← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Ragnar
Thread ID: 7380 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2003-06-15
2003-06-15 20:10 | User Profile
Romania insists 'there was no Holocaust' on its soil in WWII
June 15, 2003
BY ALISON MUTLER
[url=http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-holo15.html]http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nw...nws-holo15.html[/url]
BUCHAREST, Romania--A day after allowing American Holocaust experts to study its archives, Romania denied Friday that a mass murder of Jews took place on its territory during World War II. Historians say 250,000 were deported or killed.
''We firmly claim that within the borders of Romania between 1940 and 1945 there was no Holocaust,'' the Ministry of Public Information said in a statement faxed to the Associated Press.
A local Jewish leader said the statement did not reflect the truth about what happened. ''You cannot say there weren't victims,'' said Ernest Neuman, head of the 600-member Jewish community in the western city of Timisoara.
Romania has been criticized for a reluctance to come to grips with its role in the Holocaust. On Thursday, the government signed an agreement allowing the Washington-based Holocaust Memorial Museum to study Romanian archives.
''The government encourages research about the Holocaust in Europe, including of documents of this type found in Romanian archives,'' the ministry said.
But historical accounts detail how about one-half of Romania's prewar Jewish population of 760,000 was killed during the war. Most died in the former Soviet Union, where they had been deported under the rule of pro-Nazi leader Marshal Ion Antonescu.
Some 130,000 Romanian Jews died after being deported by Hungarian authorities who temporarily ruled parts of Romania.
Historians have documented pogroms in Romania, including one in June 1941 in the northeastern city of Iasi, where up to 12,000 people are believed to have died as Romanian and German soldiers swept from house to house, killing Jews.
Copyright é The Sun-Times Company
2003-06-15 20:45 | User Profile
My Romanian in-laws who happened to have lived through that time period don't buy the hysterical bullsht, either, and are well aware of the Communist-Jewish link. My father-in-law wanted to walk out of the theater in the middle of Schindler's List because it was "full of such bullsht".
2003-06-16 11:48 | User Profile
I have distant relatives who are either part German-Hungarian-Romanian or they were just living in that area. Anyway they were quite kind to us, and what fries them about this whole shabby business is that there is not one word of acknowledgement about the brutal pain & dislocations they and their families went through during that period. They are supposed to shut up and swallow their own experience and go along with the party line.
I'm almost sorry I didn't go see Schindler's List just to be able to have hiked out on it. :P
2003-06-16 14:53 | User Profile
Exactly, Ragnar. My in-law family had everything stolen from them - property, a villa, vineyards, a grandfather sent to a slave labor camp in Siberia, etc... and NOT A PENNY OF REPARATIONS. Wow, somehow, they picked up and moved on with life. Then, they hear these accusations that Romanians should admit collective guilt and the Jews need reparations. I've asked if they wish they could sue and get their old property back, and the response I got was that families are living there now and it would be unfair to just kick them out, since they are probably there through no fault of their own. Can you imagine Organized Jewry having that attitude? That it's not really worth it to sue or collect reparations since the people in the present shouldn't be punished for actions of the past? That they should pick up and go on with life and not dwell on the past?
What do the Jews want from Romania, anyway? Are they trying to squeeze juice from a turnip again, like they tried in Poland?