The Holocaust in Romania

4. Afirmațiile care prezintă Holocaustul drept un eveniment istoric pozitiv. Aceste afirmații nu constituie negarea Holocaustului, dar se află într-o legătură strânsă cu aceasta, ca o formă radicală a antisemitismului. Ele ar putea sugera că Holocaustul nu a mers suficient de departe în atingerea scopului său de a implementa “Soluția Finală pentru Chestiunea Evreiască”. 5. Încercările de a estompa responsabilitatea pentru înființarea lagărelor de concentrare și a lagărelor morții, proiectate și conduse de Germania nazistă, prin aruncarea răspunderii asupra grupurilor etnice.

Bibliografie: Frunză, Sandu, „Inexprimabilul. Cu Elie Wiesel despre filosofie şi teologie” în Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 7, 19, spring 2008, pp. 3-29. Wiesel, Elie (preșidentele comisiei), Friling, Tuvia, Ioanid, Radu, Benjamin, Lya & Ionescu, Mihail E. (edit.): International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania Final report, Polirom, 2004 Radu Ioanid, Holocaustul în România: distrugerea evreilor și romilor sub regimul Antonescu 19401944, Hasefer, 2006 Armin Heinen, România, Holocaustul și logica violenței, Editura Universității Alexandru Ioan Cuza, 2011 Matatias Carp, Cartea Neagră. Suferințele evreilor din România. 1940-1944, București, Volumul II. Pogromul de la Iași, Societatea Națională de Editură și Arte Grafice „Dacia Traiană”, 1948

Teacher Gorescu Carmen Theoretical High School „Dr. Mihai Ciucă ”Săveni, Botoșani

"It simply came to our notice then. It shouldn't have happened, but it did. It should never happen again, but it could. That is why education about the Holocaust is fundamental. ” With these strong words, Göran Persson started the Stockholm International Holocaust Forum in 2000. During the three days of the Forum, the role of education was emphasized in messages from heads of state, teachers, historians and survivors. It seemed clear to all gathered in Stockholm, half a century after the end of the Holocaust, that it was the common responsibility of the international community to support the young generation in reflecting on the history of the Holocaust and its consequences. Education has been and remains the cornerstone of the IHRA's efforts to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust will never be forgotten. The Holocaust means the Nazi Germany's killing of six million Jews. If the Nazi persecution of Jews began in 1933, their mass murder took place during World War II. It took the Germans and their collaborators four and a half years to kill six million Jews. There was no escape. The criminals

were not only happy with the destruction of the communities, they targeted every Jew who was hiding and hunted every fugitive. The sin of being a Jew was so great that every one of them had to die - the man, the woman, the child, the responsible, the selfless, the renegade, the healthy and the creative, the sick and the lazy - all had to suffer and die, without any step, without hope, without any possible salvation, without any chance of relief (Yad Vashem). The Holocaust in Romania refers to the persecution and extermination of Jews in the territories controlled by the Romanian state in 1937-1944, ie from the first anti-Jewish laws of the Goga-Cuza government until the coup d'etat of August 23, 1944. During the Holocaust, the Nazi regime persecuted or killed other groups considered "inferior races": gypsies, Slavs. They were also persecuted on the basis of communist, socialist, or religious ideological criteria such as Jehovah's Witnesses or homosexuals. A significant percentage of the Jewish community in Romania was destroyed during World War II. Deportation and systematic killing were applied to Jews in Bessarabia, Bukovina and Dorohoi County. Transnistria, the part of occupied Ukraine under Romanian administration, was used as a huge space for killing Jews. The number of Romanian Jews and Jews in the territories under Romanian administration killed during the Holocaust could not be established with absolute precision. The conclusion of the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania in this regard is that, during the Holocaust, in Romania and in the territories under its control, between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were killed or died. The Holocaust also killed about 135,000 Romanian Jews living in Hungarian-led Northern Transylvania, as well as 5,000 Romanian Jews living in other European countries at the time. Referring to Romania, Raul Hilberg stated that no country, except Germany, was involved in the massacre of Jews on such a scale. The Commission decided not to mention a single conclusive figure on the number of Jews killed in Romania and in the territories under its authority. Instead, the Commission has chosen to define two limits between which this figure is placed, as shown by contemporary research: Between 45,000 and 60,000 Jews were killed in Bessarabia and Bukovina by German and Romanian troops in 1941. Between 105,000 and 120,000 deported Romanian Jews died as a result of expulsions in Transnistria. In the Transnistrian region, between 115,000 and 180,000 local Jews were liquidated (especially in Odessa and the Golta and Berezovca districts). At least 15,000 Jews from the Kingdom were killed in the Iasi Pogrom as a result of other anti-Jewish measures. About 132,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz in May-June 1944 from northern Transylvania, ruled by Hungary. Many of the deported gypsies also died. Of the 25,000 gypsies (half of them children) sent to Transnistria, about 11,000 perished. Centuries-old nomadic gypsy communities have disappeared forever. The International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania concluded, together with most of the well-intended researchers in this field, that the Romanian authorities bear the main responsibility both for the planning and for the implementation of the Holocaust. This includes the systematic deportation and extermination of most Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina, as well as some Jews from other parts of Romania to Transnistria; the mass murder of Romanian

and local Jews in Transnistria; the mass executions of Jews during the Pogrom of Iasi; the systematic discrimination and degradation to which all Romanian Jews were subjected during the Antonescu administration, including the expropriation of property, dismissal from work, forced eviction from rural areas and their concentration in county capitals and camps, as well as the massive use of Jews male forced labor under the same administration. At the same time, the Commission concludes that Ion Antonescu's responsibility for killing Jews in Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transnistria is indisputable, being directly involved in repressive measures against Jews. At the same time, the role of the members of some fascist parties and organizations in promoting the anti-Semitic ideology and in starting the violence against the Jews before the application of the final solution by Ion Antonescu should not be omitted. Members of the National Christian Defense League, the National Christian Party, the Legionary Movement (known in various stages as the Legion of Archangel Michael or the Iron Guard) made a significant contribution to the climate hostile to Jews before the outbreak of World War II. Anti-Semitic measures during the Goga government and the royal dictatorship The establishment of the government led by Octavian Goga (December, 1937 - February, 1938) marked the moment when anti-Semitism became a systematic state policy. The main measures against the Jewish minority were:  Closure of newspapers that the government considers owned or dominated by Jews;  Prohibition for Jews to have licenses to sell alcoholic beverages;  Prohibition of the use of Yiddish in the administration of Bessarabia and northern Moldova;  Revision of Jewish citizenship by Decree-Law no. 169/22 January 1938, as a result of which a number of 225222 Jews had their citizenship revoked, which amounted to the loss of political rights, the right to profess, the loss of property and livelihood. During the royal dictatorship (February, 1938 - September, 1940), anti-Semitic legislation adopted by the Goga government was maintained, resulting in the social exclusion of Jews. Moreover, Decree-Law no. 2650 of August 1940 amended the legal status of Jews and made it possible to exclude them from government departments, numerous professions, from the management committees of public or private enterprises and the dispossession of property in rural areas. The surrender of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina following the ultimatum imposed by the USSR in the summer of 1940 was followed by physical violence triggered by the Romanian army in the ceded territories. In Dorohoi and Galati, the Romanian civilian and military population launched large-scale attacks on Jews, and the killing of hundreds of Jews was tolerated by the Romanian state.

The Bucharest pogrom, January 21-23, 1941 Wanting to seize full power in the state, the legionaries unleashed a wave of terror against Jews, which included arrests, ill-treatment, assassinations, robberies, devastation and burning of temples, synagogues, Jewish institutions, and Jewish businesses and households. The balance of the Bucharest Pogrom was tragic: 616 shops devastated, thousands of Jews picked up from their homes,

on the streets, in synagogues and Jewish institutions regardless of gender and age, 151 Jews killed and 60 Jews injured, 25 devastated temples and synagogues.

Anti-Semitic policies between February and June 1941 The Romanianization policy continued after the removal of the legionaries from the government, identifying several key measures:  continuing to limit the right to work of Jews by canceling the employment contracts of Jewish disciples;  continuation of expropriation policies by Decree-Law no. 842 of March 1941, which provided for the transfer of Jewish urban buildings to the state patrimony;  the establishment of the National Center for Romanianization, which had the role of centralizing the entire activity of Romanianization and administration of Jewish property.  In addition to the Romanianization policy, other anti-Semitic measures were adopted:  in the case of crimes against public order, Jews were given double punishments compared to those applied to Christians;  the exclusion of the mosaic cult from the subsidies granted to the cults from the state budget;  banning the conversion of Jews to Christianity;  prohibition of marriages between civil servants and Jews;  cancellation of the right to free movement between localities;  restrictions on food ration. Evacuations, relocations and internments in camps On June 21, 1941, Ion Antonescu issued an order providing for the evacuation of Jews from rural and semi-rural areas and their concentration in county residences. Jewish columns traveled tens of kilometers on foot to new destinations and the remaining properties were taken over by the authorities or looted by the locals. Once in the county capitals, due to the congestion, the Jews were affected by epidemics and the lack of necessary food. The evacuation of 50-6,000 Jews from across the country was completed by internment in camps. Men between the ages of 18 and 60 were transported and hospitalized in inhumane conditions. The transport to the camps in Oltenia was made in freight wagons, without stops, the Jews reaching their destinations in a state of degradation. The pogrom in Iasi, June 28 - July 6, 1941 The pogrom in Iasi was part of Ion Antonescu's ethnic cleansing plan and was anticipated by the measures taken several days before the actual launch of the pogrom actions. Thus, on June 19, an order sent to the Ministry of National Propaganda demanded the identification of "Jews, communist agents and sympathizers" and a ban on their movement. On June 22, the first day of the war, posters were posted in Iasi instigating the pogrom and blaming the Jews for their alleged collaboration with the Bolsheviks and the USSR. With the first Soviet airstrikes on June 24 and 26, Iasi officials blamed Jews for complicity with Soviet airmen, claiming that several Jewish civilians were guiding the pilots using signals and showing them their targets about what had to be bombed.

On the morning of June 29, convoys of Jews from various neighborhoods of Iasi were directed to the Police Headquarters, where at 3 p.m., the massacre began during which Jews were robbed, beaten and killed. The survivors of the massacre were taken to the station to be evacuated, according to the orders given by Ion Antonescu. The Jews were crammed into freight cars, used to transport carbide, whose windows were clogged, making the atmosphere inside suffocating. These are the conditions under which two trains were set in motion, nicknamed the "Death Trains". In the first train that was going to Calarasi, 5,000 Jews were taken, of which 1011 survived, while out of a number of 2700 Jews boarded the train to Podu Ilioaiei, only 700 survived. The main causes of death were asphyxiation and dehydration. During the massacre at Chestura in Iasi and on the death trains, it is estimated that over 13,000 Jews died. Ethnic purification policy in Bessarabia and Bukovina, July-September 1941 In the first days after the outbreak of the war, Romanian and German troops entered the villages and towns of Bessarabia and Bukovina where pogrom actions were launched. In a few days, thousands of Jews were killed in Noua Suliţă, Ciudei, Storojineţ, Banila, Herţa, Vijniţa, Cernăuţi. On July 17, 1941, Romanian and German troops entered Chisinau where another largescale massacre took place, estimated by Matatias Carp at about 10,000 dead. The survivors of these pogroms are deported across the Dniester, where they die either because of poor food and housing conditions, or because of the hostility of German troops who at the time controlled Transnistria and refused to receive them. Of the 25,000 Jews expelled by Romanian troops across the Dniester, only half survived. Deportations to Transnistria, 1941-1942 Under the Tighina Agreement, signed on August 30, 1940 by the representatives of Romania and Germany, Transnistria was subordinated to the Romanian authorities. On September 14, 1941, the deportation of Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina, who were imprisoned in the Vertujeni, Secureni and Edinet camps, began. Jewish convoys were led by officers and escorted by gendarmes. The daily march was to cover 30 kilometers and the Jews that could not walk were executed on the spot. On October 9, the deportation of over 26,000 Jews from Suceava, Câmpulung Moldovenesc, Vatra Dornei, Rădăuţi, Gura Humorului and other nearby localities began. In the same month, about 9,000 Jews from Dorohoi were deported, most of them elderly, children and women, as men were forced to work. At the same time, hundreds of Jews from the old Kingdom and southern Transylvania were deported for alleged crimes. In October 1942, mass deportations were suspended. Jews deported to Transnistria were subjected to a regime of extermination by hunger or disease. The deportees were crammed into abandoned homes, with no possibility of heating and in conditions of total lack of hygiene. The situation was aggravated both by the lack of food and medicine, and by the ban on leaving the ghettos without permission. The deportation to Transnistria was conceived by the Antonescu authorities as a Romanian version of the Final Solution. According to some calculations, between 115,000 and 118,000 local Jews were liquidated in Transnistria and between 105,000 and 120,000 Romanian Jews were killed or perished due to the living conditions imposed in camps and ghettos.

Among those subjected to the extermination regime in Transnistria were thousands of gypsy families, deported by order of Marshal Ion Antonescu during the years 1942-1943. Of the 24,000 deported gypsies (both nomads and sedentary), only 14,000 survived. The Holocaust has remained a living tear, stirring the soul of mankind even today. It was a terror, a horror and a huge pain for those who knew it and for those who lost their families. January 27, 1945 - The end of the horrors of Auschwitz January 27 marks the release of Nazi concentration camps and the end of the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime during World War II. German forces had been trying for two weeks to resist Red Army troops, and 231 Russian soldiers had been killed in fighting to liberate the camp. Only 7,500 detainees who appeared to be more dead than alive were rescued. More than one million four hundred thousand people had been killed here. To cover up the crimes committed at Auschwitz before the Red Army attack, the SS detonated the gas chambers and began moving the survivors to other camps, which were later liberated by British soldiers. Other detainees were lined up and forced to leave on the road, day and night, and those left behind were killed on the spot. 56,000 detainees left Auschwitz in the "death march" and for almost 15,000 of them it was the last road. Holocaust denial, in its various forms, is an expression of anti-Semitism. The attempt to deny the genocide of the Jews is an effort to exonerate National Socialism and anti-Semitism from the guilt or responsibility of the genocide against the Jewish people. Forms of Holocaust denial also include accusing Jews of exaggerating or creating the Holocaust for political or financial gain, as if the Holocaust itself were the result of a premeditated Jewish conspiracy. In this case, the goal is to blame the Jews and legitimize, once again, antiSemitism. The aims of Holocaust denial are often to rehabilitate explicit anti-Semitism and to promote political ideologies and conditions conducive to the emergence of an event similar to the one it denies. Holocaust distortion refers, among other things, to: 1. Intended efforts to excuse or minimize the impact of the Holocaust or its main elements, including those of Nazi Germany's collaborators and allies. 2. The brutal minimization of the number of Holocaust victims, contrary to the data provided by credible sources. 3. Attempts to blame Jews for causing their own genocide. 4. Statements that present the Holocaust as a positive historical event. These statements do not constitute Holocaust denial, but are closely linked to it, as a radical form of anti-Semitism. They might suggest that the Holocaust did not go far enough in achieving its goal of implementing the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." 5. Attempts to blur responsibility for the establishment of concentration camps and death camps, designed and run by Nazi Germany, by shedding responsibility for ethnic groups.

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