While historically part of The Holocaust, these actions were mostly independent from the similar acts committed by Nazi Germany, Romania being the only ally of the Third Reich that carried out a genocidal campaign without the intervention of Heinrich Himmler's SS.

Despite renaming the organisation several times, in the media and public eyes the image and name of Legionaries and Iron Guard stuck for the anti-communist, antisemitic, and fascist movement.

[2] Antisemitism was also popularised and promoted by important cultural personalities of the interwar period such as Nae Ionescu, Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, or Constantin Noica[3] and endorsed by the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Major Vasile Carp, commander of the 86th Mountain Regiment, ordered the execution of several Jews in Ciudei and Zăhănești soon after the enforcement of the Soviet ultimatum.

[14] Retreating Romanian military personnel clashed with Soviet soldiers near Hertsa in July 1940, and the situation escalated into the Dorohoi pogrom, during which anywhere between 50 and 200 Jews where murdered.

Many of the victims moved to the capital in the hope that they would be able to live with their relatives or friends, but in cities which were controlled by Legionnaires, such as Câmpulung Moldovenesc, widespread pillaging of properties owned by Jews ensued, frequently accompanied by beatings, humiliations, and threats, such as in the case of Câmpulung Moldovenesc' rabbi, Iosef Rubin, who was tortured and then forced to pull a wagon which his son was forced to drive.

Almost 2,000 Jews were detained or arrested, and violence erupted in full on 22 January 1941 after the minister of interior ordered the burning of Jewish districts.

Even though Antonescu and the army played a central role in suppressing the Iron Guard, the regime instituted by the marshal continued the same antisemitic policies started by the Legionnaires.

The evacuation of the Jews from small towns and villages became a fundamental part of what was known as the "cleansing of the land" - the removal of all "Jewish elements" from Romanian society.

A survivor recalled: During the night some of us went mad and started to yell, bite, and jostle violently; you had to fight them, as they could take your life; in the morning, many of us were dead and the bodies were left inside; they refused to give water even to our crying children, whom we were holding above our heads.

Most Jews were ordered to work in their own town or city, but groups were also selected to perform heavy labour tasks such as building railway tracks.

Hitler rewarded Romania's loyalty by returning Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, and by allowing it to administer the Soviet lands immediately between the Dniester and Bug rivers, including Odessa and Nikolaev.

I don't know how many centuries will pass before the Romanian people meet again with such total liberty of action, such opportunity for ethnic cleansing and national revision...

In Chudei, 450 Jews were shot on 3 July 1941, and afterwards, with the complicity of local Romanians and Ukrainians, the killing area was expanded to the neighbouring villages.

A report of a German attaché drew attention on the matter even before the military operations started on the Eastern Front: The way in which the Romanians are dealing with the Jews lacks any method.

[29]During the fighting across Bukovina and Bessarabia, the Romanians weere praised for their effectiveness in "cleansing the land" by the Germans, but were criticized for failures to remove all traces of the genocide.

[29] Like in the Old Kingdom, the surviving Jewish population was largely displaced from rural areas, Romanian villages being seen as the "core of Romanianess" that had to be cleansed of foreign elements, and relocated initially to towns and cities.

As per the plan presented earlier, the Romanian authorities did not want to set up permanent living spaces for the Jews, but gather them and send them across the border, which by mid 1941 was the river Dniester.

Convoys of Jews from Bukovina and northern Bessarabia were marched towards the river, and makeshift camps were set up on the banks at Kozliv, Yampil, and Vertiujeni.

[30] The lack of communication between the Germans and Romanians, and the state of confusion regarding how to deal with the Jews in Bessarabia - mainly due to Romanian authorities' attempts to cover up the genocide by avoiding giving written orders - was addressed by Bessarabia's governor, General Constantin Voiculescu, who set up ghettos, and by the Tighina Agreement between Antonescu and Hitler which allowed the transfer of the region between Dniester and Southern Bug to Romania, known since then as Transnistria.

Large camps and ghettos were set up at Chișinău, Sokyriany, Edineț, Limbenii Noi, Rășcani, Răuțel, Vertujeni, and Mărculești, with smaller ones in other locations.

[32] A Soviet census two years prior to the Tighina Agreement claimed that as many as three million people lived in the region between the Dniester and Southern Bug, out of which approximately 330,000 were Jews.

A total of 16 camps and 75 ghettos were established in Transnistria,[35] the main locations being Mytky, Pechera, and Rohizka in Vinnytsia Oblast, Obodivka, Balanivka, Bobrik, Kryve Ozero, and Bogdanovka.

[36] The concentration camps did not have enough closed spaces for the people forced to live in, and were poorly provisioned with supplies, which led to the death of many by hypothermia or starvation.

Many towns and villages in which ghettos had been established bore the marks of bombardment, and often Jews were placed in half-destroyed houses that were open to the elements and lacking sanitation.

Ragged, dirty, and hungry, and having spent what money they had to buy food in order to survive the ordeal of deportation, they presented a woeful sight to the local population.

The action was carried out mainly by shooting, the Romanian soldiers being aided by Ukrainian police, but also by gathering 5,000 Jews in two stables and setting them on fire.

This fact was acknowledged by Adolf Hitler on 19 August 1941: "As far as the Jewish Question is concerned, it can now be stated with certainty that a man like Antonescu is pursuing much more radical policies in this area than we have so far."