FORD MOTOR COMPANY IN OCCUPIED ODESSA (1942-1944)
FORD MOTOR COMPANY IN OCCUPIED ODESSA (1942-1944)

Summary/Abstract: It is evident from the existing historiography of Odessa under Romanian occupation that industrial labor was in a position of complete subjugation to the Romanian authorities and that the men of this class were systematically exploited with government approval. Ford’s administrative agreements with the government and military structured the workshop’s contract in such a way that involuntary labor would be available to the shop from Odessa and the surrounding areas. From the records of Ford Auto Fix No. 10, it is clear that Ford Romana stood to make a great deal of profit from the works executed there and that their industrial labor force was of great value to them. However, because of the economic conditions and agreements with the government, Ford did not pay these men the true value of their labor by any means, and it is apparent that many of them were not paid at all, besides the minimal lodging that Ford provided them. Ford’s complicity with the systematic abuse of labor by the Transnistrian government therefore qualifies as the unethical use of forced labor by any reasonable contemporary standard, and Odessa’s Ford workshop joins the ranks of the notorious Cologne factory in its exploitation of the people of occupied Europe during WWII.

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