Corneliu Calotescu
Corneliu Calotescu was a Romanian major-general in World War II.
He was born in Pitești, the son of Constantin and Felicia Calotescu. Following into his father footsteps, he chose to go into a military career and enrolled in 1908 in the Bucharest Military School. He graduated in 1910 with the rank of second lieutenant and joined the 30th Dorobanți Muscel Regiment. After Romania entered World War I in August 1916 on the side of the Allies, Calotescu, by then a captain, fought at the Battle of Mărăști in the summer of 1917, and was subsequently decorated with the Order of Michael the Brave, Third Class.
Calotescu advanced in rank to lieutenant colonel in 1927 and colonel in 1934. From 1934 to 1934 he commanded the 4th Dorobanți Argeș Infantry Regiment, and in October 1939 he was promoted to brigadier general. He served as Secretary-General to the Under-Secretary of State of Land Forces in 1940. In June 1940 he was awarder the Order of the Crown, Commander class.
From 30 August 1941, he was Deputy Governor-General of Bukovina, and then Governor-General of Bukovina; he served in this position from 5 September 1941 to 20 March 1943. At the urging of military dictator Ion Antonescu, Calotescu announced on October 10, 1941, his decision that all the Jews of Cernăuți must be deported to Transnistria. After Traian Popovici, the Mayor of Cernăuți, intervened, Calotescu agreed that Popovici would be allowed to nominate 200 Jews who were to be exempted from deportation; the number grew to 20,000 after Popovici appealed directly to Antonescu.
After being promoted to major general on 25 October 1942, Calotescu took command of the 3rd Infantry Division on 21 March 1943. After the coup d'état of 23 August 1944, he was named commander of the 2nd Vânători de munte Division, with which he fought in Transylvania until October 12, 1944, when he went into the reserves.
On 22 March 1945, Calotescu was put into retirement by the Petru Groza government. In May 1945 he was tried by the Bucharest People's Tribunal; found guilty of crimes, he was condemned to death. Later that year his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he was sent to Aiud Prison. In June 1956 he was released. He returned to Pitești, where he died in 1970. In April 1968, Corneliu Calotescu was legally rehabilitated, received a pension and was assigned a comfortable, fully furnished apartment.
According to Radu Ioanid, the mayor of Chernivtsi, Traian "Popovici tried to oppose the deportations, and he managed to win - with the help of the governor of Bukovina - the approval of Antonescu to retain in the city some 15,600 Jews as "specialists", along with some 4,000 others to whom he himself had issued "temporary permits." Yet Jean Ancel has shown something that he has discovered recently, 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". It was authorized by Governor Calotescu of Bukovina. When Romania's military dictator Ion Antonescu was informed of the deportations, and an intervention by Jewish leader Wilhelm Filderman and a National Peasant Party politician, Nicolae Lupu, he ordered that the Jews who were about to board the train not be deported to Transnistria. 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. 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." 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.