Dorohoi County

{{Infobox settlement  | official_name = Județul Dorohoi | other_name = | settlement_type = County (''Județ'') | image_skyline =Palatul Administrativ din Dorohoi.jpg | image_caption =The Dorohoi County Prefecture building of the interwar period. | image_flag = | flag_link = | image_shield = Interbelic Dorohoi County CoA.png | shield_link = | image_map = Romania 1930 county Dorohoi.png | map_caption = | subdivision_type = [[Countries of the world|Country]] | subdivision_name = [[Image:Flag of Romania.svg|25px]] [[Kingdom of Romania|Romania]] | subdivision_type2 = Historic region | subdivision_name2 = [[Moldavia]] | subdivision_type3 = County seat (''Reședință de județ'') | subdivision_name3 = [[Dorohoi]] | government_footnotes = | government_type = | leader_party = | leader_title = [[Prefect (Romania)|Prefect]] | leader_name = | leader_title1 = | leader_name1 = | established_title = Established | established_date = 1859 | established_title2 = Ceased to exist | established_date2 = [[Administrative divisions of the People's Republic of Romania|Administrative reform]] of 1950 | area_magnitude = | area_total_km2 =2846 | area_land_km2 = | area_water_km2 = | area_total_sq_mi = | area_land_sq_mi = | area_water_sq_mi = | area_water_percent = | area_urban_km2 = | area_urban_sq_mi = | area_metro_km2 = | area_metro_sq_mi = | elevation_footnotes = | elevation_m = | elevation_ft = | latd = | latm = | lats = | latNS = | longd = | longm = | longs = | longEW = | population_as_of = 1930 | population_footnotes = | population_total = 211354 | population_density_km2 =auto | population_density_sq_mi = | population_metro = | population_density_metro_km2 = | population_density_metro_sq_mi = | population_urban = | population_density_urban_km2 = | population_density_urban_sq_mi = | population_note = | timezone = [[Eastern European Time|EET]] | utc_offset = +2 | timezone_DST = [[Eastern European Summer Time|EEST]] | utc_offset_DST = +3 | postal_code_type = | postal_code = | area_code = | blank_name = | blank_info = | footnotes = | website = }} '''Dorohoi County''', with its seat at [[Dorohoi]], was a subdivision of the Kingdom of [[Romania]] and located in the region of [[Moldavia]].

==Geography== The county was located in the northeastern part of [[Greater Romania]], in the north-eastern extremity of the [[Moldavia]] region. Today the territory of the former county is split between [[Romania]] (north [[Botoșani County]], with an area of 2,542 km<sup>2</sup>) and [[Ukraine]] ([[Hertsa region]], with an area of 304 km<sup>2</sup>). It bordered northwest with [[Cernăuți County]], to the north and east with [[Hotin County]], south [[Botoșani County#Historical county|Botoşani County]], southwest with [[Suceava County#Historical county|Suceava County]], and west with [[Rădăuți County]].

==Administrative organization== [[File:1938 map of interwar county Dorohoi.jpg|thumb|right|Map of the county, with the district arrangement in 1938.]] The county comprised five cities: [[Dorohoi]], [[Darabani]], [[Herța]], [[Mihăileni, Botoșani|Mihăileni]] and [[Săveni]].

Administratively, Dorohoi County was originally divided into three districts (''[[plasă|plăși]]''):<ref name=Memoria>[http://romaniainterbelica.memoria.ro/judete/dorohoi/ Portretul României Interbelice - Județul Dorohoi]</ref> # Plasa Bașeu # Plasa Herța # Plasa Siret

Subsequently, two new districts were established: <ol start="4"> <li>Plasa Centrală</li> <li>Plasa Lascăr</li> </ol>

From 1941 to 1944, Dorohoi County was part of the [[Bukovina Governorate]].

=== Population === According to the 1930 census data, the county population was 211,354 inhabitants, of which 92.1% were ethnic Romanians, 7.0% were ethnic Jews, as well as other minorities. From the religious point of view, 92.4% were Eastern Orthodox, 7.0% Jewish, 0.3% Roman Catholic, as well as other minorities.

==== Urban population ==== In 1930, the county's urban population was 43,707 inhabitants, 69.3% Romanians, 29.1% Jews, 0.6% Germans, as well as other minorities. In the urban area, languages were Romanian (71.1%), Yiddish (27.4%), German (0.6%), as well as other minorities. From the religious point of view, the urban population was composed of Eastern Orthodox (69.1%), Jewish (29.3%), Roman Catholic (0.9%), as well as other minorities.

==== Jewish Population, the Holocaust, and the Soviet Deportations of 1941 from the [[Hertsa region]] ====

The number of deportees to the Soviet north and east from the present-day Hertsa raion on June 13, 1941, was 1996; according to some sources, most of the deportees died.<ref>See, for example, Ion Popescu and Constantin Ungureanu, ''Romanii din Ucraina - intre trecut si viitor'', vol. 1 (''Romanii din Regiunea Cernauti''), Cernauti, 2005, p. 160.</ref>

In 1941-1944, Dorohoi County, historically a part of the Old Kingdom of Romania, was officially/administratively a part of Bukovina. Almost all the Jews who lived in the town of [[Hertsa]] (1,204) and in the rest of the Hertsa area (14), which were under Soviet rule in 1940-1941 and in 1944-1991, on September 1, 1941, were deported to [[Transnistria Governorate|Transnistria]] by the Romanian authorities, where most of them died; only 450 were alive in December 1943, when the repatriation of the Jews to Dorohoi County by the Romanian authorities started, while about 800 Jews died.<ref>See "Gertsa", by Andrei Corbea-Hoisie, in ''The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe'', at https://encyclopedia.yivo.org/article/923 and Publikationstelle Wien, Die Bevölkerungzählung in Rumänien, 1941, Viena 1943.</ref> The Romanian army and authorities killed 100 Jews on July 5, 1941, before the deportation to Transnistria.<ref>Julius S. Fisher, ''Transnistria, The Forgotten Cemetery'' (South Brunswick: Thomas Yoseloff, 1969), p. 35.</ref> For the entire Dorohoi County ("Judet"), a large majority of which remained in Romania, 6,425 Jews survived the deportations to Transnistria, while 5,131 died between September 6, 1940, and August 23, 1944, during the Antonescu dictatorship, overwhelmingly due to the deportations of 1941 and 1942.<ref>See Jean Ancel, ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'' (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2011) p. 550, 558, on the number of survivors as of November 15, 1943, and "Situatie Numerica de evreii ucisi sub regimul de dictatura din Romania de la data de 6 decembrie 1940, pana la 23 august 1944, precum si acelor deportati in acelasi interval de timp si nereintorsi la domiciliu", in "Nota Ministerului Afacerilor Interne, Directia Generala a Politiei, Directia Politiei de Siguranta, Sectia Nationalitati Nr. 780-S din 6 Mai 1946 Catre M.A.S.", in Ion Calafeteanu, Nicolae Dinu and Teodor Gheorghe, ''Emigrarea Populatiei Evreiesti din Romania in 1940-1944, Culegere de Documente din Arhiva Ministerului Afaceror Externe al Romaniei'' (Bucuresti, Silex - Casa de Editura, Presa si IMpresariat S.R.L., Bucuresti, 1993), p. 246. </ref> After the November 1941 deportations of Jews from Dorohoi County (9,367 Jews) and June 1942 (360 Jews), excluding the Jews from the Herta area that had been under Soviet occupation, 2,316 Jews were not deported.<ref>See Jean Ancel, ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'' (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2011), p. 304-305.</ref> There is a list of about 3,000 Jews deported from [[Dorohoi]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database: LISTING OF C. 3000 JEWS FROM DOROHOI (IN SOUTHERN BUKOVINA) WHO WERE DEPORTED TO TRANSNISTRIA. (ID: 30435)|url=https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/source_view.php?SourceId=30435|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=}} </ref> In November 1943, according to General Constantin Vasiliu, undersecretary of state for police and security in the Ministry of the Interior, if one includes the Jews deported from Dorohoi in 1942, but excluding the Hertsa area, 10,368 Jews were deported from the county, while if one includes the Jews of Hertsa, about 12,000 or more were deported.<ref>Jean Ancel, The History of the Holocaust in Romania (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2011), p. 304.</ref> At the end of 1943, 6,053 Jews deported from Dorohoi County (excluding a large majority of the Jews from the Hertsa area) were returned by the Romanian authorities to the county.<ref>Jean Ancel, "Dorohoi", in Israel Gutman (editor in Chief), ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'' (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990), vol. 1, p. 401.</ref>

Jean Ancel has shown that the decision to deport the Jews of Dorohoi county in 1941 "originated form local government officials, such as members of the military, civil servants and lawyers".<ref>See Jean Ancel, ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'' (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2011), p. 300-301.</ref> It was authorized by Governor Calotescu of Bukovina.<ref>See Jean Ancel, ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'' (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2011), p. 300-301.</ref> When Romania's military dictator Ion Antonescu (who had ordered the 1941 deportations of the Bessarabian and Bukovinian Jews to Transnistria) was informed of the deportations, and an intervention by Jewish leader [[Wilhelm Filderman]] and a National Peasant Party politician, Nicolae Lupu [see the Romanian language article on him at https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Lupu_(politician)], he ordered that the Jews who were about to board the train not be deported to Transnistria.<ref>See Jean Ancel, ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'' (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2011), p. 300-301.</ref> The 1942 deportations of Jews from Dorohoi County seem not to have been ordered by Ion Antonescu, who nevertheless ordered the deportations of Chernivtsi and Chisinau Jews in that year.<ref>See Jean Ancel, ''The History of the Holocaust in Romania'' (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2011), p. 472.</ref> In the book by the great late Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg, the dean of Holocaust studies, cites Antonescu's statement in the meeting of the Council of Ministers of November 17, 1943; Antonescu stated in reference to the Jews of Dorohoi County, "Those from Old Roumania, who have been removed by mistake, will be brought back to their homes."<ref>Raul Hilberg, ''The Destruction fo the European Jews'' (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), p. 507.</ref> For more information on the Holocaust in [[Transnistria]], including on the fate of the Jewish deportees from Romania, including [[Dorohoi County]], see [[History of the Jews in Transnistria]].

==See also== * [[Hertsa region]] * [[Hertsa]] * [[Hertsa Raion]]

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{commons category|Interwar Dorohoi County}} * {{in lang|ro}} [http://romaniainterbelica.memoria.ro/judete/dorohoi/index.html Dorohoi County on memoria.ro]

[[Category:Former counties of Romania]] [[Category:1938 disestablishments in Romania]] [[Category:1940 establishments in Romania]] [[Category:1950 disestablishments in Romania]] [[Category:States and territories disestablished in 1938]] [[Category:States and territories established in 1940]] [[Category:States and territories disestablished in 1950]]