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

1940—and it is not over even today.” Goma argues that after <strong>the</strong> cession <strong>of</strong> Bessarabia and Bukovina to
<strong>the</strong> Soviet Union, Jews (adults and children) committed many acts <strong>of</strong> aggression against, and humiliation
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Romanian army. They are said to have acted both on Soviet orders and out <strong>of</strong> “racial hatred” and
“hate <strong>of</strong> Romanians.” “Nearly all Jews” in Bessarabia and Nor<strong>the</strong>rn Bukovina, he writes, acted “in that
Red Week against all Romanians” (p. 171). Goma unequivocally and repeatedly acknowledges Romanian
responsibility and even a “collective guilt” for what he calls “<strong>the</strong> abominable pogrom in Iaşi,” as well as
for <strong>the</strong> deportations to Transnistria (pp. 20,240,248,319), yet he argues that “<strong>the</strong> truth forbidden for half a
century” (p. 256) is that those atrocities were exclusively committed out <strong>of</strong> an urge to avenge, in
circumstances specific to wartime, <strong>the</strong> earlier murders committed by <strong>the</strong> Jews. He makes no mention <strong>of</strong>
Antonescu’s antisemitic policies and denies <strong>the</strong> existence <strong>of</strong> Romanian antisemitism. Goma vows
“everlasting gratitude” toward “<strong>the</strong> Liberating Marshal” (p. 244). On nearly every page, he dwells on <strong>the</strong>
alleged Jewish culpability for bringing communism to Romania (for several pages he lists names <strong>of</strong>
Jewish communists), for having made money out <strong>of</strong> monopolizing suffering (pp. 10, 115, 183-199) and
for having committed murders that “darkened and drew blood from <strong>the</strong> entire 20th century.” As a
consequence, Goma demands that <strong>the</strong>se “unpunished executioners” be tried by a “Nuremberg II” tribunal
(pp. 95, 170, 217, 274).
This book illustrates a discursive register typical <strong>of</strong> trivialization through comparison and constitutes
a syn<strong>the</strong>sis <strong>of</strong> negationism and antisemitism that can hardly be found in a Romanian-language
publication. On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, if Goma excels through radicalism, he is not very original. Similar ideas
in different formulations traveled in <strong>the</strong> right wing circles <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Romanian diaspora and were echoed in
Romania proper. Thus, on April 27, 1993, columnist Roxana Iordache wondered in <strong>the</strong> daily România
libera when Jews will “kneel down” before Romanians and ask for pardon for what <strong>the</strong>y had done to
<strong>the</strong>m. The huge Red Holocaust <strong>of</strong> German-based Romanian author Florin Mătrescu circulated similar
ideas. The book received a positive review in January 1996 in <strong>the</strong> respectable weekly România literară.
The “monopoly <strong>of</strong> suffering” topic became even more prominent in Romania and in <strong>the</strong> Romanian
diaspora after <strong>the</strong> publication <strong>of</strong> Stephane Courtois’ Black Book <strong>of</strong> Communism. Thus, in <strong>the</strong> second half
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> 1990s, two Romanian exiles, Dorin Tudoran (a courageous anticommunist dissident who lives in
<strong>the</strong> United States) and Monica Lovinescu (who has lived in Paris since <strong>the</strong> immediate aftermath <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
War) apply to Romania <strong>the</strong> critique that Stephane Courtois and J.F. Revel aim at <strong>the</strong> refusal <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
Western political and intellectual Left to condemn and critically explore communism with <strong>the</strong> same
energy with which <strong>the</strong> Left denounces fascism. Thus, in a string <strong>of</strong> articles he wrote for România literară,
Tudoran blames “<strong>the</strong> Jewish lobby” for its “suspect,” “indecent,” “counterproductive monopoly over this
century’s suffering.” He wonders “why <strong>the</strong> Jews have <strong>the</strong> right to an international lobby that would spare
us from amnesia, while we, <strong>the</strong> rest, are doomed to remain ‘merely’ <strong>the</strong> victims <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Gulag and have no
right to indict <strong>the</strong> Red Holocaust” (No. 12/1988). In one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se articles, Tudoran quotes a problematic
statement by Courtois (who speaks <strong>of</strong> “a single-minded focus on <strong>the</strong> Jewish genocide in an attempt to
characterize <strong>the</strong> Holocaust as a unique atrocity,” which, Courtois claims, has “prevented <strong>the</strong> assessment
<strong>of</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r episodes <strong>of</strong> comparable magnitude in <strong>the</strong> Communist world”) to conclude: “This is how it was
possible to have this indecent monopoly over tragedy and over pain. This is how it was possible, this
arrogant exclusivity over memory, remembrance, and commemoration. This is what made possible <strong>the</strong>
blackmail, this is how debate was repressed, this is how taboos were declared” (No. 29/1998). Like
Courtois, Tudoran never charges <strong>the</strong> Jews directly as accomplices in instituting an amnesia on <strong>the</strong> “Red
Holocaust.” Ra<strong>the</strong>r, he only hints at it in <strong>the</strong> rhetorical questions that litter his articles.
The same incriminating inference based on <strong>the</strong> Courtois model is to be found in articles published by
two remarkable intellectuals and friends <strong>of</strong> Tudoran and Lovinescu—Nicolae Manolescu, editor-in-chief
<strong>of</strong> România literară, and Gabriel Liiceanu, philosopher and director <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Humanitas publishing house.