 On the backdrop of increased anti-Semitism in Romania in the late 1930s, the government of Ion Antonescu officially adopted the myth of Jewish Bolshevism, making Jews responsible for the territorial losses Romania suffered during the summer of 1940.As a results, the government, in agreement with Germany, embarked on a campaign to "cleanse" the recaptured territories by massively deporting and/or killing the Jews of Bukovina and Bessarabia who did not flee to the interior of the Soviet Union before Romania regained the territory in July 1941.Only in 1941, between 45,000 and 60,000 Jews were killed in Bessarabia and Bukovina by the Romanian and German armies.