Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

Preface to the EnglishEditionYou have just opened the pages of an ex traor di nary doc u ment. It sheds apierc ing light into the most ob scured, most hid den, most for got ten cornerof the crime of our cen tury, the Ho lo caust. It is the largely un known storyof the whole sale slaugh ter of close to 400,000 Jews by the war time Ro ma -nian gov ern ment and the fas cists of that coun try. With out this book, thestory of the Ho lo caust is in com plete.It is not a coincidence that this story has re mained hid den for so long. Eversince the war and to this day, all the Ro ma nian gov ern ments and most ofthe country’s historians were united in a tacit con spir acy to deny, to ob -scure, to hide the truth about Romania’s contribution to the Ho lo caust.And for good rea sons, as that truth is abom i na ble.Ro ma nia has had the distinction of com plet ing its own in dig e nous Ho lo -caust, with out much prodding from their German al lies. In fact, as ev i -denced by this volume, mass butch er ing of Ro ma nia’s Jews started wellbe fore the Endloesung was unleashed on the Jews of Ger many and of thecoun tries un der German oc cu pa tion.No Ger man prod ding was needed as the meth ods of the slaughteringreached such in cred i ble level of sav agery that some times even Ger man au -thor i ties felt compelled the pro test the barbarism. Think about it. What itcould take during the war to have Nazi Ger man of fi cials to pro test the mis -treat ment of Jews.In recent years if be came fash ion able in certain ex treme right-wing cir clesto deny that the Ho lo caust ever took place. There are “ex perts” around theglobe who spend a great deal of time and ef fort on de ny ing the undeniable.In some countries such pro pa ganda violates the law, in oth ers its prac ti tio -ners are simply dismissed as crackpots.What we witness in this case is a monstrous, and so far largely suc cess ful,attempt of official Ho lo caust de nial. The four vol umes of this book werepub lished in Bu cha rest between 1946 and 1948. Shortly after publication1