The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944 (Hardcover)

by Radu Ioanid (Author), Elie Wiesel (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Ioanid, who was born and raised in Bucharest, begins this definitive account of the Holocaust in Romania under the rule of Ion Antonescu by examining the roots of that nation's anti-Semitism. When Antonescu came to power in September 1940, living conditions worsened considerably, and Ioanid chronicles the fascist anti-Semitic legislation that followed. The eventual result was a series of deportations carried out under murderous conditions. The administrative and legal measures authorizing these deportations, as well as pogroms and the resettlement of Jews in ghettos, are described in detail. The author relies primarily on previously unpublished Romanian documents in the archives of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Archives in Washington, along with records from the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and testimonies of survivors. The Holocaust in Romania is a testament that such cruelty can and did take place in a modern civilized nation. George Cohen

From Kirkus Reviews
The director of the Benjamin and Vladka Meed Registry of Jewish Holocaust Survivors at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum documents the dimensions of anti-Semitic horror in Romania during WWII. Unlike Nazi Germany, Romania did not engage in the organized murder of its Jewish population; but through a brutal program of deportation and deprivation, the government managed to kill a quarter of a million Jews, leaving behind about 375,000. Ioanid comments mordantly that this relatively high rate of survival was due not to humanitarianism but to ``the inefficiency and corrupt nature of the Romanian administrative system. As might be expected in a volume of this nature, Ioanid presents anecdotes and details that shatter the heart. On a bitterly cold day gentile children hurled snowballs at a naked Jew chained to a post in a village square; two brothers were disemboweled, ``their intestines hung like neckties on other corpses'' and ``displayed on meat hooks and labeled Kosher meat; dogs raced through the streets with pieces of unburied Jews in their jaws; soldiers used Jewish blood to grease the axles of their carts; starving residents of Pociora, ``the most horrific site of the Jewish internment,'' survived by eating the flesh of dead prisoners. Amid these searing images are lists and charts that quantify the cruelty: numbers of victims, dates of deportations, populations of transit camps. Also included is powerful testimony from survivors, from trial transcripts (Romanian war-crimes trials were held between 194552) and from some of the myriad documents Ioanid consulted in archives all over the world. Perhaps his greatest service is to provide names for so many of the victims, personalizing the cruelty and rendering it all the more tragic. A seminal workpart narrative, part referencedestined to stand on the shelf alongside other classics of Holocaust history. (8 pages b&w photos) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 381 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher (April 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566632560
• ISBN-13: 978-1566632560
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,261,497 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling New History Based on New Documentation, May 26, 2000

By	Michael Berenbaum (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Area studies may be the next area of creativity and productivity in Holocaust studies. Raul Hilberg has written on the whole -- masterfully, brilliantly and enduringly. Leni Yahil, Lucy Dawidowicz, Martin Gilbert and others have also written on the whole offering differing perspectives but attempting to grasp the whole. The next generation may, of necessity, be more restricted and more restrained in their writing. More documents are available and thus more can be known of each specific area of study, of victim groups, of regions. Many younger scholars do not have the mastery of languages that was common to their elders, most especially to the Eastern European Jews who mastered several languages before they left home.

Radu Ioanid is an excellent example of the promise of area studies. A Romanian native, he has written of the Holocaust in Romania. This work, originally written in French, is translated into English because of the generosity and commitment of the Holocaust Memorial Museum and its determination to make a study of Romanian Jewry available. It has assisted in the publication of two works on Hungarian Jewry including an important condensation of Randolph Braham masterful study of The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary.

Ioanid's work has many virtues. It is detailed and precise. His mastery of the material is evident throughout. His interpretations are sound, his methods are clear. Perhaps the two most important virtues of the work are that it is virtually without competition for Ioanid has reviewed and reported on new documentation that has hitherto been virtually unavailable for anyone to see. Too little has been published in the English language regarding the fate of Romanian Jewry. It is a story worth telling because it does not fit into the general pattern of destruction. Romania was allied with Germany. Some of its population and a large part of its Jewish population - the Jews of Northern Transnistria -- was given to Hungary by Germany in 1940, and thus its Jews remained relatively untouched by the "Final Solution" until the fateful days following the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944. Between May 15th and July 8th 437,402 Jews were transported to Auschwitz on 148 trains. Though originally Romanian - Elie Wiesel among them - their fate is regarded as an essential part of the Hungarian story, not the Romanian one.

The shape of Ioanid's chapters tell much of the Romanian story: Massacres at the Beginning of the War, Transit camps, Deportations and Other Mass Murders, Massacres in Transnistia, Life in Transnistria, the Survival of Romanian Jews. What scholars have long known but few non-professionals realize - and what Ioanid documents in precise detail -- is that for the most part Romania did not rely upon German assistance or initiatives to solve its own Jewish problem. They "took care" of their own Jews, mimicking some of the German formats, but in essence avoided the unique German creation of the death camps, instead transporting the Jews to Transnistria. Romania was not necessarily less ruthless to its Jews than the Germans, only significantly less disciplined and methodical, less technologically inventive. Those not murdered by Romanian troops, or those who did not die along the way, lived under such harsh conditions that their chances of survival were imperiled until Romanian adjusted its policy to the new reality that Germany was certain to lose the war. They then presumed that there was more value in living Jews than dead Jews. Living Jews could be exchanged for money or political advantage. Dead Jews were of little value, except for the fact that the land was Judenrein for unlike the Germans, Romania did not recycle Jewish bodies.

Along the way, the Romanians initiated pogroms, such as the one in Iasi. Romanian troops participated in the Einsatzgruppen murders along with SS troops, In Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and southern Ukraine - the most prominent murder sites were Bogdanovka, Dumanovka and Acmicetcka and of course Odessa.. They deported Jews from their homes in cattle cars, copying the German deportations of Jews from ghettos to death camps, but the Romanians did not have death camps at the end of the journey of these Jews. Thus, they were held captive in these trains without food or water in unlivable conditions until they died, and were then buried in mass graves along the railroad tracks. The majority of the Jews were deported to Transnistria, where they were held captive until they died. More than 150,000 Jews died there. And the Jews in old Romania were held for a ransom that was not forthcoming - until many years after the Holocaust when the Jews of Romania were ransomed from Communist rule, in a story that is still largely untold.

Ioanid is not only plowing fresh land, describing the fate of Romanian Jews that is little understood, but he is also relying on documents that have only recently become available. One of the major contributions of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and its recently retired chairman Miles Lerman has been international agreements to copy documents relating to the Holocaust in countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain. Ioanid and the director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Paul Shapiro were deeply involved in these efforts for almost a decade and the fruits of their impressive labor are to be seen in the collection of the Museum archives and in the benefit that scholars such as Ioanid reap, from this newly available material. Only two scholars, Radu Ioanid and Jean Ancel of Yad Vashem have spent the time reading this vast documentation and Ioanid's work shows the benefits of such detailed documentary research.

The timing of his work is also fortunate. There have been efforts by Romanian nationalists on the right, who were long silenced by Communist rule, to rehabilitate the reputation of Marshall Antonescu, the Romanian ruler during the Holocaust. Monuments have been erected and new words of praise have seen their way into print. Ioanid's work will ensure that the full record of Antonescu will be known in the West and the revisionist history will not be fueled by ignorance in the West.

The Holocaust in Romania is difficult to read emotionally as Elie Wiesel put it in his foreword because the behavior of the Romanians at their own initiative without relying on the Germans marks an anguished chapter in the history of the Holocaust. In Ioanid, the Jews of Romania have found a historian whose intellect matches his dedication to detail and his passion to tell the truth that he uncovers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank goodness this is history, not current events!, December 30, 2007

By	Roger Crowley "amateur historian" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Radu Ioanid, the author, has done an excellent job of presenting this shameful period of Romania's history. Not only has he documented many of the brutal acts against the Jews, but also gives many of the names of the leaders who signed memos and other documents to initiate and continue the holocaust in Romania ... to those leaders' eternal shame.

As the author notes, the Romanian Holocaust was different than the German Holocaust. The Germans conducted their horrible "solution to the Jewish problem" like a business ... organized, efficient, brutal. The Romanians, on the other hand, conducted their horrible "solution" in total chaos. It's a wonder that the author was able to make any sense out of the thousands of senseless acts.

It's a very difficult book to read ... because I found myself continually stopping to shudder as I read about more and more atrocities committed against the Jews - simply because they were Jews - and the Gypsies during the Romanian Holocaust. And every time I thought to myself, they can't possibly be any more cruel or heartless than this ... I'd turn the page and find that yes, they can.

What would possess an otherwise ordinary person to pick up a steel bar and slam it into a human face? What kind of person bludgeons, stabs, or shoots a defenseless human? Who would cut off fingers or ears to steal jewelry or slice open someone's cheek to steal the gold from their teeth? What kind of person can sleep at night after raping a mother clutching her child, then shooting her and listening to her child scream as the mother falls into a mass grave where the child is buried alive?

The people who did these (and many other) horrible things were regular people, neighbors of the Jews they robbed and murdered. These neighbors were the ones who left corpses strewn along the deportation routes so that the Jews who followed saw what was in store for them.

Like I said, it was hard to read this book without shedding a tear for the thousands of innocent victims of this chaotic holocaust. But if you're at all interested in Romania during the time leading up to and during World War II ... and especially the insensitivity of Ion Antonescu (Romania's fascist leader) and Mihai Antonescu (sometimes prime minister) ... you must read this book.

And then, after reading it, you should be thankful that this is Romania's past. The present-day people of Romania are not the same as these neighbors were. But, at the same time, you have to recognize that there still are some Romanian leaders who want to erect statues of Ion Antonescu ... despite the fact that he was the one ultimately responsible for unleashing this holocaust. The blood of thousands upon thousands is on his hands.

3.0 out of 5 stars Finally a Romaian Holocaust!!, February 11, 2009

By	dd "dom il Sung" (Pyong-Yang, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944 (Paperback)

Finally! Romania has its own Holocaust. This little country that was not known for anything other than Nadia Comenici, Dracula, and a Bad boy tennis star has finally managed to hit the history books with something truly compelling and exciting!
I am so grateful to Mr. Ioanids scholarship. I mean just think, for 60 years nobody in the whole world had any idea about this*. Including the communist authorities. Even Anna Pauker's government that had a substantial jewish contingent. Even they, had no idea!! It's amazing what you can learn by interviewing a bunch of 90 year old ukrainian babushkas. I am so proud of Mr. Ioanid's historical creativity and perseverance.
Is there any space in Washington DC to build the Romanian Holocaust Museum ? Can we get KoolHaas to design it?? Please Please?
What a glad day for Romanian name recognition and prestige.

Now can we also start setting up tribunals for Romanian Holocaust Deniers?
Incidentally, this is more a procedural point than anything, but can you get in trouble for denying the holocaust before something actually becomes the holocaust?
Are there any Romanian Holocaust perpetrators still out there?? Yooo HOOO!! get a lawyer we're coming for you!!
When will Romania begin paying retributions? How much will they be? I bet there were some bank accounts that were pocketed by the then financial system.

We also need some dramatic movies about this time.

You know, this is a real growth industry!! What other countries don't have a Holocaust yet? Does albania have a holocaust? If we look, we'll fid it !!
Hey let's think out of the box for a second . . . bear with me here . . . Mexico !!! They did nothing!! They did nothing!! But that's just it!! They did nothing during the holocaust. How many died due to Mexican inaction ?? We'll make a museum in Washington. We'll have Ghery design it. It will be a big building to the Mexican holocaust. It will be in the shape of a big sleeping peasant strewn across the washington mall with a sombrero over his face . . . Now what if someone tried to deny the Mexican Holocaust, is that a crime ?? . . . Yet ??!!




*Except Transnistria which was real. The fascist excuse for that was that romanian troops had been attacked by guerillas. This led to reprisals. Why those reprisals had to include 150,000, there is no adequate fascist excuse covering that . . . yet. Score 1 for the Holocausters . . for now. But Ioanid has managed to convert Antonescu's difficult balancing act between the Nazi's on the one hand, the romanian Fascists on the other and his more pragmatic hope for an independent romania, into incompetence. So his 'inability' to deliver the jews from romania's interior to the concentration camps during three years of occupation was not a deliberate action by him to save human lives by (for which he was praised for by Israel incidentally) but instead, it was a result of 'inefficiency'. Last time I checked, Romania is not italy, though we will gladly slow the trains down if it will give us more name recognition.