Four days later, on 17th June, Razvan Theodorescu, Romania’s Minister
for Culture, spoke in support of his government’s statement. Avner Shalev,
Chairman of the Directorate of Yad Vashem, maintained that the statement made
by the Romanian government was a historical falsity and wrote to the then
Romanian Minister for Education, Ecaterina Andronescu. ''If Germany were to
have made a distinction similar to that of the Romanian government, it could
easily claim that there was no Holocaust in Germany, since the German Jews
were systematically killed only once they were deported to the death camps
in Eastern Europe,'' Shalev’s letter read in part.
Yet the series of worrying statements emanating from Romania did not end there.
In an interview with Haaretz, the Israeli daily newspaper, on 25th July, President
Ion Iliescu repeated the previous line of the Romanian government: ''The Holocaust
was not unique to the Jewish population in Europe. Many others were killed
in the same manner, including Poles,'' Iliescu said. He absolved Romanians
from any responsibility for the murder of Jews that took place in Romania
during the second world war, adding: ''In Romania under the Nazis, Jews and
communists were treated equally.''
This interview, and those Romanian government statements that had come before
it, prompted Yad Vashem to reach the conclusion that Holocaust denial in Romania
is a deeply rooted phenomenon. A simple condemnation was no longer adequate;
some form of action was needed to end Romanian ignorance of the facts, and
attempts to avoid responsibility. This time, Avner Shalev wrote to the Romanian
president, inviting him to establish a commission of historians ''so that
together we can investigate the historical truth and publish the facts regarding
Holocaust related events in Romania.'' In his letter, Shalev proposed that
the commission include Romanian Holocaust experts, and utilise Romanian and
German archival documents, survivor testimony, and Eastern European Holocaust
research. Shalev’s letter earned him the support of many other bodies
in Israel and abroad; among them the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
the American Jewish Committee, B’nai Brith and Israel’s Foreign
Ministry.
President Iliescu was quick to react. Less than three months later, he officially
announced the establishment of an International Historical Commission of Enquiry
into the murder of Romania’s Jews, to be headed by the Nobel Prizewinner
and Vice Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, Professor Elie Wiesel. Shalev
reacted by saying, ''I congratulate the President of Romania on his courageous
decision to confront Romania’s past. This is a vital step in the process
of building the country’s democratic society, and an essential act for
strengthening the ties between Romania and the Romanian Jewish community in
Israel and abroad. The fact that Professor Wiesel is heading the Commission
gives it added weight and historical significance.''
The above is annotated from a text from Yad Vashem Magazine
no. 32, from an article by Yifat Bachrach titled, 'Romania: The Journey To
Truth'. After more than a year of research, the findings of what has come
to be known as the Wiesel Commission are due to be released this month. Yet
the conclusions of the 30-strong Commission were largely anticipated by President
Iliescu when, during Romania’s first ever Holocaust Memorial Day, he
admitted that the government of Romania’s wartime leader, Marshal Ion
Antonescu, and Romanian fascists who were briefly in power during the war
were responsible for many atrocities against Jews, including expropriations,
pogroms and deportations. ''The horrible tragedy of the Holocaust was possible
due to the complicity of leaders of the states’ institutions –
those who executed, often with a lot of zeal, the orders of Marshal Antonescu,''
Associated Press reported him as saying. He added that the Holocaust was a
topic that was long avoided in Romania. ''Such a tragedy must not be repeated,
and for this the young generations need to know and understand the entire
truth,'' said Iliescu, outlining the fact that Holocaust awareness will soon
be included in curricula of Romanian high schools.
In the narrow, ramshackle streets behind
Piata Unirii in central Bucharest there are three synagogues, the oldest of
which serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it acts as Romania’s Holocaust
Museum, dedicated to keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust. Secondly,
in an adjoining office, are the quarters of the Association of Romanian Holocaust
Survivors. It was this synagogue that felt the full brunt of mob hatred when,
in January 1941, it and several other Jewish buildings like it were vandalised
beyond recognition, during a three-day rash of violence that led to the murder
of 121 Jews. Today, it is where the Holocaust Survivors’ president,
Otto Adler, spends much of his time.
''After the Revolution, we tried to focus on two targets for the Association,''
Professor Adler told me. ''The first was to help victims of the Holocaust
as much as possible, to establish legal consultancy for them to try to reclaim
property they lost during the Holocaust, and, for that matter, during communism.
The second was to preserve the memory of the Holocaust. It’s true, many
of us do not like to remember what happened,'' said Adler, who spent a year
in Auschwitz.
''But I shall give you an example of why it is important to remember, even
though the memories can be so painful,'' he continued. ''I have two children
who, until 15 years ago, had no idea about the horror of a concentration camp.
I didn’t want to tell them about it. But after having seen anti-Semitic
actions and prejudice becoming more pervasive, everywhere, the only way to
fight to prevent the new Holocaust is to preserve the memory of the previous
one.''
Looking at the walls of the Holocaust memorial at the synagogue in Str Vasile
Adamache is painful indeed, as they illustrate in stark, gruesome detail the
treatment meted out to Jews during the Antonescu regime. There are accounts
of the initial discriminatory headlines of newspapers reporting the gradual
isolation of Jews from Romanian society, and of the fascist influence of the
rabble rousing, deadly Iron Guard or, as they were more widely known, the
Legionnaires, whose brief and bloody term as a minority partner in a coalition
government preceded what was to become horror on a massive scale. There is
the vandalisation of Jewish property by Legionnaire thugs. There are the pogroms,
of which there were many, but which perhaps Iasi was the most infamous. There
are the notorious 'death trains' which culminated in approximately 5,000 Jews
being crammed into two trains of cattle wagons in searing heat, and transported
to Podul Iloaei, in the first case, and to Calarasi, in the second case, a
journey that would normally require about eight hours travelling time but
instead lasted for a week. There are the geographic summaries, outlining those
parts of northern Transylvania that became Hungarian territory between 1940-1944.
There are the orders, given either directly or indirectly, licensing ordinary
Romanians in certain parts of the country to kill Jews on sight. There are
the concerns and objections of foreign delegations. Finally there are the
deportations to Transnistria, and all of the horror, cruelty, degradation
and shame that they entailed.
Historians speak of the beginning of the
second half of the nineteenth century as a time when European states began
to promote their own national identity, which would often develop into nation
states. In many countries the conception of ‘the nation’ was not
the French model - that all citizens in a nation are part of that nation -
but rather, the conception of the nation state was more to do with blood relationships
than citizenship. Blood relationships formed the base of the modern nationalist
state.
Lia Benjamin, the historian and Wiesel Commission member, traces Romania’s
anti-Semitic roots back to 1866, when the country’s first Constitution
was drawn up. This document contained what was known as the Seventh Article
of the Constitution, which stated that non-Christians cannot be Romanian citizens.
Vasile Conta, the influential philosopher and parliamentarian, put forth the
theory for defending the principle of the modern constitution.
''In the modern state,'' says Lia Benjamin, ''it was deemed to be very important
to ensure a pure nation state. So the right to vote for foreigners –
as the Jews were – remained a great danger for the Romanian nation.
For Vasile Conta in 1866, Jews were the most dangerous, because they were
another race, with a different religion. It was widely believed that they
should not be allowed to mix with 'original' people.''
In the second half of the nineteenth century then, Romanian society strained
with strong anti-Semitic tendencies. But while it was difficult for Jews to
integrate into society, there were exceptions. Several made huge contributions,
such as philologists Moses Gaster and Lazar Sienanu, who played an important
role in shaping the development of the Romanian language, as did Hayman Tiktin,
who is regarded as having created the best Romanian-German dictionary to date.
Iuliu Baras, a physician and naturalist, established Romania’s first
hospital for children and encouraged the popularisation of the sciences.
Romania was then under Ottoman rule, but in 1878, following the Russian-Turkish
war in which Turkey was defeated, and with Russia eyeing Romania ambitiously,
a conference was hastily convened in Berlin, attended by the major European
powers - Germany, France, Britain and Russia. The Treaty of Berlin allowed
the independence of Romania on the condition that it changed the constitution
of 1866 to allow Jewish citizenship. Romania initially procrastinated, reluctant
to yield to a directive ordered from outside powers. In the end it gave in,
but its leaders perceived their being forced into repealing the Seventh Article
as an indication that foreign involvement was playing a part in Romanian society,
for which they held Jews responsible.
However, the Article was changed, and non-Romanian, non-Christians were allowed
to receive citizenship. But it was difficult. A Jew could apply for citizenship
and his request would be discussed in Parliament. Then followed a complicated,
bureaucratic procedure, which entailed an individual law having to be formulated
for each individual request in every citizenship application. Citizenship
might take ten years to obtain, and until then foreigners remained barred
from attending schools, practicing law or working as tradesmen.
By 1913 there were about 250,000 Jews in Romania, but – not surprisingly,
given the bureaucratic obstacles - less than 2,000 were citizens. Jews received
collective citizenship in 1919, after the first world war when Romania was
forced to recognise them. This was finally adopted by a constitutional amendment
in 1923.
Between the two wars, until 1937, the Jews flourished: ''an economic and cultural
explosion,'' says Lia Benjamin. ''Jewish writers, artists and economists had
an important role in society, in trade and industry, and Jewish families formed
an urban, middle class population. Jewish parents aspired to send their children
to study in France or Germany. There was a great tendency towards cultural
development. After 1923 Jews were allowed to be members of Parliament. There
were no restrictions.'' The most prominent Jewish-Romanian of the inter-war
period, Wilhelm Filderman, was a lawyer, member of Parliament and a tireless
fighter for the rights of Romanian Jews.
Thus, while anti-Semitism was always present – for example, political
parties led by Alexandru Cuza and Nicolae Iorga were stridently nationalistic
– Jews were allowed to stand up and defend themselves in Parliament,
in speeches, in magazines: publicly. Life was more peaceful, more calm in
the 1920s and 1930s. Jews had legitimacy and they had the vote.
Rodica Radian-Gordon, who emigrated from Romania to Israel
in 1963, and is Israel’s ambassador here, sees her role as largely political:
''to try and create the right atmosphere for enquiry and research into what
happened during the Holocaust in Romania. Because it is an issue of recent
history, an issue that was not discussed or researched, the archives were
not opened to researchers, and because of the interests of the communist regime,
this was one of the issues that was not dealt with until very recently.''
She adds that it is important for Romanians themselves to learn the truth
about their own past, to come to terms with it. ''You cannot be a democratic
nation without knowing your past - both the good and bad aspects of it. Most
of the people who were directly involved are already dead, unfortunately,
or elderly, and now is the time, perhaps at the last minute, for those survivors
who are still with us to tell their stories and to be heard,'' she says.
A common thread amongst the majority of people either directly or indirectly
afflicted by the Holocaust is a reluctance to point an accusing finger at
a nation as a whole. ''Israel, or indeed the Jewish population, is not accusatory,''
says Rodica Radian-Gordon. ''We are not looking to blame anyone,'' although
any perpetrators of crime who have not yet been brought to justice should
face trials. Rather, she hopes that Romanians will face up to this shameful
period in their history, because appreciation and understanding of the Holocaust
will ensure that nothing like it ever occurs again.
What about anti-Semitism today? Lia Benjamin, who has worked work with many
Romanians for many years, says that people tell her, ''Oh Lia, you have nothing
Jewish in you!'' ''I get foolish and I ask, 'What do you mean when you say
that? That I don’t lie?' They think they are complimenting me, trying
to make me very happy when they say I am not Jewish! But I am Jewish. I am
a Jew. I received a Jewish education and I am proud of it!''
Yet many newcomers to Romania are unnerved at the level of discrimination
directed at Jews, and indeed other minority groups, such as Roma people. ''It
is a Romanian conception that Romanians were always very tolerant, with foreigners
and with Jews. But of course it is not so,'' says Lia Benjamin.
