Republic of Moldova 2006

 

The debate over the responsibility of Hitler’s Romanian ally Ion Antonescu for the Holocaust on Moldovan territory intensified in 2006, with the introduction of new textbooks including facts about the Holocaust into Moldovan secondary schools. Several Jewish cemeteries were desecrated during the year.

 

the Jewish Community

Moldova has a sizeable Jewish community (officially estimated at about 30,000 out of population of approximately 4.3 million), with strong links to the Moldovan Jewish Diaspora in Israel and the US. The Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Moldova and the Jewish Congress of Moldova unite Moldovan Jewish organizations. The Union of Jewish Organizations of Chisinau (the capital) was established in 1999. Other Jewish organizations are the charity foundation Dor le-Dor, the Society of War Veterans, the women’s organization Khava and the Association of Jews – Prisoners of Ghetto and Concentration Camps, as well as branches of the international student organization Hillel and the Maccabi movement.

There are about a dozen Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch communities in Moldova, headed by the chief rabbi of the country. An Agudat Israel yeshiva was opened in Chisinau in the early 1990s. There are also a Chabad-Lubavitch kindergarten, two Jewish schools and a Jewish pedagogic women’s college in Chisinau, as well as the Enlightenment University of Jewish Culture and a branch of the Open University of Israel. Sunday schools operate in every city with a Jewish community. Two Jewish newspapers are published: Evreiiskoe Mestechko (Jewish Shtetl) and Istoky (Roots).

The Chisinau authorities granted permission to a local company to build the Alunelul amusement park over a mass grave containing victims of the 1903 Chisinau pogrom, as well as thousands of Jews who were shot by the Nazis in July 1941. As a result of mass protests by the Jewish community the construction work stopped; however it was resumed after a short while.

 

Antisemitic activity

Several Jewish cemeteries were desecrated in 2006. In early May, 11 tombstones were broken at the Jewish cemetery in Bander, and other cases were reported in Tiraspol, Soroca and Orhei. Nazi symbols and antisemitic insults were painted on some graves.

Most anti-Jewish prejudice in Moldova is expressed by denying or distorting the facts of the genocide of the Jews (and other groups) during the fascist Romanian occupation of Moldova (1941−44) and Prime Minister Ion Antonescu’s responsibility for the Holocaust. This phenomenon is linked to a similar situation in Romania, serving the objective of Romanian nationalists of reunifying the two countries on the basis of ethnic and linguistic ties.

The debate over the responsibility of Hitler's Romanian ally Antonescu for the Holocaust on Moldovan territory has intensified. To some extent it is connected to the development and introduction of new textbooks on the history of Moldova into general secondary schools. The new history course includes facts about the Holocaust and about Antonescu’s responsibility for it, as well as information on minorities such as Jews and Roma who have lived in the land for centuries. Prior to 2006 the Moldovan school curriculum included the course “History of the Romanians,” reflecting an ethno-nationalist line that completely excluded minorities. It also ignored the Holocaust in Moldova and Romania, and presented Antonescu in a positive light.

The new history textbooks were prepared on the recommendation of the Council of Europe and their authors were often attacked by various ultra-nationalistic organizations, such as unions of historians and political parties. The main tool of such groups is the media and the number of articles attacking the new history curriculum increased greatly in 2006, including in large-circulation mainstream newspapers, such as Literatura si Arta, Timpul, Glasul Natiunii and Jurnal de Chisinau.

Timpul, for example, a leading newspaper known for its identification with the extreme right in Moldova and Romania, published an article describing the Romanian pilots who bombed Moldovan cities and villages on 22 June 1941 as liberators. The article aroused a storm of indignation among the opposition media (such as the newspapers Puls and Mediapuls) and minority activists. The piece was followed by a series of articles and interviews with former soldiers of the Romanian army, who according to Timpul, were “forgotten heroes of the Second World War.”

In 2006 the Romanian public TV channel TVR1 organized a TV-marathon entitled “Great Romanians of All Times,” in which viewers voted Ion Antonescu into third place in the list of “ten great Romanians.” Many of the above-mentioned Moldovan newspapers covered the event enthusiastically, stressing Antonescu’s importance for the Romanian nation. Asked to comment on the results of this television poll for Timpul, right-wing Moldovan politicians such as Vitalia Pavlicenco, leader of the recently established National Liberal Party of Moldova, and Mihai Ghimpu, leader of the Liberal Party and former activist of the Popular Front, all praised Antonescu’s actions during the war.

It may be assumed that these views of Antonescu’s actions were influenced to some extent by Romanian President Traian Basescu, who is extremely popular among Moldovan right-wing circles and whose speeches and activities are covered by the nationalistic Moldovan media. Appearing on a show on the Romanian Realitatea TV channel, also transmitted in Moldova, Basescu said that the only mistake made by Antonescu was that he “did not know where to stop and this is unforgivable for a politician. He made a fundamental error – “crossing the Dniester River.” At the same time Basecu refrained from speaking about war crimes – the reason Antonescu was sentenced to death in June 1946.

An important international conference devoted to the Holocaust was held in Chisinau in October. Entitled “The Destiny of Jews in Bessarabia, Northern Bucovina and Transnistria in 1940-1944,” it was organized by the Ion Creanga State Pedagogic University. Although the conference gathered many Moldovan and international historians, journalists and sociologists, it aroused much criticism from some Moldovan historians and the Jewish community. Their target was mainly the history department of the Pedagogic University, many of whose members support the nationalist line promoted by Anatol Petrencu, a leading promoter of Holocaust denial in Moldova. As reported by Mediapuls, in his opening speech at the conference the dean of the history department, Nicolae Chicus, stressed that “the issue of the Holocaust in Bessarabia has been too politicized and since it is contradictory it is important to have a civilized discussion which will lead to a common denominator.” Representatives of the Jewish community and anti-racist organizations were invited at the last moment, which made it difficult for them to attend, or were not invited at all.

 

Responses to Antisemitism and Racism

The problem of antisemitism and racism has been officially recognized by the Moldovan authorities. President Vladimir Voronin explicitly condemned antisemitism and Holocaust denial in a speech he gave in 2006 at the Serpeni Stronghold Memorial on the anniversary of the Chisinau-Iasi operation liberating Moldova on 22 August 1944. Nationalistic groups, including the Hyde Park NGO, protesting outside, hung posters with inscriptions including “Occupants, go home” and “Rehabilitate Ion Antonescu.” The memorial complex was constructed by the Moldovan authorities two years earlier as a symbol of the liberation of Moldova from fascist occupation.

On the non-governmental level, the main protestors against antisemitism and racism in Moldova continued to be groups such as the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly of Moldova and the newspapers Mediapuls and Evreiskoe Mestechko, whose editor-in-chief Ilya Mariyash, explicitly condemns Holocaust denial and antisemitism disseminated by nationalistic publications. In 2006 the Museum of Anne Frank in the Netherlands, in cooperation with its Ukrainian partners, initiated a project on teaching the Holocaust in Moldovan schools. On 15-16 December the seminar “Anne Frank – a History for Today” for pupils was organized in the N. Gogol Lyceum.