Final Report of the International Commission on the - Minority Rights ...

<strong>of</strong> adaptation to <strong>the</strong> altered conditions on <strong>the</strong> front line. Yet <strong>the</strong> change is depicted as reflecting a
humanitarian gesture. The negationists retroactively project policies toward Jews in <strong>the</strong> second part <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
war to <strong>the</strong> first period <strong>of</strong> Antonescu’s dictatorship, while minimizing or ignoring <strong>the</strong> pogroms and <strong>the</strong>
deportations. It is even claimed that Jews in Transnistria were protected by Antonescu who <strong>of</strong>fered <strong>the</strong>m
refuge in Romania and allowed <strong>the</strong>m to continue on to Palestine. In fact, Antonescu was apparently
unaware <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Hungarian Jews’ presence in Romania. As Randolph L. Braham has shown, <strong>the</strong>
explanation for this unusual act <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Romanian authorities lies elsewhere.
The Romanian negationists claim that in Transnistria <strong>the</strong> Jews benefited from living conditions
superior to those Romanians at home had to endure during <strong>the</strong> war. For example, one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> most terrible
camps in Transnistria, Vapniarka, was described by Tudor Voicu in an article published in România mare
in August 2002 as having a movie-house. Antonescu, Tudor Voicu wrote, had been <strong>the</strong> “savior” <strong>of</strong>
Romanian Jewry, only to find himself after <strong>the</strong> war accused by <strong>the</strong> ungrateful Jews <strong>of</strong> antisemitism. Radu
Theodoru also mentions <strong>the</strong> alleged Vapniarka cinema, but he does so using a deflective negationist
explanation, which is unusual for him—an integral negationist. The blame for atrocities committed at
Vapniarka and elsewhere, Theodoru claims, should be laid at <strong>the</strong> door <strong>of</strong> “The Jewish inmate
Kommisars” and <strong>of</strong> “communists whom <strong>the</strong> authorities had failed to identify as such.” In 1999, Coja
admitted that Jews in Transnistria had died <strong>of</strong> hunger or illness, because Antonescu rightly saw no reason
to spend <strong>the</strong> country’s war-strained budgetary resources on Jews who were not Romanian citizens, at a
time when hundreds <strong>of</strong> thousands <strong>of</strong> Romanians were “confronting hunger and a lack <strong>of</strong> medicine on <strong>the</strong>
Eastern front.” Păunescu has also contributed to <strong>the</strong> banalization <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Holocaust. According to <strong>the</strong> poetturned-politician,
it would have been impossible for Jews not to be among <strong>the</strong> victims <strong>of</strong> such a
tremendous war; but Paunescu takes a step fur<strong>the</strong>r: Antonescu, he claims, deported Bessarabia and
Bukovina Jews to Transnistria in order to save <strong>the</strong>m from <strong>the</strong> starvation that ethnic Romanians were
enduring back at home.
Nor have only Romanians embraced <strong>the</strong> argument. According to Larry L. Watts, a U.S. historian who
resides in Bucharest, <strong>the</strong> Marshal had been <strong>the</strong> “de facto” protector <strong>of</strong> Jews against plans to implement
<strong>the</strong> “<strong>Final</strong> Solution,” because he shared <strong>the</strong> “Western standards...concerning human and fundamental
civic rights.”
The transactional comparison is <strong>of</strong>ten intertwined with deflection: indulging in semantic abuse, <strong>the</strong>
negationists employ “Holocaust” as a linguistic construct to call for recognizing “<strong>the</strong> Holocaust against
<strong>the</strong> Romanian people” perpetrated by Jews or <strong>the</strong> “Red Holocaust” inflicted by <strong>the</strong>m on mankind. In
2001, GRP leader C.V. Tudor stated that Romanians “are awaiting <strong>the</strong> time when <strong>the</strong> holocaust (sic!)
perpetrated against Romanians, by no means a lesser one than <strong>the</strong> holocaust (sic!) perpetrated against <strong>the</strong>
Jews, will be <strong>of</strong>ficially acknowledged.” As early as 1991, Tudor was telling his readers that “<strong>the</strong> Jews
brought Bolshevism and terror to Romania” A full decade on, he had not changed opinion: interviewed
on a private television channel, he said that Stalinist Romania had been “led by Jews.” In what was
purported to be a display <strong>of</strong> bravery, he continued: “Are people scared <strong>of</strong> saying this? I shall tell it; let
<strong>the</strong>m shoot me, let <strong>the</strong>m lock me up because I dare tell <strong>the</strong> historical truth.” In 1992–1993, PRM Senator
Mihai Ungheanu published a long serial in “România mare” on “The Holocaust <strong>of</strong> Romanian Culture,”
which was eventually turned into a volume attributing to Jews and only to Jews <strong>the</strong> plight <strong>of</strong> imposing <strong>the</strong>
Zhdanovist line and <strong>of</strong> destroying physically and spiritually <strong>the</strong> postwar Romanian intelligentsia.”
As has been mentioned, <strong>the</strong> discourse <strong>of</strong> prominent political personalities entails formulations that
raise <strong>the</strong> suspicion <strong>of</strong> indulging in comparative trivialization. In an interview with <strong>the</strong> Israeli daily
Ha’aretz, President Iliescu said in 2003 that <strong>the</strong> Holocaust was not singular to <strong>the</strong> Jewish people and that
“many o<strong>the</strong>rs, including Poles, perished in <strong>the</strong> same way.” Iliescu said that in <strong>the</strong> course <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> war, Jews
and communists were evenly treated by <strong>the</strong> Nazis and used <strong>the</strong> example <strong>of</strong> his own fa<strong>the</strong>r who died at <strong>the</strong>