Ion Antonescu – great patriot, great strategist, dictator, responsible for crimes against Jews and Roma

This is the contradictory image of the leader of Romania between 1940 and 1944 that results from a sounding published on Thursday by the National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, “Elie Wiesel.”

The highest percentage in his favor is the quality of Great patriot by 59%, followed by Great strategist with 53% and 46% that a Fighting against communism. Also, 41% against 36% are in favor Issues sale.

At the same time, 50% consider that it was a Dictator, 50% that it is Responsible for crimes against Roma and 46% that it is Responsible for crimes against Jews.

Opinions are divided on the characterization of law War killer: 36% agree, while 38% reject it.

These seemingly contradictory results are linked in some way to the larger problem of Responsibility for the Holocaust in Romania, where only 31% consider Antonescu responsible, compared to 53% who believe that Nazi Germany is responsible.

But inside Romania Antonescu is perceived with a degree of Responsibility of 69%, followed by the Legionary Movement 66% and, interestingly, the anti-Semitic press and literature 51%, followed by the police, army and gendarmerie.

The perceptions of the Legionary Movement are also interesting – 70% agree that it was Responsible for crimes against Romanian political leaders, 55% that it was Fascist, 54% that he committed Crimes against Jews and 46% that it was Terrorist, while 47% believe it was patriot.

Overall, the picture that emerges from this poll is that of a patriotic dictator who committed crimes against Jews and Roma and who shares opinions about the status of war and rehabilitation criminal and who is less responsible for the Holocaust in Romania than Nazi Germany. .

The situation presented by Report of the Wiesel Commission it’s pretty clear. The Romanian state, whose leader was Ion Antonescu between 1940 and 1944, is responsible for the deaths of between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews and 11,000 Roma.

They perished either killed directly by the Romanian army and gendarmerie or by Ukrainian auxiliaries in Iasi, Bessarabia, the node of Bukovina, Herta and occupied Transnistria, or perished by starvation, cold or disease during deportations to the east of the Dniester.

Most of them died in 1941 and 1942, and Antonescu did not need pressure from Nazi Germany to initiate the Holocaust in Romania. The Legionary Movement, which was as anti-Semitic or even more anti-Semitic than Antonescu, only managed to trigger the Bucharest Pogrom in January 1941, during the rebellion at the end of which it was ousted from power and no longer managed to participate in the vast majority of crimes committed in Romania against Jews.

Antonescu was tried after the end of the war by the People’s Court, a court clearly under the influence of the USSR that occupied Romania militarily, found guilty of war crimes and executed on June 1, 1946. Crimes against Jews and Roma were among Antonescu’s charges. then.

After the fall of the communist regime, an appeal was filed against the 1946 sentence, but the High Court of Cassation and Justice refused to overturn the verdict given by the People’s Court, and Antonescu remains a war criminal. His cult is incriminated by art. 5 al Emergency Ordinance 31/2002.

Antonescu remains a controversial figure despite unequivocal evidence of genocide against Jews and Roma. According to the survey, these things are known, superficially at least, by a good part of the public opinion, which is not too interested in too high a percentage (24%) of this tragic period of Romania’s history, in which they died. not only hundreds of thousands of Jews and Roma, but also hundreds of thousands of Romanian soldiers in a war against the USSR, which ultimately proved futile. (foto: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Perquimans County Library)

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