Tabele Barbatilor — Census of Jewish Men in Romania, 1942

The Original Material

The original Tabele Barbatilor ("Census of Men") lists were compiled during the Antonescu regime in Romania, in 1942.  There are three separate lists:

• (T1) The purpose of the first list was to establish a listing of Jewish males resident in all counties and towns of Romania in that year, and born between the years of 1881-1892 (over 50 years old).  These men were not to be compelled to forced labor camps, because of their age.
• (T2) The second list included Jewish males born between 1893-1921 (ages 21-50) and that were living in Bucuresti.  These men were assigned to labor details, usually working in the businesses of non-Jews.
• (T3) The third list included Jewish males age 15 and 16 (born June 1, 1926 - May 31, 1928) that were living in Bucuresti.  Many were still in school, but some already had professions.  They also were not placed in labor details.

The original documents are held in the Archive and Library of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania, in Bucharest, Fond #: III 400 E/1942.  Copies were obtained in 2000 by Prof. Ladislau Gyemant, Director of the Mosche Carmilly Institute of Jewish History at the University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and were purchased from him by the ROM-SIG.

The original T1 census list comprised 350 pages and 10,574 records.  The original T2 census list comprised 352 pages and 8493 records.  The original T3 census list comprised 71 pages and 1229 records.  This database contains all 20,296 records from T1, T2 and T3.  These documents were written in Romanian.

The Database

The following are the fields in this database, and represent the entire list of data:

• Name - Family name and first name (Surname, Given Name).  See notes under "Other Names" below.
• Birth Place, County - The town of birth, followed by the county of birth, when given.  If the person was born outside of Romania, the county is often the country of birth.
• Birth Date - Date or year of birth.
• Father / Mother - Father's given name, Mother's given name.
• Education - Level of education.  See notes under "Levels of Education" below.
• Profession - Occupation or trade, translated from Romanian.  See notes under "Professions" below, and Romanian-English occupations translation table.
• Residence / Address - Place or address of residence - The first (upper) cell represents a residence usually outside of Bucaresti; The second (lower) cell represents an address in Bucuresti.  See notes under "Addresses" below for an explanation of terms.
• Assigned Labor - Labor detail to which the person was assigned.  See notes under "Labor" below.
• Census # - Census number assigned to the person.

Notes

Other Names:

In a number of cases individuals are listed by both nicknames or patronyms, as well as the hereditary name adopted in the 1870's, when such were legally required in Romania.  We have listed these nicknames and other names in the "Name" column, separated by a slash "/" character.  Where a patronym is also given, we have listed that separately.  In this fashion one can find a person by either name.  For example, if one is searching for an Israel Isaac, who was also known as Israel Kleinman, one will find an entry under either name, with a referral to the other.  Note that the Romanian prefix "SIN" means "son of".

Levels of education:

The educational system of Romania was derived primarily from the French school system.  There is no direct correlation to the American system which consists of elementary school, junior high/middle school and senior high school.  Therefore, the terms used in the census were translated directly to their English meanings.

Although the educational system was based upon the French system, the terms used in the census and the information supplied was not always consistent.  There are many reasons for this but the most common are as follows:

1. Since the census covers men of ages 18 to 50, they attended school at many different periods in Romanian history.
2. Romania was occupied by different forces at the different periods of time in which these men would have attended school.
3. The rural schools often differed from the urban schools.
4. Not all of the people in this census attended school in Bucharest; in fact some attended school in other countries.

The primary educational system, patterned after the French, worked in the following way:

1. All students attended a primare (primary) school for their first four years.  After completing four years they were required to take an examination.  If they failed the exam they were not allowed to continue along the normal educational path;
2. Students who had passed the exam then went to a liceu (lyceum), gimnasiu (gymnasium) or secundare (secondary) school.  These were just different names for the same types of schools, except that the gymnasium was grades 5-8 and lyceum and secondary was 5-12.  They attended these schools for four more years and then were required to take another exam (capacitate or mini-bacculareat) at the end of the eighth year of schooling.  Again, only those that passed the mini-bacculareat were allowed to continue;
3. Those students who passed the capacitate were allowed to continue on for four more years.  After their twelfth year of schooling, they took another exam called a bacculareat (graduate).  If they passed this exam they were considered to have graduated (equivalent to high school graduation in the United States) and were eligible to go to a university.  If they failed, they were ineligible for the university and did not receive a diploma.  During these last four years of schooling the students were usually divided into those majoring in the humanities and those majoring in the sciences.

In the rural areas there were only primary schools and they usually went through the 6th or 8th grade.  It was felt that 6-8 years of schooling was all that was needed for farm children.  The curriculum of these schools, especially grades 5-8, was different from the urban schools.  A student leaving or graduating from a rural primary school could not transfer to a lyceum because they hadn’t taken the required set of courses.

In the census, the level of schooling is preceded by a number and the abbreviation “cl.”.  “Cl.” is an abbreviation for the word “clases” and is essentially equivalent to “grade or years” in that school.  4 cl. primary would mean that the student completed 4 years of primary schooling, 3 cl. lyceum would mean that the student completed 3 years of lyceum schooling or a total of 7 years of schooling.

Those students who failed one of the exams still had the option to attend commercial (commercial) school.  These were call commercial, lower commercial or upper commercial.  They were equivalent to what are called business schools in the United States.  The difference is that these schools were for teenagers where most business schools in the United States are for adults (or for after high school).  These schools taught courses that allowed you to become an office worker, clerk, secretary, bookkeeper, etc.

The professional schools were called university, polytechnic or conservatory and were generally equivalent to universities around the world.  The Conservatories were primarily for the arts (music, painting, etc.), the Polytechnic for the sciences/engineering and the Universities taught a broad range of curriculum.  The terms “faculty” referred to a “school” within a university, e.g. factultate de drept (law faculty) would be a law school within the university.

The key terms used in the census and the database are:

1. # Cl. – The # indicates the number of years (grades) of the specified type of school.
2. Primary – grades one through four (and in rural areas through eighth grade).
3. Elementary – another term for a Primary school.
4. Gymnasium – grades five through eight.
5. Lyceum and Secondary – grades five through twelve.
6. Commercial, Lower Commercial, Upper Commercial – Business type schools.
7. Trade – trade type school (vocational).
8. Graduate – person who completed 12 years and passed the bacculareat exam.
9. Doctor of xxx – Attained a PhD in the xxx discipline.
10. Bachelor of xxx – Attained a bachelor’s degree in the xxx discipline.
11. Polytechnic – equivalent to a University (usually engineering/sciences).
12. xxx Faculty – the xxx (discipline) school within a university.
13. Ciocanul – the name of a specific Romanian-Jewish lyceum.
14. Cultura – the name of a specific set of Romanian-Jewish primary/lyceum schools.
15. Complementary – a school for handicapped children.

In the census the largest portion of the men had only 4 cl. primary.  Either most of them failed the first exam or dropped out of school to work and help support the family (although they would have only been about 10 years old at the time).

Professions:

The professions as originally entered can be found in the Romanian-English occupations translation table.  Please note that the Romanian terms have been entered exactly as the clerks wrote them in 1942.  They are therefore subject to any mispellings, etc., that they might have used.  It is the policy of JewishGen to not make these kinds of corrections when entering material into any database.

Addresses:

The following terms are used in addresses to describe whether it is a road, avenue, boulevard, etc.:

Alee (Alea, Aleea, Aleia, Al.)	Drive
Bulevard (Bd., Bul., Bd., Bld., Bdul.)	Boulevard
Cale (Cal., Calea)	Road / Way
Fundatura (Fund.)	Cul de Sac / Dead End
Palat (Pal.)	Palace
Parc (Parcul, Pc.)	Park
Piata (Pta.)	Market / Square
Prelung (Prel.)	Oblong
Sosea (Sos.)	Highway
Splai (Sp., Spl., Splaiul)	Embankment
Strada (Str.)	Street
Stradela	Lane

The following words further describe an address:

• bis — This is sometimes found following the number of an address (e.g. Vitan 15bis).  This indicates that there are two Vitan 15 addresses (right next to each other) and this is “the other one” or the “second one”.
• et.# — This is sometimes found following the number of an address (e.g. Vitan 25et2).  This indicates the floor on which the person lives.

Labor:

The following terms appear most frequently in this column:

• Proprie / Firma Proprie:  Business owner (probably assigned to a self-employed person or small shop owner).
• C. E. R. / CER / Centrala Evreilor (din Romania):  The Center of the Jews of Romania.

Acknowledgements

T1: Ellen Renck and Paula Zieselman both worked on the data input.  Validation was done by Paula Zieselman.

T2: Israel Rabin did most of the data input with help from Ellen Renck, Paula Zieselman, Ina Margulis and Harry Green.  Validation was done by Rony Shahan and Dr. Artur Hecht.

T3: Terry Lasky did the data input and Israel Rabin did the validation.

Project Coordinator: Terry Lasky.

Translation assistance was provided by Prof. Gyemant, Susanna Vendel and Dr. Marcel Bratu.

Search the Database

The Tabele Barbatilor database can be searched via the JewishGen Romania Database.