Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

On June 30, 1941, 2,500 (between 2,430 and 2,590) Jewish men were pushed into thirty-three cattle cars, on a train transporting the Jews out of Iaşi to Călăraşi.
The order was given by Police Chief Chirlovici to "evacuate from Jassy [Iasi] those Jews who had been detained as suspects at police headquarters."
Tthe narrow ventilation slats in the cattle cars were nailed shut, the cattle cars were painted with slogans identifying the cargo as "Communist Jews" or "Killers of German and Romanian soldiers",and the train, under command of Sergeant Ion Leucea and a detachment of Romanian police, left the Iaşi staton in the early morning.
The death train traveled to Tirgu Frumos, Paşcani, Lespezi, back to Paşcani, then to Roman, and, back to Tirgu Frumos.
The passengers died from dehydration, even the urine they were forced to drink was not sufficient to support life.
The train stopped at stations, the doors would be flung open discharging a stench from the cattle cars filled with the dead and the dying.

On July 1, 1941, Second Lieutenant Aurel Triandaf took over command of the death train, and ordered that the remaining cattle cars be opened and the corpses be removed.
Because the Jewish survivors were too weak, local Gypsies were brought in to unload the bodies.
More than 650 bodies were put on trucks and carts and taken to the local Jewish cemetery, where large trenches had been dug as mass graves.
The death train resumed its journey to Călăraşi, making numerous stops.

On July 2, 1941, the death train arrived in Mirceşti, where 327 corpses were unloaded and buried at the outskirts of the town of Iugani.
The next day, the death train passed through Săbăoani to Roman, where the death train was not permitted into the station because of the stench from the railcars, and was sent back to Săbăoani, where, 300 corpses were removed and surviving passengers were examined by military doctors, who ordered they be given water.

On July 6, 1941, the death train arrived in Călăraşi, carrying 1,076 survivors, who were interned in a camp set up in the courtyard of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, where more died during the two months they were interned, before being taken back to Iaşi.

On August 31, 1941, one of the death trains returned to Iaşi.
The survivors were deloused, and D. Pacu, the Chief of Police, addressed them: "Boys, you have been tried and found innocent. You are honourable men."
About 3,600 Jews perished on the death trains.

A second death train, carrying 1,902 Jews in 18 railcars, along with 80 corpses of those killed earlier, left Iaşi for Podul Ilioaiei, travelling the only 20 kilmeters in 8 hours.
The passengers were subjected to the same desperate and agonizing slow death as in the first train.
Only 708 reached Podul Iloaiei alive, where they were confined to synagogues or billeted in Jewish homes, for one to three months before being allowed to return to Iaşi.