Leaders of both communities acknowledged publicly for the first time Thursday that the "cash for emigrants" scheme, long the subject of rumors in the Balkan country, had existed and brought in lucrative receipts. The daily Evenimentul Zilei said Romania had netted $6 million under "Operation Peregrine."
"It was known at the time that a German willing to emigrate cost something between 5,000 marks and 12,000 marks [$3,00 to $8,000]," said Kurt Klemens, head of the German Democratic Forum, representing 90,000 ethnic Germans left in Romania. "Everyone was aware of the phenomenon. But nobody who left admitted being 'bought' or who had paid or how much."
Iulian Sorin, secretary of the Federation of Romanian Jewish communities, said he had sought confirmation from "certain circles" after hearing of money being handed over. Evenimentul's report Wednesday said Ceausescu's dreaded Securitate secret police organized the scheme and channeled proceeds into the Foreign Trade Bank and banks outside Romania.
"There were jokes about the price for a kilogram of 'Saxon meat'. A 10-kilogram child was more expensive than a 40-kilogram man," Klemens said from Sibiu, in central Romania's Transylvania region. Sorin said prices depended on applicants' skills. "Graduates cost more than unqualified workers," he said.
Seven years after the fall of communism, Romania has yet to strip the veil from many sensitive issues left by 50 years of harsh rule. Securitate archives -- unlike East Germany's equally feared STASI -- are closed by law for 40 years.
The newspaper said "Operation Peregrine" had been started in June 1970 and went on for more than three years. But Klemens said the Securitate applied the principle of "cash for emigrants" right up until Ceausescu's execution during the December 1989 revolt against his rule. "Germany had allegedly paid for up to 11,000 Germans to leave Romania each year," he said.
Evenimentul quoted a 1973 document saying that 273 cases in the first half of the year had brought in $555,499 and 3.3 million marks in cash. Other benefits were "474 grams of gold jewelry, a flat and spare car parts worth 1,740 marks."
"It is hard to say who emigrated in proper fashion, who was bought by the German state and who was bought by relatives," Klemens said. "This profitable business was conducted under the table, with no documents, no signatures."
Jews also left the country en mass. Half of Romania's 800,000 Jews died in Nazi death camps and of the survivors, 320,000 left to Israel and elsewhere. Only 14,000 remain.
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