romania 2006

 

While the overall number of antisemitic events was no higher in 2006 than in previous years, the authorities have begun showing more openness and responding more rapidly. Antisemitic propaganda continued to accompany the ongoing campaign to rehabilitate the war time Antonescu legacy. It also appeared in some Hungarian-language press organs and in debates on the role of the Jews in the Communist regime.

 

the jewish community

According to the 2002 census, the Jewish community in Romania has dwindled to fewer than 6,000 out of a total population of 21.5 million. Several thousand more, mostly in mixed marriages, are thought not to have declared themselves as Jews. The major Jewish centers are Bucharest, Iasi, Cluj and Oradea, where the local communities are well organized.

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania promotes and coordinates communal activities. In addition to publishing a monthly journal, Realitatea Evreiasca, the Federation documents the history of Jewish life in Romania through a very active research center and its publications and symposia are well covered by the Romanian media. The Hasefer publishing house issues dozens of titles on Jewish topics, including works by the community’s historical center. The historical studies published by the Federation of Jewish Communities are of primary importance in the study of the Holocaust and the past of Romanian Jewry. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee has been especially active in fostering welfare work among Romania’s elderly and needy Jews. The universities of Cluj, Bucharest and Iasi have academic centers for Jewish studies, and hold conferences on Jewish topics and Romania’s Jewish past. The Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj was the first institution in Romania to initiate annual seminars on the Holocaust for Romanian educators; it also holds seminars on past and present trends in antisemitism. Similar seminars and conferences are organized at the University of Bucharest. Academic periodicals such as Studia Judaica (Cluj) and Studia Hebraica (Bucharest) publish studies on antisemitism and the Holocaust.

The issue of restitution of private and communal property has yet to be resolved in Romania, although the community has secured the return of several individual items. The community’s task of maintaining the vast number of synagogues and cemeteries, a reminder of the large Jewish population that existed in Romania before the war, has been alleviated by a government decree of March 2002 ordering the protection of Jewish sites as part of the national heritage.

The NGO Center for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism (MCA Romania, www.antisemitism.ro) monitors antisemitic manifestations and, jointly with the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania, initiates activities to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

 

POLITICAL PARTIES AND EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS

The Greater Romania Party (PRM), led by Corneliu Vadim Tudor, which suffered a resounding defeat in the November/December 2004 parliamentary and presidential elections (see ASW 2004), has reverted to its previous antisemitic line, although it has been more preoccupied with internal power struggles than with Jewish issues.

Small nationalist, xenophobic, antisemitic Iron Guard, or Legionnaire, groups (deriving from the wartime fascist movement) form the extra-parliamentary extreme right in Romania. ‘Nests’ (the original name of local branches of the movement) of such groups exist in several localities. The Bucharest nest of the Legionnaire movement owns the Majadahonda publishing house, which issues works by Iron Guard founder Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and books about the movement. Pro-Iron Guard, antisemitic and Holocaust denying publications, such as Obiectiv Legionar, are openly displayed at book stalls in the major cities.

The New Right organization Noua Dreapta organized marches and religious ceremonies in 2006 to commemorate Codreanu (see US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2006). In November (see also below) the annual march commemorating Codreanu took place in Tancabesti (where Conreanu and 13 of his men were killed on the order of King Carol II in 1938), with the participation of several dozen extremists.

The discourse of the New Generation Party, which received approximately 2 percent of the vote in the 2004 general election, mixes nationalist and religious messages, similar to those of the Iron Guard movement.

 

ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITIES

In general, manifestations of the ‘new antisemitism’, which in Western Europe is associated with the identification of Israel, Zionism and Jews as a single evil entity, are rarely evidenced in Romania. In fact, there has been no marked change in recent years in the positions of nationalist and extreme right elements vis-à-vis the Jews/Zionism/Israel, and they continue to focus less on the Middle East situation and more on issues such as the penetration of Jewish/Israeli capital into the Romanian economy, and Holocaust-related subjects, including the fate of Romanian Jewry and Jewish demands for compensation.

Antisemitic and anti-Israel articles continued to appear in some Hungarian language press organs in Romania, especially Erdelyi Naplo. In its issue of 8 August, during the Second Lebanon War, the paper published the article ‘Bloodthirsty Zionism,’ which employed clichés from the new antisemitism to viciously attack Zionism, Jews and Israel. According to the US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2006, in some popular, private TV stations, such as Antena 1 and national TV, antisemitic views were also voiced on some talk shows.

Antisemitic attitudes continued to surface in the debates over the role of the Jews in the Communist regime. The formation, in March 2006, of a Presidential Commission for the Study of the Romanian Communist Dictatorship, headed by a well known American scholar of Jewish-Romanian background, Vladimir Tismeneanu, whose father was a Communist activist, provided such an opportunity. From the time of its inception until the commission submitted its report to President Basescu in December (on the report and its Romanian text, see Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC), the antisemitic press frequently mentioned Tismaneanu's origins. Greater Romania Party leader Vadim Tudor (in the daily Tricolorul, 11 May), as well as others, branded Tismaneanu a “Jewish provocateur.” Placing Tismaneanu as head of a commission on the crimes of the Communists was like nominating the son of a former senior Nazi to head a commission on the Holocaust, proclaimed one commentator in the leding daily Ziua, on 16 May.

There were several cases of desecration of Jewish sites in 2006. In January a person who threw stones at the Jewish Theatre in Bucharest was caught, and deemed by the police to be mentally ill. Some 20 tombs were vandalized in the Jewish cemetery of Resita on 24 March. There were several instances of swastikas painted on houses in Bucharest and Cluj, especially on premises owned by ethnic Hungarians, and the connection to the Jews was unclear. (see US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2006)

While the overall number of antisemitic events was no higher than the average for recent years, the authorities are now showing more openness, publicizing antisemitic incidents and responding more rapidly. However, according to MCA Romania, the authorities still tend to downplay antisemitic incidents, often attributing acts of vandalism to children, drunkards or persons with mental disorders (see US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2006).

 

ATTTITUDES TOWARD THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NAZI ERA

The debate in Romanian society over the nation’s role in the Holocaust continued in 2006, with arguments for and against the rehabilitation of Ion Antonescu. Discussions over the nation's past and future intensified in 2006 prior to Romania’s entry into the European Union on 1 January 2007.

As in previous years, antisemitic propaganda accompanied the continuing campaign to rehabilitate the Antonescu legacy and cleanse historical memory of the fate of Romanian Jewry during the Holocaust. The material on pro-Legionnaire sites such as Pagina Romaniei Nationaliste and Dreapta Noua, attempts to introduce Codreanu’s doctrines to the younger generation through historical revisionism, including whitewashing the Iron Guard’s murderous activities. These include the January 1941 pogrom in Iasi, which it attributes to “Jewish behavior.” Such propaganda activities may be linked directly to official and public reactions following submission of the Report of the International Commission of Historians on the Holocaust in Romania in October 2004 (see below).

Media outlets, such as the daily Ziua, frequently published articles alleging that the Jews fared better in the Holocaust in Romania than is generally portrayed, mentioning a supposedly high survival rate and the possibility of emigration under the Antonescu regime.(see, for example, Ziua, 5 Aug.) While not overtly denying the Holocaust, such publications promote a revisionist, perverted view of events.

In June, several small nationalist organizations, including Vatra Romaneasca and the Marshal Ion Antonescu League, sponsored public prayers marking the 60th anniversary of Antonescu's execution as a war criminal. The Jewish community protested, citing the relevant legislation, but there was no official clampdown on the organizers and the events. Likewise, clips showing the annual march commemorating Iron Guard founder Corneliu Codreanu, in November, were available over the net, including on YouTube and on Romanian extremist sites. Participants in this event wave the flags of the movement and sing marching songs. However, since they are usually few, skirt the highways, do not hinder traffic and avoid overtly antisemitic or racist slogans, the authorities do not interfere.

 

RESPONSES TO RACISM AND ANTISEMITISM

There were numerous responses in 2006 to antisemitism and a discourse on the implications of the past for the present and future of the country. The wide media coverage following publication of the report of the International Commission of Historians on the Holocaust in Romania (“the Wiesel Commission” − see ASW 2004) generated much public discussion of “the Holocaust in Romania,” a concept that has now entered Romanian terminology after years of debate as to whether there was a Holocaust in Romania.

The final report of the commission was published in two volumes in 2005, both in Romanian and English. One of the volumes contains previously unpublished documents relating to the Holocaust in Romania, collected and edited by Lya Benjamin, a prominent historian of the Jewish community and member of the commission.

In January various events were held to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the 1941 pogrom in Bucharest, in which at least 120 Jews were slaughtered during a revolt of Iron Guard Legionnaires against the Antonescu government. At a conference held in Bucharest, President Traian Basescu conveyed a message stressing the need to teach the younger generation the realities of those times. In June, commemorative events and a major conference were held in Iasi, where more than 15,000 Jews were killed during several days of atrocities, also in 1941. Participants included Romanian Foreign Minister Ion Razvan Ungureanu, as well as civic leaders, representatives of the Jewish community and Israeli Ambassador Rodica Radian-Gordon. The president sent a message. The conference papers were published in 2006 by the National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust (Pogromul de la Iasi, Polirom, 2006)

In October, Holocaust Day was commemorated for the third time in Romania, following the decision to mark 9 October, the beginning of the deportations to Transnistria in 1941. The official events, attended by high-level functionaries, indicated Romania's determination to confront its past despite continuing nationalist pressures and pro-fascist ideas often expressed in parts of the media. President Basescu stated that there was still much to do prove that the nation felt remorse over the fate of Romanian Jewry. The president laid the cornerstone for a Holocaust memorial in Bucharest. All the events marking the Holocaust included commemoration of Roma victims and the exhortation to fight contemporary antisemitism and racism.

The Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Bucharest, inaugurated in 2005, continued its activities. Director Gen. Mihail E. Ionescu stressed the importance of the institute for research into Romania's past and its role in the Holocaust. Among its activities in 2006, the institute organized the conference marking the Iasi pogrom.

The year 2006 saw the extension of educational projects and teacher seminars, and the introduction of the Holocaust and antisemitism as topics in school textbooks. Romania's acceptance into the Task Force for Holocaust Education in late 2004 increased the scope for cooperation in this field with foreign organizations and bodies.