“…It is strongly underlined the fact that in Romania

between 1940-1945 there was no Holocaust.”—

Romanian Public Information Ministry, June 12, 2003

“The Holocaust was not unique to the Jewish population in Europe…

Does the wretched Romanian citizen of today have to pay for what

happened then? Is it worth it to skin those who are living today in distress?

And just to compensate others? I don’t find that appropriate.”—

Romanian President Ion Iliescu, Ha’aretz, July 24

Montreal, June 19, 2003

Dear Ambassador Maior,

Israel-Romania relations have been strained by the Romanian Ministry of Public Information’s outrageous claim that within the borders of Romania between 1940-1945 there was no Holocaust (Communicat de presa 2- sedinta de Guvern- 12 Junie 2003).

Sir, as a survivor of the Bucharest “Kristallnacht” (“Night of Broken Glass”) pogrom in January 21-23, 1941, searching for my missing father, I “visited” (along with other members of the Bucharest Jews), the Bucharest slaughterhouse, in which I saw Jewish corpses hanged from their bellies with tags reading “Jewish meat” and/or “Kosher Meat”. These vivid scenes remain a nightmare, and continue to haunt me today, sixty-two years later. Over one hundred and thirty Jews were massacred during these three days. Hundreds of homes, stores and over 25 synagogues were set on fire, vandalized, and some destroyed to their very foundations.

It is true that there were no gas chambers in Romania, nor crematoria for corpses; Romania did not industrialize victims’ hair, teeth or grease, as did Germany. But the Romanian fascists had their own original methods to exterminate the Jews. The persecution and the Nazi-Fascist terror directed against the Jewish population within Romania’s borders were just as violent and destructive as those in the other countries under Nazi German domination or influence. “The distinction between what took place in Romania and what took place in other countries where the Nazi persecution was most horrible…lies only in details of method. Romania’s war criminal Ion Antonescu had his own original methods for the extermination of Jews. Jews were beaten until they died, suffocated in freight cars with blocked up vents, sold as part of convoys that would be killed later when their clothing would be sold, hacked to pieces so that their blood could be used as axle grease…” (The Tragedy of Romanian Jewry, ed. Randolph L. Braham, Columbia University Press, New York, 1994)

The Bucharest Kristallnacht was preceded in its ferocity by the 1940 pogroms, most notably in Galati and Dorhoi, which claimed the lives of hundreds of Romania’s Jewish citizens. On June 28, 1941, during a 6-day pogrom in Iasi, over ten thousand Jews were murdered and more than 2,500 were deported in cattle trains, the majority dying from suffocation. On September 27, 1941, mass deportations by the Romanian army of thousands of Jews from the provinces of Moldova, Bucovina, Bassarabia and other Romanian cities began. My wife’s grandmother was amongst the hundreds who perished in the death march deportation from the city of Darabani. Destination: the killing fields of Transnistria, which claimed the lives of more than 250,000 Jews.

Historian Raul Hilberg in his magnum opus The Destruction of the European Jews (Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1961) writes: “Measured in sheer numbers, Romania was Germany’s most important ally in the East. Besides Germany itself, Romania was thus the only country which implemented all the steps of the destruction process, from definitions to killings.”

After decades of intentional and methodical distortion of contemporary history, revisionism has become predominant in post-communist Romania. For several decades after 1948, basic historical information about what went on in Romania during the war (1940-1944) was kept hidden, inaccessible even to historians. Today, Holocaust education is virtually non-existent. Following the international public’s outcry to your government’s June 12 statement of Holocaust denial, Romania backtracked somewhat from its original comments. However, the mere fact that such a denial--in a long series of Holocaust denials--could have been uttered, reflects the continuing poisonous atmosphere prevalent in today’s Romania.

I call on you Mr. Ambassador to set the record straight. If Romania wishes to join the community of free nations, then it must first own up to its Nazi past. Romania was perhaps the most enthusiastic ally of Germany. To say otherwise is to disregard the memory of over 300,000 Romanian Jews who perished at the hands of Romania’s Iron Guard Nazi government under the orders of war criminal Ion Antonescu.

Sincerely,

Baruch Cohen

Research Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research

Member, Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum