Perceptions of the Holocaust in Contemporary Romania: Between Film and Television

William Totok the Romanian capital, which commemorates About the author: the persecution of Jews and Roma. William Totok, M.A., born 1951, lives as a Although in 2002 a government decree freelance writer in Berlin. He was a member (ratified in 2006 as a law) made Holocaust deni- of the International Commission to Investi- al, the glorification of war criminals, the public gate the Romanian Holocaust, which submit- dissemination of fascist symbols, and the estab- ted its final report in 2004, which came out lishment of fascist organizations and parties one year later in book form. Recent publica- into criminal offenses, in Romania there have tions: Episcopul, Hitler si Securitatea. Proce- sul stalinist împotriva “spionilor Vaticanului“ been no prosecutions against either Holocaust in România [The Bishop, Hitler, and the Se- deniers or extreme right-wing organizations. curitate: The Stalinist proceedings against the “Vatican Spies” in Romania], Iasi 2008; and Translation from the German by John Kenney the study “The Timeliness of the Past: The Fall of Nicolae Paulescu” in Peter Manu and Horia Bozdoghina, ed. Polemica Paulescu: sti- inta, politica, memorie [The Paulescu Polemic: Scholarship, Politics, Remembrance], Bucha- rest 2010. e-mail: [email protected] Perceptions of the Holocaust in Contemporary Romania: Between Film and Television by Victor Eskenasy, Frankfurt am Main n spite of the relatively large number of stu- widely popular public intellectuals, made Idies and collections of documents published known particularly by television, to take part in the twenty years since scholarly research in in debate. In contrast, these opinion leaders Romania was liberated, be it under the aegis — admirers and students of the philosophy of the Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the of the interwar cultural figures Mircea Eliade Holocaust or the Hasefer Publishing House (of and Constantin Noica, among others, who in the Jewish community), the Holocaust and its their youths were followers of the pro-fascist perceptions continue to be subjects of contro- movement the Iron Guard — have distanced versy, contestation, and confrontation. themselves as much as possible from debating The limited impact of studies comple- the Holocaust. Their excuse has most often ted or advanced in the two decades following been to put an equals sign between Nazism the opening of Romanian archives, whether and Communism, enabling their insistence on they come from Germany, Israel, or Romania supporting the study of what, through abuse itself, has at least three major explanations. of analogy, has been called “the Red Holo- The first is denial of the Holocaust, one caust.” Finally, a third explanation for resis- of the faces of the well rooted anti-Semitism tance and indifference manifested towards the that has a long history in Romania. The second results of the research on the Holocaust as it may be the constant refusal of influential and happened during the war years in Romania Euxeinos 1 (2011) 10 Victor Eskenasy and its territories, is the ridiculous low number International Commission, led by Elie Wiesel, of copies printed at usually exhorbitant prices about the Holocaust in Romania and in the of the published books, which have made territories occupied by the Romanian army them unavailable to the ordinary people. during the Second World War, had the good In such an atmosphere it was to be effect of awakening young documentary film- expected, and to a certain extent in the nature makers’ interest, their projects encountered in- of things, that the task of educating, engaging, difference and substantial financial obstacles. and making the public aware of the horrors and particular aspects of the Holocaust in Ro- “The Odessa Project” is a typical mania would be taken up by the state televi- case. Begun in 2008 by Florin Iepan, a young sion and cinema, two areas that, alongside the director from Timişoara, the film intended to Internet, are extremely accessible and popular. document the extermination of c. 20 thousand Russian and Ukranian Jews, an Antonescu go- However, over the last twenty years, vernment reprisal following the occupation of a single Romanian film production, produced Odessa and the explosion that distroyed the with modest means, has addressed the Holo- Romanian headquarters, but as of today (April caust. Directed by Radu Gabrea, the 2009 2011), it has not been finished. „Gruber’s Journey” (Călătoria lui Gruber) is A veritable intimidation campaign a direct reference to the great pogrom of Iași, was launched against the project and the in June of 1941, and the „creative” means the film›s director with, according to Iepan, “ex- Antonescu regime used to exterminate Jews: tremely violent, hysterical, anti-Semite and moving thousands of Jews in convoys of sea- xenophobic” commentaries, accompanied led train cars, lacking ventilation, water, and by the refusal of the competent institutions, food, under a terrible heat, until their deaths Romanian Television among them, to follow by suffocation. Radu Gabrea, who models his through with promised financial support. work on Andrzej Wajda, states in an interview The director changed his project, in the hope that he attempted, purposely, to bring to light of highlighting “this nationalist, conservative „a case carefully hidden by the Romanian au- group that blocks any serious discussion of thorities.” „The film is a metaphor for deceit, coming to terms with our history.” Iepan›s for the fact that the truth of what really happe- desire to “make people aware that Romania, ned in Iaşi had been concealed”. too, has a fascist past” remains, so far, only a The reception of the film, whose final good intention. Romanian subtitles, for the main character Curzio Malaparte and the comander of the The case of the Odessa documentary German garrison in Iaşi, omit various „unplea- calls into question, among other things, the sant” remarks about the Romanian army, was attitude of the Romanian Television Society, mixed. The editors of a Romanian film data- with its choices and strategies that change base went so far as to add an “explanation” to according to Romanian diplomatic priorities the site, stating that this was the first film to (entering NATO and the European Union), treat “the massacre of Jews in Iaşi in 1941 (an the international context (dominated by rela- event which, it seems, remains to be proved).” tions with the United States), and the personal If the 2005 publication of the final report of the convictions of various Television chairmen. It Euxeinos 1 (2011) 11 Victor Eskenasy is notable that state television produced the a national legislation that prohibits the venera- documentary, in three episodes, directed by tion of war criminals. Cristian Hadji Culea, “The Holocaust under The Holocaust was practically omit- the Antonescu Government”, broadcast in ted from remarks on a documentary praising 2009. The film has been distributed under the General Ion Antonescu, broadcast by TVR 2 aegis of The Association of Jewish Romanian and widely distributed over on the Internet. Victims of the Holocaust, an NGO created Instead, also well distributed on the Internet, in 1991 with the aim of “offering legislative, the TV show “True History” (sic!), hosted by moral, and material support to the surviving one of the most eloquent revisionists and anti- victims of the Holocaust and maintaining its Semitic historians in Romania, Colonel (reti- memory.” red) Mircea Dogaru, produced under the aegis Following the model of the famous of TVRM Educational, in June 2010, often fo- “Shoah” by Claude Lanzmann, the well- cused on the Holocaust, in order to completely known documentary film-maker, by brin- reject all available historical data. The show, ging together testimonies from survivors and which had as a pretext and title, “The Jewish commentaries by Romanian scholars of the Situation in Romania (1939 – 1945)”, consisted Holocaust, contributed, to a certain extent, to of a series of attacks on the government and the development of a public discussion, but the 2002 government order (which prohibited its real impact is difficult to quantify. The fact anti-Semitic and racist propaganda and the that it was broadcast by the state television veneration of war criminals) on the grounds late at night, and that the discussions of it were that it “limited free speech.” Produced with held largely in shows only broadcast abroad, another prominent denier, professor Ion Coja, on TVR International, had obviously limited, the TV program went so far as to declare that any serious public debate of the event and any the Ion Antonescu regime did not exterminate actual increase in awareness of the Holocaust the peoples deported to Transnistria during in the Romanian society. the Second World War, that Jews and Gyp- sies were only put in “isolation, so they could The year 2009 was something of a not do any harm to the Romanians”, that the watershed. Accepted into NATO and the Eu- concentration camps were pure fiction, the ropean Union, tentatively released from the Jews being actually ”sheltered” in village monitoring and attentions of western states, abandoned houses, etc. Romania and its politicians seemed to return The poisonous effect of Romanian to their old traditions, attitudes, and convic- Television’s ambivalent attitude, shown in tions. On the historical level, denial is in the programs and documentaries mentioned bloom, encouraged by the indifference of the here, is beyond any reasonable discussion. media. Television

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