Herța Land, northern Bucovina and the whole of Bessarabia

• deputy Eugen Tomac supported the establishment of a Parliamentary Commission for the restoration of the historical truth regarding the massacre at Fântâna Albă on

April 1, 1941

THE WHITE FOUNTAIN-GOLGOTA OF THE ROMANIAN NATION

Memorial Portal Golgota Neamului „Fântâna Albă”

Putna, Suceava, România

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