Romania denying Holocaust?

[Peter H]

Conflicting news reports state that the Romanian Ministry of Information issued a press release last Friday denying any Holocaust on Romanian soil during WW2.Now they have retracted?

Can anyone make sense of this?

[Scott Smith]

Conflicting news reports state that the Romanian Ministry of Information issued a press release last Friday denying any Holocaust on Romanian soil during WW2.Now they have retracted?

Can anyone make sense of this?

Yeah, the American and Israeli ambassadors probably gave them a friendly warning about getting added to the "Axis of Evil" list.

[demonio]

I imagine this would have caused quite a stir

[Victor]

Conflicting news reports state that the Romanian Ministry of Information issued a press release last Friday denying any Holocaust on Romanian soil during WW2.Now they have retracted?

Can anyone make sense of this?

That would not be the only senseless statement of the Romanian government.Anyway the Ministry of Information does not exist anymore.

[Deterance]

Maybe statement and retraction was garbled effort to say....

"No transports to German run death camps in Poland occured from Romanian soil nor were there any German run death camps on Romanian soil"

To my knowledge this is pretty accurate.

However, numerous atrocities against Jews were commited by Romanian Army forces and militias including the establisment of localy run camps in Bressarbia etc.

[Victor]

Yes, that is true, but still it does not matter if the Holocaust took place on Romanian soil, or if the Jews from the "Regat" were not included in the deportations. The Romanian government of that time was unfortunately involved in the Holocaust.

[Deterance]

Yes, that is true, but still it does not matter if the Holocaust took place on Romanian soil, or if the Jews from the "Regat" were not included in the deportations. The Romanian government of that time was unfortunately involved in the Holocaust.

Victor,

I agree.....holocaust era atrocities are controversial for many countries.

Jewish groups in Ukraine and Lithuania are arguing with nationalists over the wordings on memorials. Perhaps Ukraine and Lithuanina are downplaying local involvement in holocaust.

Poland......Situation is highlighted by Jawane (sp) pogrom and accusations and counter accusations about how many were killed and by whom. Polish groups counter the book Neighbors and cite 200 murders by Germans not 1,200 murders by local Poles.

Hungary....I dont know if the Hungarian governemt ever acknowledged local invovlement in the holocasut (Arrow Cross etc.) or if they just blame it all on the Germans.

[dragos]

However even if there were persecutions of Jews and Communists (deportations, beatings, killings commited by the army and the gendarmes), in Romania never was established a policy of extermination. For example, the same treatment was endured by the Romanian population in Bessarabia under Soviet occupation of 1940-1941. There were troublesome times.

[dragos03]

Also, Antonescu organized the evacuation of some jews to Palestine, under the eyes of the Germans. The ships with jew refugees were even escorted by the Romanian navy to Istanbul.

[dragos]

Also, Antonescu organized the evacuation of some jews to Palestine, under the eyes of the Germans. The ships with jew refugees were even escorted by the Romanian navy to Istanbul.

The first shipment of Jewish refugees, on board of "Struma", was made in secrecy, without the knowledge of the German authorities. The ship was towed to Istambul because it was too old and damaged to navigate on its own. Once delivered to Istambul, the Romanians could do nothing more, because the further travel to Palestina was conditioned by the foregin authorities (British) in Palestina. Because the negociations progressed slow, the Turks towed and abandoned "Struma" at open sea, where it was sunk by Soviet submarine.

[David Thompson]

Readers may find Matathias Carp's Holocaust in Romania of interest:

http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/carp/carp.pdf

[dragos]

Readers may find Matathias Carp's Holocaust in Romania of interest:

http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/carp/carp.pdf

David, with all respect, I have to say that this document is simply outrageous and written in an obviously communist and hungarian bias.

Quotes from the first pages:

"It is the largely unknown story of the wholesale slaughter of close to 400,000 Jews by the war time Romanian government and the fascists (!) of that of that country"

"The Romanians made up in the sheer savagery of their human slaughterhouses, the mass rapes of their victims wives and daughters, or burning alive of 20,000 of Odessa's Jews"

"Even before the the reign of Vlad the Impaler, Romanian history was studded with unusually barbaric behaviour"

[David Thompson]

dragos -- You said:

David, with all respect, I have to say that this document is simply outrageous and written in an obviously communist and hungarian bias.

I've read the book. The author was a Romanian. If you can point out examples of a "communist bias," please do so. This seems unlikely to me, since the communist authorities of Romania seized the book and tried to destroy every copy they could get their hands on.

You also said:

Quotes from the first pages:

"It is the largely unknown story of the wholesale slaughter of close to 400,000 Jews by the war time Romanian government and the fascists (!) of that of that country"

"The Romanians made up in the sheer savagery of their human slaughterhouses, the mass rapes of their victims wives and daughters, or burning alive of 20,000 of Odessa's Jews"

"Even before the the reign of Vlad the Impaler, Romanian history was studded with unusually barbaric behaviour"

Those quotes are not from the 1946-1948 original 4-volume work by Carp, but are from Andrew L. Simon's preface to the English translation of the condensed edition. Consequently, I don't think your attack on the book itself is well-taken.

[dragos]

dragos -- You said:

David, with all respect, I have to say that this document is simply outrageous and written in an obviously communist and hungarian bias.

I've read the book. The author was a Romanian. If you can point out examples of a "communist bias," please do so.

Quote from the foreword of Matatias Carp:
"The most painful of these is what happened to the Jews of Europe. In this war - apart from the people of Soviet Union - it was the Jews who unselfishly placed themselves, their enthusiasm and their adoration at the disposal of their homeland and their high moral ideals."

The term "fascist" for Romanian government of that time (extensively used in the text) is an well known term of us during the period prior to 1989 (the fall of communism), althought the regime had nothing in common with the fascism.

Quote:
"In Bessarabia and Bukovina and in territories surrendered to the Soviet Union in June 1940, and occupied in the Summer of 1941..."

From a Romanian point of view, the territories were occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940, and they were again occupied in Summer 1944 by the Soviets, the Romanians could not occupy ther own land...


You also said:

Quotes from the first pages:

"It is the largely unknown story of the wholesale slaughter of close to 400,000 Jews by the war time Romanian government and the fascists (!) of that of that country"

"The Romanians made up in the sheer savagery of their human slaughterhouses, the mass rapes of their victims wives and daughters, or burning alive of 20,000 of Odessa's Jews"

"Even before the the reign of Vlad the Impaler, Romanian history was studded with unusually barbaric behaviour"

Those quotes are not from the 1946-1948 original 4-volume work by Carp, but are from Andrew L. Simon's preface to the English translation of the condensed edition. Consequently, I don't think your attack on the book itself is well-taken.

Your reply made me read several pages more, but such an introduction can prevent many readers go further into reading such an work.

[dragos]

David, furthermore studying the site where the document is hosted, I have noticed the site is supporting the revisionism on Romanian territory (Transylvania), according to which Romania unjustly took advantage of the outcome of WW1 and the Trianon Treaty to take territory of the "historical Hungary" (Austro-Hungaria).