Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

Ru ma nian pseudo-de moc racy, and on the other hand, to the in cite ment tohatred by the dictatorial lead er ship of the Ru ma nian state at the start of the“holy war”. In Bulgaria, where these cir cum stances were not pres ent,Hitlerite , anti-Se mitic per se cu tion caused enor mous suf fer ing, butclaimed few vic tims.2. The Ro ma nian na tional economy was greatly in debted to Jew ishen tre pre neurs for their men tal ity, com pe tence and energy. There is a cer -tain amount of truth in the then anti-Se mitic state ment that the pro por -tion of Jews in leading economic po si tions, among spe cial ists intech nol ogy and in dus trial work ers, was high. How ever, within their sphereof activities, they did not extort but were cre ative. With the ex cep tion ofthe ag ri cul tural sec tor, in which they were not al lowed to op er ate beforethe emancipation of 1919, in ev ery sphere of economic life - in financiallife, in in dus try and trade - Jews were the pioneers, who some times suf feredthe risks of tak ing the ini tia tive, while at times enjoying the fruits of theirper sis tence. It was only natural that, given this sit u a tion, eco nomic lifecould not dis pense with them, and could not have func tioned with outthem.This fact was not yet sensed by the Ro ma nian lead er ship dur ing the IronGuard de lir ium. How ever, shortly before and dur ing the war, it was, es pe -cially af ter the rapid evac u a tions from Bucovina . With out admitting thetruth, and while legislation to re move Jews from eco nomic life con tin ued,the Antonescu gov ern ment kept some of them on in their eco nomic posts,and hes i tated when it came to mak ing a fi nal de ci sion on their to tal ex ter -mi na tion.3. The Ro ma nian lead ers in whose power it was to decide whetherRomanian Jews should live or die, were the fol low ing: Ion Antonescu , theLeader of the State; Mihail Antonescu , Vice-President of the Coun cil ofMin is ters, but in reality, the Premier, and Gen eral C. Z. Vasiliu , Dep utyState-Sec re tary of the Po lice and Pub lic Order.All three committed serious crimes against their country and against Jews.At the same time, in addition to their crimes, they did not possess thequalities required by peoples’ leaders in decisive historical moments.Primarily absent in them was the belief in an ideal and the consistence inholding onto one.153