From silence to justification?: Moldovan historians on the holocaust of bessarabian and transnistrian jews

References

• Hitchins , Keith . 1994 . Rumania, 1866-1947 , 473 – 474 . Oxford : Clarendon Press . Strictly speaking, Moldovan historians deal with Northern Bukovina only tangentially, concentrating their attention on the history of the territories that now form part of the Republic of Moldova. However, due to the fact that Jews from Northern Bukovina shared the fate of their co-nationals from Bessarabia and Transnistria in the years 1941-1944, I cursorily refer to this province and its Jewish population.
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• Ioanid . The Holocaust in Romania 172 At least 123,000 people were deported; see
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• The Destruction of the European Jews , 2 759 Ibid., p. 289. This is what one might call a conservative estimate; Raul Hilberg raises the number to 300,000.
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• Braham , ed. "Introduction," ” . In The Destruction of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews xv Michael Birenbaum estimated that out of 270,000 Jews who died as a result of this tragedy, two-thirds perished at the hands of Romanins, not Germans. See
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• Hitchins , Keith . Rumania, 1866-1947 285 – 291 . There was, of course, a fair amount of agile political maneuvering by the Romanian leaders and sheer good luck-Romania happened to be on the right side after the Great War-that helped to produce a very impressive increase-by a factor of two-in the size of the territory and population of Romania after the First World War. See
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• Ibid.
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• Ibid., p. 8. Gagauzis are a small Turkish-speaking Christian Orthodox community who have lived in Bessarabia since the late eighteenth century. They settled in Bessarabia together with Bulgarians under Russia protection, having fled Ottoman persecution in the Balkans.
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• Levit , eds. Moldavskaia SSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine Vol. 2 , 236 Personal communication of Iziaslav Levit, now an American citizen living in New York. The document referred to was published in There is an explicit reference to the unpublished paragraph. I understand the recommendation contained in the document to imply that it would have been useless to enroll Jews in guerilla activity, because, given the extermination policy of the Nazis and Romanians, the Jews would shortly be annihilated.
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• Levit , eds. Moldavskaia SSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine Vol. 2 , 579 However, in a note to another document Levit was able to publish a paraphrase of this resolution together with the unwanted names-the censors were not attentive enough to read all notes When in 1972 a monument to these victims was unveiled, it turned out that the inscription on it referred to them as a "group," not as a "center", obviously with the aim of concealing the role of the Jews in the partisan movement (personal communication by Levit).
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• Anderson , Benedict . 1983 . Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism , 199 – 201 . London : Verso . emphasis added). However, as Benedict Anderson has shown, Renan should not be understood too literally, as condoning any kind of forgetting.
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• Petrencu , Anatol . 1999 . Romania si Basarabia în anii celui de-al doilea razboi mondial , Chicinau : Epigraf . The second of these books was published with the support of the Soros-MOLDOVA foundation (ibid., p.4).
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• "Narrative, Identity, State: History Teaching in Moldova," . East European Politics and Societies , 16 ( 2 ) 415 – 446 . See his interview for the readers of Moldova azi website (this site is supported by Soros-MOLDOVA foundation), available at: http://www.azi.md/iv?iv=29&lang=Ro&page=2. However, the new Moldovan Communist government formed after February 2001 never heeded the opinion of the University Senate due to its strong disagreement with Professor Petrencu and the Association of Historians about what kind of history should be taught at schools in Moldova-while Pentrencu and the Association insist the course must be that of "The History of Romanians," the Communist government wants it to be "The History of Moldova" (see Petrencu's interview). I have addressed the issues involved in
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• Petrencu , Anatol . 1997 . Basarabia în al doilea razboi mondial, 1940-1944 , 7 8 31 – 34 . 77 – 86 . Chis,inau : Lyceum . and passim.
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• Petrencu . 1940-1944 . Basarabia in al doilea razboi mondial 112 116
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• Ibid., p. 43.
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• Ibid., esp. pp. 111-119, and passim.
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• 1942 . Basarabia: un an de munca romneasca , Chisinau : Guvernamântul Basarabiei . published in Bucharest as Basarabia dezrobit.
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• Benjamin , Lya . "Anti-Semitism as Reflected in the Records of the Council of Ministers, 1940-1944: An Analytical Overview," ” . In The Destruction of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews During the Antonescu Era Edited by: Braham . 1 – 18 . An excellent analysis of the official anti-Semitic discourse under Antonescu is in
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• Petencu , Anatol . Basarabia în al doilea razboi mondial, 1940-1944 42 – 46 . 60 – 67 . 79 235 – 242 .
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• Ibid., pp. 48-49.
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• Ibid., p. 30.
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• Ibid., p. 66.
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• Ibid., pp. 237-240.
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• Ibid., pp. 30, 33, 48, 65, 107, 163 et al.
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• Ibid., p. 66.
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• Livezeanu . Cultural Politics in Greater Romania 245 – 296 . Ibid., pp. 62-64. On the numerus clausus movement and its relationship to Romanian fascism, see
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• Petrencu . Basarabia in al doilea razboi mondial, 1940-1944 63
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• Tismaneanu . "The Tragicomedy of Romanian Communism," ” . 338 At about 1,000 members in 1944. This number remained more or less the same throughout the inter-war period
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• Petrencu . Basarabia in al doilea razboi mondial 163
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• Petrencu . 1940-1944 . Basarabia in al doilea razboi mondial 63
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• This expression, host country (fara-gazdd), is used by Petrencu (ibid., p. 63). On the antiSemitic outburst see, e.g., ibid., p. 92.
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• Watts , Larry . Romanian Cassandra: Ion Antonescu and the Struggle for Reform, 1916-1941 , East European Monographs 232 – 237 . Boulder Ibid., 51-52. Here Petrencu refers approvingly to the Romanian translation of
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• Livezeanu's , Irina . 1996 . Slavic Review , 55 ( 3 ) : 673 – 674 . (Casandra României: Ion Antonescu si lupta pentru reforma, 1918-1941 [Bucharest: Editura Tess-Express, 1996]. Petrencu does not indicate pages). In contrast to Petrencu's admiration of Larry Watts (he calls him a good specialist in the problems of the Second World War), Watts's book was less well received in the US academic press. See, e.g.,
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• Petrencu . 1940-1944 . Basarabia in al doilea razboi mondial 168
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• Ibid., p. 167.
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• Ibid., p. 162.
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• Ibid., p. 165.
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• Ibid., p. 166.
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• Ibid., pp. 168-170.
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• Shermer , Michael . 2000 . Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why They Do Say It? , xv – xvi . Berkeley : University of California Press . According to the authors' definition, the Holocaust is denied when and if the numbers of those killed (approximately six million), the technique of mass murder, and in particular gas chambers, and the intentionality of the whole enterprise are denied. In respect to the Romanian wartime administration of the fate of the Jews of Bessarabia, Petrencu is doing exactly this.
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• Petrencu . Romania si Basarabia în anii celui de-al doilea razboi mondial 163
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• Ibid., pp. 57, 88-89, 94-95, 111,113, 122-129, 138-139.
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• The slogan "Down with the kikes and Communists" is quoted, among others from the report of the police commissariat of the Bessarabian town of Ungheni to their superiors (chestura) in Jassy upon locals welcoming Romanian troops in July 1941, without the author distancing himself from this kind of language (ibid., p. 63). When citing Antonescu's response to the memorandum of the oppositionist politician Iuliu Maniu protesting full-scale Romanian participation in the war against the Soviet Union (October 1942) the following is quoted mot Ö mot with nonchalance: "The Communists, Legionnaires (i.e., members of the Iron Guard), kikes, Hungarians" (ibid., p. 139).
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• Ibid., p. 93.
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• 1 April 2002 . MOLDPRES , 1 April , Press Agency . This declaration was prompted by the protests against the policies of the Moldovan Communist government of introducing Russian language as a separate subject to be taught obligatorily in the Moldovan (Romanian) language schools and of replacing the history of Romanians with the history of Moldova in all types of educational institutions in the country. Anatol Petrencu and the Association of historians played a very active role in those protests.
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• 2002 . Tara , 19 March Given the publicity this declaration was accorded in the government-controlled media of Moldova it looks like it was inspired by the authorities. On the protests see
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• Ibid., pp. 48-61 passim.
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• Ibid., p. 97.
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• Ibid., pp. 68.
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• Ibid., p. 102.
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• Ibid.
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• Ioanid , Radu . "The Legal Status of the Jews in Romania," ” . In The Holocaust in Romania 3 – 36 . 18 – 19 . Ibid., p. 81. The first mention of anti-Semitic legislation is under King Carol II and is linked to the change of external policies away from the Western powers towards the Axis states in the summer of 1940 (ibid., p. 23). It should be noted that in reality anti-Semitic legislation first appeared in Greater Romania in 1938, and anti-Semitism was a part of everyday national life during the entire inter-war period. See
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• Ibid., pp. 82-83.
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• Ibid., p. 85.
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• The war against the USSR and government of the three provinces are covered on pages 83-87. Information on the court trial in the summer of 1947 at which Antonescu was indicted with crimes against humanity and condemned to death is inserted in the section dealing with Communization; the impression given is that the correctness of his sentence is highly questionable (ibid., p. 103).
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