FINAL REPORT International Commission on the Holocaust In
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Trials of the War Criminals
TRIALS OF THE WAR CRIMINALS General Considerations The Fascist regime that ruled Romania between September 14, 1940, and August 23, 1944, was brought to justice in Bucharest in May 1946, and after a short trial, its principal leaders—Ion and Mihai Antonescu and two of their closest assistants—were executed, while others were sentenced to life imprisonment or long terms of detention. At that time, the trial’s verdicts seemed inevitable, as they indeed do today, derived inexorably from the defendants’ decisions and actions. The People’s Tribunals functioned for a short time only. They were disbanded on June 28, 1946,1 although some of the sentences were not pronounced until sometime later. Some 2,700 cases of suspected war criminals were examined by a commission formed of “public prosecutors,”2 but only in about half of the examined cases did the commission find sufficient evidence to prosecute, and only 668 were sentenced, many in absentia.3 There were two tribunals, one in Bucharest and one in Cluj. It is worth mentioning that the Bucharest tribunal sentenced only 187 people.4 The rest were sentenced by the tribunal in Cluj. One must also note that, in general, harsher sentences were pronounced by the Cluj tribunal (set up on June 22, 1 Marcel-Dumitru Ciucă, “Introducere” in Procesul maresalului Antonescu (Bucharest: Saeculum and Europa Nova, 1995-98), vol. 1: p. 33. 2 The public prosecutors were named by communist Minister of Justice Lucret iu Pătrăşcanu and most, if not all of them were loyal party members, some of whom were also Jews. -
Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization": Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe
Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization": Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe Michael Shafir Motto: They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds. I put this book here for you, who once lived So that you should visit us no more Czeslaw Milosz Introduction* Holocaust denial in post-Communist East Central Europe is a fact. And, like most facts, its shades are many. Sometimes, denial comes in explicit forms – visible and universally-aggressive. At other times, however, it is implicit rather than explicit, particularistic rather than universal, defensive rather than aggressive. And between these two poles, the spectrum is large enough to allow for a large variety of forms, some of which may escape the eye of all but the most versatile connoisseurs of country-specific history, culture, or immediate political environment. In other words, Holocaust denial in the region ranges from sheer emulation of negationism elsewhere in the world to regional-specific forms of collective defense of national "historic memory" and to merely banal, indeed sometime cynical, attempts at the utilitarian exploitation of an immediate political context.1 The paradox of Holocaust negation in East Central Europe is that, alas, this is neither "good" nor "bad" for the Jews.2 But it is an important part of the * I would like to acknowledge the support of the J. and O. Winter Fund of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York for research conducted in connection with this project. I am indebted to friends and colleagues who read manuscripts of earlier versions and provided comments and corrections. -
Executive Summary
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY HISTORICAL FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS HISTORICAL FINDINGS Statement of Fact and Responsibility The Holocaust was the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany, its allies, and collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Not only Jews were victimized during this period. Persecution and mass arrests were perpetrated against ethnic groups such as Sinti and Roma, people with disabilities, political opponents, homosexuals, and others. A significant percentage of the Romanian Jewish community was destroyed during World War II. Systematic killing and deportation were perpetrated against the Jews of Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Dorohoi County. Transnistria, the part of occupied Ukraine under Romanian administration, served Romania as a giant killing field for Jews. The Commission concludes, together with the large majority of bona fide researchers in this field, that the Romanian authorities were the main perpetrators of this Holocaust, in both its planning and implementation. This encompasses the systematic deportation and extermination of nearly all the Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina as well some Jews from other parts of Romania to Transnistria, the mass killings of Romanian and local Jews in Transnistria, the massive execution of Jews during the Iasi pogrom; the systematic discrimination and degradation applied to Romanian Jews during the Antonescu administration—including the expropriation of assets, dismissal from jobs, the forced evacuation from rural areas and concentration in district capitals and camps, and the massive utilization of Jews as forced laborers under the same administration. Jews were degraded solely on account of their Jewish origin, losing the protection of the state and becoming its victims. A portion of the Roma population of Romania was also subjected to deportation and death in Transnistria. -
Holocaust in Romania?
Holocaust in Romania? A series of documents and testimonials collected and commented upon by Ion Coja, for the use of parliamentarians and authorities engaged in the elaboration, approval and application of Urgent Order (Ordonanta de Urgenta) no. 31/2002 of the Romanian Government. Kogaion Printing House 2002 “In Romania, the Holocaust did not occur.” Nicolae Minei–Grünberg “In this war, spread across the entire surface of the Earth, Jews cannot be shielded from the suffering and harshness and the misery in which almost all of mankind has been placed. If, from lack of nourishment, and because of living in unsanitary conditions, Jewish lives are lost, this means that the relentless laws of war – which we did not provoke – force the Jews as well to pay their tribute of blood. Romanians who fight on the front lines die by the thousands every day.” Marshall Ion Antonescu “While the world blithely watched the spectacle of the annihilation of European Jews, Romania was willing to welcome Jewish refugees and was prepared to open her harbors for them. (…) Judaism lost 6 million of its members; the world lost its humanity, as well as Christian love for one’s neighbor. In contrast, the Romanian People strove to preserve their faith in humanity. And we, the Jews, are and remain indebted to the Romanian People for this.” Moshe Carmilly Weinberger “It is the biggest mistake and injustice in history to consider Ion Antonescu a fascist, Legionnaire, extremist, a man who led Judaism to extinction in Romania. None of those who lived in Romania, before or during the war, wish to any longer accept the communist theory of a massacre of Jews during the war, particularly the aberrant figures that have been tossed around.” Barbul Bronstein “During his entire life and professional career, and especially during the dark days of the war, George Alexianu did so much for the Jewish Community of Romania, from all his heart and without intrigue. -
Dniester Jews Between
PARALLEL RUPTURES: JEWS OF BESSARABIA AND TRANSNISTRIA BETWEEN ROMANIAN NATIONALISM AND SOVIET COMMUNISM, 1918-1940 BY DMITRY TARTAKOVSKY DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Mark D. Steinberg, Chair Professor Keith Hitchins Professor Diane P. Koenker Professor Harriet Murav Assistant Professor Eugene Avrutin Abstract ―Parallel Ruptures: Jews of Bessarabia and Transnistria between Romanian Nationalism and Soviet Communism, 1918-1940,‖ explores the political and social debates that took place in Jewish communities in Romanian-held Bessarabia and the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic during the interwar era. Both had been part of the Russian Pale of Settlement until its dissolution in 1917; they were then divided by the Romanian Army‘s occupation of Bessarabia in 1918 with the establishment of a well-guarded border along the Dniester River between two newly-formed states, Greater Romania and the Soviet Union. At its core, the project focuses in comparative context on the traumatic and multi-faceted confrontation with these two modernizing states: exclusion, discrimination and growing violence in Bessarabia; destruction of religious tradition, agricultural resettlement, and socialist re-education and assimilation in Soviet Transnistria. It examines also the similarities in both states‘ striving to create model subjects usable by the homeland, as well as commonalities within Jewish responses on both sides of the border. Contacts between Jews on either side of the border remained significant after 1918 despite the efforts of both states to curb them, thereby necessitating a transnational view in order to examine Jewish political and social life in borderland regions. -
Romania (As of 13 December 2016)
OVERVIEW OF IMMOVABLE PROPERTY RESTITUTION/COMPENSATION REGIME – ROMANIA (AS OF 13 DECEMBER 2016) CONTENTS A. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY B. POST-WAR ARMISTICES, TREATIES AND AGREEMENTS DEALING WITH RESTITUTION OF IMMOVABLE PROPERTY C. RESTITUTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY D. RESTITUTION OF COMMUNAL PROPERTY E. RESTITUTION OF HEIRLESS PROPERTY F. BIBLIOGRAPHY A. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Romania was an ally of Germany for most of World War II. During the war, extensive “Romanization” (akin to Germany's Aryanization) of Jewish and Roma property took place in Romania. Roughly 825,000 Jews and 263,000 Roma lived in Romania before the war. 420,000 Romanian Jews died along with between 13,000 and 20,000 Roma during the Holocaust. Approximately 3,200 Jews and 620,000 Roma live in Romania today. Like other states previously allied with Germany, after switching sides in the war, Romania promptly enacted legislation to reverse the theft of Jewish and Roma property. The most significant legislation was Law No. 641/1944 (regarding the abolition of anti- Semitic measures) and Law No. 607/1945 (regarding the annulment of certain contracts that transferred property during exceptional circumstances). Little was done, however, to act on these commitments during the Communist regime (1945-1989). Instead, widespread nationalization resulted in a second wave of confiscation. Restitution only began to take place after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989. The restitution laws have not been effectively applied and, as a result, to date only limited restitution has taken place in Romania. A new 2013 restitution law, however, has been recognized by the European Court of Human Rights as providing an “accessible and effective framework of redress for alleged violations of the right to peaceful enjoyment of property confiscated or nationalised by the communist regime.” Private Property. -
FINAL REPORT International Commission on the Holocaust In
FINAL REPORT of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania Presented to Romanian President Ion Iliescu November 11, 2004 Bucharest, Romania NOTE: The English text of this Report is currently in preparation for publication. © International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. All rights reserved. DISTORTION, NEGATIONISM, AND MINIMALIZATION OF THE HOLOCAUST IN POSTWAR ROMANIA Introduction This chapter reviews and analyzes the different forms of Holocaust distortion, denial, and minimalization in post-World War II Romania. It must be emphasized from the start that the analysis is based on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s definition of the Holocaust, which Commission members accepted as authoritative soon after the Commission was established. This definition1 does not leave room for doubt about the state-organized participation of Romania in the genocide against the Jews, since during the Second World War, Romania was among those allies and a collaborators of Nazi Germany that had a systematic plan for the persecution and annihilation of the Jewish population living on territories under their unmitigated control. In Romania’s specific case, an additional “target-population” subjected to or destined for genocide was the Romany minority. This chapter will employ an adequate conceptualization, using both updated recent studies on the Holocaust in general and new interpretations concerning this genocide in particular. Insofar as the employed conceptualization is concerned, two terminological clarifications are in order. First, “distortion” refers to attempts to use historical research on the dimensions and significance of the Holocaust either to diminish its significance or to serve political and propagandistic purposes. Although its use is not strictly confined to the Communist era, the term “distortion” is generally employed in reference to that period, during which historical research was completely subjected to controls by the Communist Party’s political censorship. -
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2000)
The Destruction and Rescue of Jewish Children in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transnistria (1941–1944)* Radu Ioanid Approximately one-half of Romania’s prewar Jewish population of 756,000 survived World War II. As a consequence of wartime border changes, 150,000 of the original Jewish population ended up under Hungarian sovereignty in northern Transylvania. In 1944 these Jews were deported to concentration camps and extermination centers in the Greater Reich and nearly all of them—130,000—perished before the end of the war. In Romania proper more than 45,000 Jews—probably closer to 60,000—were killed in Bessarabia and Bukovina by Romanian and German troops during summer and fall 1941. The remaining Jews from Bessarabia and almost all remaining Jews from Bukovina were then deported to Transnistria, where at least 75,000 died. During the postwar trial of Romanian war criminals, Wilhelm Filderman—president of the Federation of Romanian Jewish Communities—declared that at least 150,000 Bessarabian and Bukovinan Jews (those killed in these regions and those deported to Transnistria and killed there) died under the Antonescu regime. In Transnistria at least 130,000 indigenous Jews were liquidated, especially in Odessa and the districts of Golta and Berezovka. In all at least 250,000 Jews under Romanian jurisdiction died, either on the explicit orders of Romanian officials or as a result of their criminal barbarity.1 However, Romanian Zionist leader Misu Benvenisti estimated 270,000,2 the same figure calculated by Raul Hilberg.3 During the Holocaust in Romania, Jews were executed, deported, or killed by forced labor or typhus. -
Holocaust in Romania
Matatias Carp: Holocaust in Romania Facts and Documents On The Annihilation of Romania’s Jews 1940-1944. Edited by Andrew L. Simon ISBN 0-9665734-7-1 Library of Congress Card Number: 00-102297 Translated by Sean Murphy This selection and the translation is based on the following editions: Atelierele Grafice SOCEC & Co., S.A.R. Bucuresti, 1946 and Societatea Nationala de Editura si Arte Gratice “ Dacia Traiana ”, Bucuresti, 1947,1948. The original title of the book: Matatias Carp CARTEA NEAGRA Suferintele evreilor din Romania, 1940-1944. Printed by Light ning Print, Inc., La Vergne , TN 37086 Published by Simon Publications, P.O. Box 321, Safety Harbor, FL 34695 Contents Pref ace to the Eng lish Edi tion 1 In tro duc tion 7 Fore word to the Orig i nal Edi tion 11 Part 1. The Iron Guard 15 The His tory of Anti-Se mitic Per se cu tion in Ro ma nia , 1940-1944 15 Some Sta tis ti cal Data on the Jew ish Pop u la tion: 16 An Out line of the Suf fer ing of Ro ma nian Jews 21 Those Re spon si ble for the Atroc ities 47 The Iron Guard Gov ern ment 53 Part 2. The Po grom in Iasi 79 His tor i cal Re view 79 Ini tia tive, Or ga ni za tion and Aims 84 Se lected Doc u ments 113 Part 3. Transnistria 145 His tor i cal Re view 145 The Mas sa cres in Bessarabia, Bucovina and Dorohoi County 159 Camps and Ghettos in Bessarabia 178 De por ta tions from Bucovina , Dorohoi County and the Chernovitz Ghetto 189 Mur ders in Odessa and in the Counties of Berezovca and Golta 194 De por ta tions in the Spring and Au tumn of 1942 201 Life and Death in Transnistria 209 Re pa tri a tion 223 Se lected Doc u ments 229 Preface to the English Edition You have just opened the pages of an extraor di nary doc ument. -
Romanian-German Relations Before and During the Holocaust
ROMANIAN-GERMAN RELATIONS BEFORE AND DURING THE HOLOCAUST Introduction It was a paradox of the Second World War that Ion Antonescu, well known to be pro- Occidental, sided with Germany and led Romania in the war against the Allies. Yet, Romania’s alliance with Germany occurred against the background of the gradually eroding international order established at the end of World War I. Other contextual factors included the re-emergence of Germany as a great power after the rise of the National Socialist government and the growing involvement of the Soviet Union in European international relations. In East Central Europe, the years following the First World War were marked by a rise in nationalism characterized by strained relations between the new nation-states and their ethnic minorities.1 At the same time, France and England were increasingly reluctant to commit force to uphold the terms of the Versailles Treaty, and the Comintern began to view ethnic minorities as potential tools in the “anti-imperialist struggle.”2 In 1920, Romania had no disputes with Germany, while its eastern border was not recognized by the Soviet Union. Romanian-German Relations during the Interwar Period In the early twenties, relations between Romania and Germany were dominated by two issues: the reestablishment of bilateral trade and German reparations for war damages incurred during the World War I German occupation. The German side was mainly interested in trade, whereas the Romanian side wanted first to resolve the conflict over reparations. A settlement was reached only in 1928. The Berlin government acted very cautiously at that time. -
Roots of Romanian Antisemitism
BACKGROUND AND PRECURSORS TO THE HOLOCAUST Roots of Romanian Antisemitism The League of National Christian Defense and Iron Guard Antisemitism The Antisemitic Policies of the Goga Government and of the Royal Dictatorship The Roots of Romanian Antisemitism The roots of Romanian antisemitism are intertwined with the origins of the modern Romanian state and the emergence of the rich national cultural tradition that accompanied unification of the principalities, independence, and the creation of Greater Romania. The antisemitism that manifested itself in Romania between the two world wars grew directly from seeds sewn at the major turning points of the country’s development starting in the mid- nineteenth century. For reasons that may have differed from person to person or group to group, strong antisemitic currents were present in various forms and with varying intensity in the political, cultural and spiritual life of Romanian society for most of the century that preceded the accession to power of the National Christian Party in 1937, the installation of the Royal Dictatorship in 1938, and the Antonescu-Iron Guard National Legionary State in 1940—that is, for most of the century that culminated in the Holocaust. The antisemitic actions of that succession of governments drew inspiration from antisemitic themes that had entered the Romanian lexicon of ideas long before the 1930s and long before the Nazi rise to influence and then power in Germany. While each of these three governing configurations mixed the essential elements of widespread antisemitic concepts somewhat differently—leaning more or less heavily on certain themes, perhaps adding to native concepts notions adapted from non-Romanian antisemitic expression, and advocating sometimes greater and sometimes lesser violence to accomplish their goals—they all represented essential continuity with Romanian antisemitic ideas that had their origins in the pre-World War I era. -
Nazi ‘Experts’ on the ‘Jewish Question’ and the Romanian-German Relations, 1940–1944
fascism 4 (2015) 48-100 brill.com/fasc Ideological Transfers and Bureaucratic Entanglements: Nazi ‘Experts’ on the ‘Jewish Question’ and the Romanian-German Relations, 1940–1944 Constantin Iordachi Associate Professor, Central European University, Department of History Budapest, Hungary [email protected] Ottmar Traşcă Research Fellow, Institute of History ‘George Baritiu’ Cluj-Napoca Romanian Academy of Science [email protected] Abstract This article focuses on the transfer of the Nazi legal and ideological model to East Central Europe and its subsequent adoption, modification and fusion with local legal-political practices. To illustrate this process, we explore the evolution of the anti-Semitic policy of the Antonescu regime in Romania (1940–1944) from an under- researched perspective: the activity of the Nazi ‘advisors on the Jewish Question’ dis- patched to Bucharest. Based on a wide range of published and unpublished archival sources, we attempt to provide answers to the following questions: To what extent did the Third Reich shape Romania’s anti-Semitic polices during the Second World War? What was the role played by the Nazi advisors in this process? In answering these ques- tions, special attention is devoted to the activity of the Hauptsturmführer ss Gustav Richter, who served as Berater für Juden und Arisierungsfragen [advisor to the Jewish and Aryanization questions] in the German Legation in Bucharest from 1st of April 1941 until 23 August 1944. We argue that, by evaluating the work of the Nazi experts in Bucharest, we can better grasp the immediate as well as the longer-term objectives * The authors would like to thank Sven Reichardt, K.K.