annual Holocaust Day in an effort to overcome its its Nazi past and end a diplomatic row with Israel, BosNewsLife monitored Friday, May 7.
The Romanian government said it would hold the Holocaust Day on October 9, as part of its efforts to honor the victims and teach younger generations about the Second World War. Bucharest’s decision came amid international pressure, including from Israel, after Romania denied the Holocaust took place on its territory, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed during the war.
"The government decided that the day of October 9 will be the Holocaust Day," the Reuters news agency quoted Rares Petrisor, an adviser to Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, as saying. The day will commemorates the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and forced labor camps in 1941 by Romania’s war-time marshal and Nazi ally Ion Antonescu.
Experts say about 420,000 people from Romania’s pre-war Jewish community of 750,000 perished, including more than 100,000 Jews from Transylvania — then under Hungarian rule — who were deported to Auschwitz. Holocaust Day is part of a series of measures agreed by Bucharest after the diplomatic row, including setting up an international commission to bring light on the events of the time and teaching about the Holocaust in Romanian schools.
ROMANIA’S JEWISH COMMUNITY
Historian Lya Benjamin told Reuters that the government and the Jewish community would draw a plan on marking the day. Romania’s Jewish community welcomed the decision, saying it would help shine the light on Romania’s role in the Holocaust. "It is a laudable initiative, a Holocaust Day in Romania was necessary," said Sorin Iulian, general secretary of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania. However "we must forgive, but we must not forget," added Teodor Wexler, vice-president of a Jewish foundation, according to Reuters.
In an effort to polish its image ahead of joining NATO this year and the European Union in 2007, Romania has banned the use of fascist symbols such as Antonescu’s image, but critics say it has done little to unveil the truth, Reuters reported. But admitting hatred towards Jewish people remains a sensitive issue across Central and Eastern Europe, where anti Semitism has been wide spread.
Last month neighboring Hungary became the first former Communist country to open a Holocaust Memorial in honor of the estimated 600,000 Hungarian Jews who were massacred during World War Two by Nazis and Hungarian fascists.
