Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

Ion Antonescu was just as much of a lunatic as Mussolini and Hitler.However, he possessed neither the leadership qualities of the former northe iron will of the latter. He was an evil man who hated people. He wasespecially irritated by Jews, not because he held particular convictions, butbecause through anti-Semitism, he was able to vent his inherent hatred. Hedid not like the Germans, either. He allied himself to them, sacrificed theblood of the country, its values and honor, served them with sinful loyalty,only because it was with their assistance that he was capable of fulfilling hisarrogant ambitions; his pretense and passion for power.He was a superficial man, endowed with only very limited intellectualpotential. He was vain and quick-tempered. Consequently, he could beinfluenced both positively and negatively. He would often makecontradictory decisions.At his trial, Ion Antonescu said the fol low ing: “Thanks for the fact thatthere are Ro ma nian Jews still alive is owed to Mar shall Antonescu .” In thevery least, this statement needs to be sup ple mented. It ex presses historicaltruth only to the fol low ing extent: out of the Ro ma nian and Soviet Jews inhis charge, Ion Antonescu left 350,000 alive after murdering nearly morethan 350,000.Mihail Antonescu was a fortunate careerist, positioned at the peak of thepyramid by circumstance, but because he was uneducated and lacked thespiritual qualities necessary for his station, it was his fate to plummetdirectly into the path of the firing squad. He was not as loyal as Ion, butslyer. He would even have sold his soul to the Germans, and served themastutely for as long as he believed in their invincibility. When he realizedthat they were vulnerable, he slowly distanced himself from them.What he said dur ing the war, and also in his con fes sion fol low ing lib er a -tion, namely that he had never been an anti-Sem ite, might be true. In thiscase, his ac tions dur ing the war, when he was one of those who pro vokedthe barbaric and mur der ous ha tred which led to the or ga ni za tion of blood -baths at the time, seem even more despicable and bur den his con scienceeven more heavily. He was unable to re deem himself later, when (af ter hisvisit to the Vat i can in the au tumn of 1943, dur ing which he re al ized thepros pects for the future) he at tempted to ease his conscience and diminishhis re spon si bil ity. He with drew some anti-Se mitic measures, pre vented154