Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

The Iron Guard GovernmentSeptember 6, 1940 - January 21, 1941Gen eral Ion Antonescu was pro moted from vir tual anonymity. On Sep -tem ber 5, 1940 he was sum moned be fore the Presidium of the Council ofMin is ters. On the fol low ing day he was be stowed with dic ta to rial pow ers,and entrusted with gov ern ing the coun try.Re gaining con scious ness from the dreadful shock caused by the dizzyingtrain of the events, Ro ma nian public opinion was con fused and at a losswhen it came to receiving this un known saviour .Only very few had paid attention to his ephem eral and trace less roles inpre vi ous re ac tion ary gov ern ments. Even fewer were aware of his ac tiv i tiesin se nior mil i tary institutions. He was said to be an en er getic soldier whodid not tol er ate op po si tion, but also in de ci sive and eas ily in flu enced; therewere whis pers that he was vain, haughty, and that he loved both praise andservile fawn ing; everybody knew that he was wicked, quick-tem pered andpre dis posed to vi o lence. Through out his entire ca reer he was taunted withthe name “Red Dog”. The coun try, un hinged by the se quence of recenthap pen ings, dazed by the po lit i cal chaos, and hypnotized by the clever ma -nip u la tion of the general at mo sphere, re ceived him with doubt tem peredwith tra di tional in dif fer ence and skep ti cism. A cer tain sec tion of the pop u -la tion sensed the unavoidable men ace from the very out set. Hannibal hadnoisily and vi o lently an nounced his arrival at the doors of Is rael’s tents.The omens of the ensuing storm had ap peared two months before. Thepogrom in Dorohoi and the spread of its lesser ef fects to the towns and vil -lages of South Bucovina ; the murder of Jews thrown out of moving trains;the incitement to ha tred and mur der by the press; in the way state leg is la -tors Horia Sima and Radu Budisteanu were gnash ing their teeth, and fi -nally in the shame ful anti-Semitic directives is sued by I. V. Gruia , Min is terof Jus tice, along with his vile rea son ing. Col lec tively these facts rep re sentedthe tor nado that had en trapped the tor mented Jews, and forced them tono tice the thick black clouds towering over their heads; clouds which wereto cover that sky for four years.53