deportees. The deported Roma suffered great hardship from the beginning due to cold and lack of food, with a high mortality rate being notable from the very beginning of the period of deportation. On occasions Roma colonies received no food rations for weeks on end, and as no clothing was issued to supplement the insufficient supply they had been allowed to bring with them, the Ukrainian winter caused much suffering and many deaths, while healthcare was practically non-existent. The number of dead from cold and hunger among the transported Roma can not be securely calculated, as no reliable contemporary statistics exist. Transnistria was evacuated by the Romanian army in early 1944, in the face of the advancing Soviet forces. Some Romani pdople travelled back to Romania, whereas others remained in Soviet territory, from where they were likely dispersed into other regions, a factor which makes exact calculations of mortality among the transportees very difficult. Romanian historian Viorel Achim puts the number of dead at around half of those transported, roughly 12,500 people, whereas the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania gives an estimate of 11,000. The Roma of Northern Transylvania during the Second World war In August 1940, as part of the Second Vienna Award, control of Northern Transylvania, including of all of Maramureș and part of Crișana, was transferred to Hungary. Discrimination by Hungary against Roma had been common throughout the 1930s, and biannual police raids on Romani settlements were mandated by law. During the course of the war, Hungarian Roma were progressively expelled from urban areas or forced to live in ghettoes. In March 1944, Hungary was occupied by Nazi Germany, Hungary stepped up its persecution of the Roma and Jewish population, with countless Jewish people deported to concentration camps and many Roma organised into forced labour battalions. Following the replacement in late 1944 of the Horthy government with that of the Arrow Cross Party, the mass deportation of Roma to concentration camps began. Initially the victims were transported to local Hungarian labour camps, from which many were later transferred to Dachau. Massacres of gypsies also occurred in various localities, including one occurring in Nagyszalonta (Salonta) now in Romania. Of a population of around 100,000 Roma in Hungary, around 50,000 were subjected to forced labour. While the total number of Roma killed in Hungary is still a matter of academic debate, the Columbia Guide to the Holocaust