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Introduction |
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Sixty-four
years after the murder of hundreds of thousands of Romanian and
Ukrainian Jews, Romania appears to finally be ready to acknowledge a not
so glorious page of its past. Although it took almost fifteen years for
the post-communist government of Romania to decide to honor the Jewish
and Roma victims of the World War II regime of Marshal Ion Antonescu,
this month will mark the first of an annual commemoration of the victims
of the Holocaust in Romania. |
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The Romanian Holocaus |
 Ion Antonescu was one of Nazi Germany’s main allies. He caused
Romania to become a member of the Axis and made it Germany’s mainstay on
the Eastern front. Antonescu initiated pogroms against the Jews, caused
massive human massacres, and instituted the full scale deportation of
the Romanian Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina. Antonescu’s troops
participated in mobile killing operations. He also handed over Romanian
Jews to the Germans in the Ukraine and in Western Europe. Antonescu and
his regime are directly responsible for the deaths of at least 270,000
Romanian and Ukrainian Jews. He is also responsible for the deportation
of 25,000 Roma to Transdniestria of which perhaps half perished there.
Ion Antonescu’s direct involvement in the Romanian Holocaust is beyond
peradventure. It is proven both through testimony and by voluminous
documentation originating from the state archives of Romania, Moldova
and Ukraine.
One of the main features of Romania’s genocidal policies during World
War II was the swift physical destruction of Romanian Jewry based on
selective geographical criteria. The policies of destruction of the
Romanian Jews were implemented heavily and rapidly by the Romanian
government at the beginning of the war, especially in Bessarabia,
Bukovina and Transdniestria (the territory between the Dniester and the
Bug rivers then under Romanian occupation), but ended slowly in 1943. It
was not the rabidly anti-Semitic Iron Guard, but the Romanian army and
gendarmerie that carried out the massive destruction of Romanian and
Ukrainian Jewry. Most of the time there was no coordination of Romanian
and German policies in this matter. Roughly half of Romanian Jewry,
about 375,000 people, survived the war.
The communist regimes that followed the war sought to blame the
genocidal crimes of World War II upon the Hungarians and the Germans.
Romania’s role in the Holocaust was obfuscated by the communists to such
an extent that following the overthrow of Ceausescu, most Romanians
simply could not believe the factual evidence of the nation’s crimes
against humanity that were coming from Romania’s own archives. When the
leader of Romania’s Jewish community, Rabbi Moses Rosen, spoke publicly
of the extent of Romania’s participation in the Holocaust, even
well-educated Romanians believed his words to be anti-Romanian
propaganda. Rosen was vilified while the perpetrators of these crimes
were ignored, rehabilitated and, even worse, honored. |
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After Ceausescu |
 After
the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu, a strong xenophobic and anti-Semitic
campaign unfolded in Romania generated by an alliance of several extreme
right and extreme left political parties linked with the unreformed and
nostalgic elements from the former Securitate, the feared secret police
of the communist regime. Their aim was to isolate Romania and to
terminate its political and economic reform in order to establish their
absolute control as far removed as possible from the Western world. In
order to achieve their goals these political groups presented foreigners
in general and ethnic minorities in particular, including Jews, as
responsible for all the difficulties which Romania was facing. Following
a sadly old and solid Romanian anti-Semitic tradition, this campaign
found followers in the mainstream political parties, in the government
and in the opposition. The rehabilitation of Ion Antonescu and his
regime was one of the key elements of this campaign.
In June 1991, the commemoration of the pogrom of Iasi gave pretext to a
new wave of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, which was not restricted
to Romania’s political extremes. As a result, in July 1991, the US
Congress passed Resolution 186 which condemned anti-Semitism and
chauvinism in Romania. The resolution criticized the Romanian parliament
which instead of condemning ethnic hatred and anti-Semitism, “. . .
stood in a moment of silence recently for the extreme nationalist Ion
Antonescu who was responsible for the murder of approximately 250,000
Romanian Jews and was executed as a war criminal.”
On October 22, 1993, exactly one day after the U.S. Congress granted
Romania Most Favored Nation treatment, members of the Romanian police
erected the first statue of Ion Antonescu on public land in the town of
Slobozia in the presence of a member of the government. Other monuments
dedicated to Ion Antonescu were put in Jilava (the place of his
execution) and Piatra Neamt, also on public land. One of the biggest
military cemeteries in Letcani, near Iasi, the town were Antonescu was
directly involved in the massacre of thousands of Jews, was renamed
Marshall Ion Antonescu. In many Romanian towns, streets were also named
after him. On June 1, 1999, the Romanian Senate, the upper house of the
Romanian Parliament, honored Ion Antonescu and held one minute of
silence in his memory. That, incidentally, occurred when the Parliament
was being led by a reformist coalition.
As early as 1993, the State Department officially warned the Romanian
authorities in writing about this intolerable situation “ . . .
expressing concern about the erection of a monument to Marshall
Antonescu who as dictator of Romania between 1940 and 1944 was
responsible for war crimes in Bessarabia and Ukraine.” Many letters of
protest from the US Congress followed.
The case of Romania was certainly unique. Nowhere in Europe after World
War II had a mass murderer who was Hitler's faithful ally until his last
day in power, been honored as a national hero, with public monuments and
streets named after him. When confronted with the embarrassing reality
of the rehabilitation of a mass-murderer and of his criminal government,
some Romanian politicians made declarations of good will -- but when it
came to action against this rehabilitation, their deeds were minimal or
non-existent. It was clear that many members of Romania’s political
class hoped that their country could join NATO, the European Union and
other Western economic and political organizations without confronting
their past or dealing with the xenophobic manifestations of the
post-communist period.
Romania reached this intolerable situation due to the ignorance and the
duplicity of its post-communist political class. Ignorance— because
access to information about the crimes committed by the Antonescu regime
was initially severely restricted and because the Romanian politicians
and media kept repeating ad nauseum, the propagandistic clichés
of the extremist circles about Antonescu and his regime without
bothering to check the accuracy of their own statements. Duplicity —
because in a political climate saturated by nationalistic demagogy, very
few Romanian political leaders were initially ready to oppose the
extremist parties and their representatives. Furthermore, in a country
then still far away from the NATO and EU membership, the same mainstream
politicians were not ashamed to strike electoral alliances with the
extremist parties in order to remain in power. |
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Ending the Cult of Antonescu |
 Of
course, Romanians have the prerogative to choose their national symbols.
However, Romanian politicians slowly came to the understanding that the
Western World also had the right to reject those who rehabilitate and
glorify mass-murders. Moreover, a fraction of these politicians and part
of the Romanian media realized that from a historical and political
point of view, the rehabilitation of Antonescu and his regime was an
aberration which threatened the health of Romania’s new democracy.
Rather timidly at the beginning, and more boldly later on, these
political leaders began to oppose the cult of Antonescu.
This struggle was not without hesitations and missteps. Good deeds such
as the condemnation of Antonescu’s crimes, and the dismantling of most
of the monuments dedicated to the Romanian fascist dictator, were
followed by monumental gaffes which triggered Israeli diplomatic
protests. For example, prominent Romanian political leaders denied the
existence of the Holocaust on the territory of Romania, or the existence
of any Romanian perpetrators beyond the small circle or rulers around
Antonescu. There are still streets named after Ion Antonescu in Cluj,
Targu Mures, and Campulung-Muscel in defiance of a recently adopted law
forbidding such commemorations. A huge cross erected on public land
still honors Ion Antonescu on the very place of his execution, while the
very few monuments dedicated to the victims of the Romanian Holocaust
which exist on the territory of today’s Romania are neglected. At the
central government headquarters, Ion Antonescu’s portrait still hangs
near the portraits of the other former Romanian prime ministers, some of
them victims of his regime. (It is not even remotely conceivable that a
portrait of Adolf Hitler would hang in a German Chancellor’s office, but
in Romania, it’s still there.) And two of the alleged main implementers
of the Holocaust in Romania, Radu Dinulescu and Gheorghe Petrescu, who
played the role of the Romanian Eichmanns during the deportation of the
Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina, still benefit from their 1997-1998
rehabilitation. |
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Winds of Positive Change |
 And
yet, something seems to have fundamentally changed in today’s Romania
when it comes to the history of the Holocaust and its memory. Government
archives are providing access for Romanian and foreign researchers to a
wealth of information dealing with the Holocaust years. European
inspired legislation forbids the cult of war criminals and Holocaust
denial. After a highly controversial interview with the Israeli daily
Ha’aretz, President Ion Iliescu created the International Commission on
the Holocaust in Romania under the chairmanship of Nobel Prize Laureate
Elie Wiesel. The creation of the Commission, which is supposed to
present its final report before the end of the year, was an act of
courage.
The Romanian Ministry of Education is developing a curriculum on the
Holocaust and high school teachers are being trained and encouraged to
teach this subject. The Romanian National Defense College also teaches
an annual class about the Holocaust. In consultation with the Federation
of the Romanian Jewish Communities, the Romanian government established
October 9 as the National Remembrance Day for the victims of the
Holocaust in Romania. For the first time in the history of Romania the
victims of the Holocaust will be commemorated this year in a dignified
way nationwide.
Romania is finally facing one of the most painful chapters of its
history. It is an unavoidable process that is part of the route through
which the country must journey as it joins the family of modern and
democratic countries. |
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Restitution Still a Shame |
When we referred to Romania’s Restitution Law 10/2001 as a “Smecherie” —
a delicious Romanian word that means a ruse — in the March 2001 issue of
The Romanian Digest, senior members of the Government telephoned
us to holler foul. But no one else doubted the veracity of our
assessment. Now it may even be difficult for the Romanian government to
proclaim that it’s restitution effort is sincere. In four and a half
years, less than 10% of the approximately 200,000 claims for the return
of properties abusively confiscated by the communist-regime have been
resolved.
Claims are either ignored by local authorities or denied, often upon
specious grounds. Dilatory tactics are particularly cruel because so
many of the claimants are elderly. As each year goes by, more die and
their estates give up the recovery effort. The authorities delay
prevents claimants from pursuing their remedies within the Romanian
judicial system because the claim has not yet been administratively
concluded. This is a prerequisite to the commencement of an action
before the European Court of Human Rights, where a claimant must first
exhaust his nation’s judicial remedies. However, since justice delayed
is justice denied, a proper showing in Strasbourg could lead to a flood
of claims. Isn’t this something that Romania should try to avoid before
it begins? |
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Copyright 2005 Rubin Meyer Doru & Trandafir, societate civila de avocati.
All rights reserved. No part of The Romanian Digest™ may be reproduced,
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