Like coals under ashes, ready to scorch the earth once more: notes regarding anti-Jewish attitudes in Romania (1944–1947)

ABSTRACT

The persistence of anti-Jewish attitudes in post-World War II Romania represents a topic that has not been given the attention it deserved over the years. With one of the largest surviving Jewish communities in Europe after the Holocaust, Romania had to deal with multiple issues facing its Jewish citizens, from reintegration to preventing the re-emergence of anti-Semitism in political and social life and the reoccurrence of acts of anti-Semitic violence, which were already issues in other central and south-eastern European countries. However, hostility towards the Jewish community was still present, with political, economic, social, and popular culture factors coming into play and sometimes generating a tense atmosphere marked by uncertainty, even if acts of violence remained sporadic and were not committed at the same rate or on the same level as in other countries in the region. This article draws on a vast number of primary sources in order to look at the factors which contributed to this re-emergence of anti-Jewish attitudes in Romania, and it also assesses the impact this re-emergence had on the surviving Jewish community.

KEYWORDS:

• Romania
• post-war
• anti-Semitism
• Jewish community in Romania

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Galaction, Jurnal, 15.

2. Friling, Ioanid, and Ionescu, eds., International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, 175.

3. Andreescu, Nastasă, and Varga, eds., Evreii din România; and Scurtu, ed., România: viața politică în documente.

4. Several titles than can be mentioned, for instance: Șafran, Un tăciune smuls flăcărilor; Galaction, Jurnal; Dorian, Cărțile au rămas neterminate; Schwefelberg, Amintirile; and Velicu, Biserica Ortodoxă în perioada sovietizării României.

5. Special attention was given to collections of Jewish newspapers and journals which emerged or were relaunched after 23 August 1944, such as Curierul Israelit (Jewish Courier), Mântuirea (Salvation), and Unirea (The Union).

6. As a result of this approach, in my research at the National Central Historical Archives in Bucharest, I also focused on less researched archival funds, such as those of the Regional Police Inspectorates and the Regional Gendarmerie Inspectorates.

7. Kuller, Evreii în România anilor 1944–1949; Rotman, Evreii din România în perioada comunistă; Ioanid, ed., Securitatea și vânzarea evreilor; Onișoru, România în anii 1944–1948; and Vago, “The unexpected cosmopolitans.”

8. Glass, “Viața evreiascã din România”; Glass, “Restitution Issues in Post-War Romania,” 206–7. After the war Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were no longer part of Romania.

9. Nastasă, “Studiu introductiv” in Andreescu, Nastasă, and Varga, eds., Evreii din România, 20.

10. Rotman, Evreii din România în perioada comunistă, 161–9.

11. Among such works one may cite Gross, Fear; Cichopek-Gajraj, Beyond Violence; Salomoni, “State-sponsored Anti-Semitism”; and Apor, “The Lost Deportations.”

12. For a study on nationalism and anti-Semitism in nineteenth-century Romania, see Oldson, A Providential Anti-Semitism.

13. Of the many works dealing with the history of the Iron Guard and the Romanian interwar far-right one could mention Heinen, Legiunea “Arhanghelul Mihail”; Iordachi, Charisma, Politics and Violence; Sandu, Un Fascisme Roumain; and Clark, Holy Legionary Youth.

14. For a synthetic account of the anti-Semitic policies of the Goga-Cuza government, see Friling, Ioanid and Ionescu, eds., International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, 31–43.

15. Friling, Ioanid, and Ionescu, eds., International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, 86–7.

16. A thorough analysis of Romanianization policies can be found in Ionescu, Jewish Resistance to “Romanianization.”

17. Friling, Ioanid, and Ionescu, eds., International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, 114.

18. An in-depth look at the Antonescu regime can be found in Deletant, Hitler’s Forgotten Ally. For a more recent, contextualized account, see Chioveanu, Death Delivered-Death Postponed.

19. According to Friling, Ioanid, and Ionescu, eds., International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, 126, the first figure was acknowledged by the Romanian secret service, while the latter was the one given by the local Jewish Community.

20. For a recent look at the complex situation in Transnistria during the Holocaust, see Diana Dumitru, The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust.

21. According to the final report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania ‘the total number of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews who perished in territories under Romanian administration is between 280,000 and 380,000.’ Friling, Ioanid, and Ionescu, eds., International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, 179.

22. Around 350,000 Jews were living in post-war Romania according to Rotman, Evreii din România în perioada comunistă, 31.

23. Beno Brănișteanu is the pen name of Bercu Braunstein, noted journalist who during his career worked for several papers, including Adevărul (The Truth), one of the leading newspapers in interwar Romania.

24. Curierul Israelit, 22 October 1944, 1,2.

25. On instances of the struggles within the Jewish community, see Schwefelberg, Amintirile, 157–9.

26. Deletant, România sub regimul comunist, 58.

27. National Central Historical Archives, Bucharest (henceforth ANIC), General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 66/1945, 18.

28. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 66/1945, 20.

29. Deletant, România sub regimul comunist, 49.

30. See the full text in Scurtu, România: viața politică în documente 1945, 149–50.

31. Dorian, Cărțile au rămas neterminate, 21.

32. Mântuirea, 5 March 1945, 1.

33. Șafran, Un tăciune smuls flăcărilor, 154, 156.

34. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 66/1945, 46.

35. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 1/1946, 17, 74, 141.

36. Unirea, 15–17 November 1945, 1,4.

37. See Scurtu, România: viața politică în documente 1945, 400. Communist leader Petre Constantinescu-Iași also talked about signs of Jewish stores being pulled down and workers’ union members and Jews being harassed. Constantinescu-Iași, De la eliberare la socialism, 54.

38. For the point of view of American diplomatic sources, see România: viața politică în documente 1945, 395–8.

39. Unirea, 15–17 November 15–17 1945, 1.

40. For the full text of the two letters see ANIC, CC al PCR – Cancelarie Fund, File No. 249/1945, 2–4.

41. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 66/1945, 149; and ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 1/1946, 81.

42. The agreement was negociated by Nicolae Petrașcu, who, at that moment in time, led an important faction of Legionary Movement.

43. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 1/1946, 12–3. Report from 2 February 1946.

44. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 1/1946, 97.

45. Ibid., 180.

46. Curierul Israelit, 11 March 1945, 6.

47. For example, see the anticommunist and anti-Semitic version of the folk lyrics of the Plugușor (a New Year’s tradition popular in Romania), from Mureș County, ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 5/1946, 302–4.

48. Onișoru, România în anii 1944–1948, 28, 49.

49. ANIC, Jewish Democratic Committee Fund, Reel 1371, 83.

50. Ibid., 49.

51. ANIC, Regional Gendarmerie Inspectorates Fund, File No. 225, 12–3. Although no concrete evidence was provided, the information was passed on from the local to the regional and national levels of the Romanian Gendarmerie.

52. ANIC, Regional Gendarmerie Inspectorates Fund, File No. 225, 156–7.

53. Tóth and Várdy, În viaţă sunt lucruri care nu se fac, 145–6.

54. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 92/1944, 77.

55. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 66/1945, 20.

56. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 2/1946, 196.

57. For a relevant example see ANIC, CC al PCR – Cancelarie Fund, File No. 86/1945, 18–9.

58. For a detailed account of the 1922 student movement and its aftermath, see Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania, 245–96.

59. Kuller, Evreii în România anilor 1944–1949, 146.

60. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 66/1945, 2.

61. Scânteia, 5 January 1945, 1, 5.

62. Scânteia, 15 February 1945, 7.

63. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 66/1945, 39.

64. Curierul Israelit, 17 December 1944, 6.

65. Iancu Țucărman, interview by Cosmina Gușu, October 2006, available online at http://www.centropa.org/biography/iancu-tucarman (last accessed March 6, 2018).

66. Curierul Israelit, 18 March 1945, 6.

67. Roth, Opțiunile mele, 116–7.

68. Balas, Pasăre în zbor, 70–1.

69. Glass, “Restitution Issues in Post-War Romania,” 205.

70. Dorian, Cărțile au rămas neterminate, 41–2.

71. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 66/1945, 134.

72. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 44/1945, 10.

73. Ibid., 15.

74. Ibid., 22.

75. Ibid., 17.

76. ANIC, General Gendarmerie Inspectorate Fund, File No. 144/1946, 1–11.

77. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 1/1946, 139–40.

78. ANIC, General Gendarmerie Inspectorate Fund, File No. 70/1946, 203.

79. ANIC, Jewish Democratic Committee Fund, Reel 1371, 48–9.

80. ANIC, Special Intelligence Service Fund, File No. 109/1945, 12.

81. Velicu, Biserica Ortodoxă în perioada sovietizării României, 138, 173–4.

82. Ibid., 160.

83. ANIC, Jewish Democratic Committee Fund, Reel 1371, 0004.

84. Ibid., 0005.

85. Emil Dorian, Cărțile au rămas neterminate, 51–2.

86. ANIC, Regional Police Inspectorates Fund, File No. 961, 89.

87. ANIC, Regional Police Inspectorates Fund, File No. 961, 90–100.

88. ANIC, General Police Directorate Fund, File No. 92/1944, 87.

89. ANIC, Regional Police Inspectorates Fund, File No. 584, 8.

90. Ibid.

91. Ibid.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation [AZ 27/F/14].

Notes on contributors

Valentin Săndulescu

Valentin Săndulescu holds a PhD in History from Central European University, Budapest (2011) and is currently an Assistant Professor/Lecturer in the Jewish Studies program of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest (Romania). His main academic interests, reflected in various publications and conference presentations, include the history and historiography of fascism and anti-Semitism (with emphasis on the Romanian Iron Guard) and the history of the Jewish community in Romania.