Gingold and Henric Streitman, it collected funds which were in part redirected toward Maria Antonescu's charities. Small numbers of Romanian Jews left independently for the Palestine as early as 1941, but British opposition to Zionist plans made their transfer perilous (one notorious example of this being the MV Struma). On a personal level, Antonescu's encouragement of crimes alternated with periods when he gave in to the pleas of Jewish community leader Wilhelm Filderman. In one such instance, he reversed his own 1942 decision to impose the wearing of yellow badges, which nevertheless remained in use everywhere outside the Old Kingdom and, in theory, to any Romanian Jews elsewhere in Axis-controlled Europe. Assessing these contradictions, commentators also mention the effect of Allied promises to prosecute those responsible for genocide throughout Europe. In the late stages of the war, Antonescu was attempting to shift all blame for crimes from his regime while accusing Jews of "bring[ing] destruction upon themselves". The regime permitted non-deported Romanian Jews and American charities to send humanitarian aid into Transnistrian camps, a measure it took an interest in enforcing in late 1942.Final Report, pp. 218, 383–384; Deletant, p. 100 Deportations of Jews ceased altogether in October of the same year. A common explanation historians propose for this reassessment of policies is the change in Germany's fortunes on the Eastern Front, with mention that Antonescu was considering using the Jewish population as an asset in his dealings with the Western Allies.Final Report, pp. 252–253; Ancel (2005 b), pp. 231–234; Deletant, pp. 100–101; Ornea, p. 394; Penkower, pp. 153, 161. The decision appears to have been taken by Mihai Antonescu at a time when the leader was incapacitated by his 1942 disease (Deletant, pp. 209–211). It nevertheless took the regime more than a year to allow more selective Jewish returns from Transnistria, including some 2,000 orphans.Final Report, pp. 218–220, 251–252, 383–384; Ancel (2005 b), pp. 232–234; Deletant, pp. 118–119, 203–204, 215–225, 338–340 After Transnistria's 1944 evacuation, Antonescu himself advocated the creation of new camps in Bessarabia. In conversations with his cabinet, the Conducător angrily maintained that surviving Jews were better off than Romanian soldiers. The policies applied in respect to the Romani population were ambivalent: while ordering the deportation of those he considered criminals, Ion Antonescu was taking some interest in improving the lives of Romani laborers of the Bărăgan Plain. According to Romanian historian Viorel Achim, although it had