Romania: Internment Camp Târgu-Jiu; Gestapo censorship
Anti-fascist refugees from Germany and German-occupied lands were incarcerated by Romanian authorities, under Nazi sway after 1939. The armed forces of Romania entered the war on Germany’s side in the 1941 attack on the U.S.S.R., even though Germany and Italy had forced Romania to cede territory to the Soviet Union and Hungary in 1939 and 1940. A coup d’état in August 1944 overthrew the puppet regime. The Romanian army then switched sides, joining Soviet forces to liberate Transylvania, Hungary, and Slovakia from Nazi rule.
Pictured Above and Below: A July 27, 1942, censorship military postal card with added postage from an inmate of Camp Târgu-Jiu for political internees, forwarded to Bucharest, Romania. The only recorded example of mail from this camp. Also, a January 2, 1944, periodical wrapper from Bucharest, Romania, to Munich, Germany. Evidently worried that even a stamp collector periodical might include seditious matter, the Gestapo censored it in Vienna. The Gestapo did not censor letter mail, so this censor marking is “hardly ever found” according to Karl Heinz Riemer’s standard reference on German wartime postal censorship.
Additional Images
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