Talk:Ion Antonescu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by the Politics and government work group.
This article is part of WikiProject Fascism, an attempt to better organize and unify articles relating to the fascist ideology, its impact on history and present-day organizations closely linked to both of these (ideology and history). See project page, and discussion.

This article may be listed on an index of fascist movements or people. Such listing may be controversial; feel free to contribute to discussions there. The presence of this Talk page-only template only implies that the subject is of interest to the associated WikiProject.
MILHIST This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.


Contents

[edit] Antonescu and the Holocaust

"Antonescu believed, just like Hitler, that the world was engaged in a dualistic struggle between the forces of Darkness (the Jews/Bolsheviks) and those of Light (the Christians, Aryans), and that it was up to the forces of Light to destroy the enemy."

A dictator who believed his own war propaganda? I thought that Antonescu, as a high ranking military man, was a more rational person. --Vasile 02:53, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The article's original author seems to have had a strong anti-Antonescu bias. I re-wrote parts of it, but didn't have time to work out the Holocaust section. Nevertheless there is some truth there, e.g. the massacration of Bessarabian Jews, so please don't remove facts without argumentation.
p.s.: Vasile, I totally agree about that phrase.

--IulianU 08:49, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Not just Jews were massacrated, but a lot of Gipsies too. After Stalingrad defeat, Antonescu and his regime changed their view about "darkness" of the Jews. Antonescu wasn't an artist like Hitler, in 1940 he was a general, that implies a lot of responsability. That "Darkness/Light" war propaganda was meant to give a (metaphysical) sense of Romania's war alliance with Germany, Italy and Hungary, against its traditional allies. I disagree with that phrase. --Vasile 15:51, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)


mircion I am the original author. I am a German historian specialised on the Holocaust and certainly have no 'bias' against Antonescu (or the eternal glory of Romania...). I am sorry, but I will not accept any editing of the Holocaust section that mitigates Antonescu's crimes. These things have been well researched by several historians (e.g. Radu Ioanid, Jean Ancel, Armin Heinen, Mariana Hausleitner etc.) and Wikipedia is not a place for Romanian revisionism, not even in the blurred form you intimate.

You need to prove that his statements about the Jews were mere 'war propaganda'. I don't think you have a precise definition of this term, but that is probably the reason for why you apply it: because it makes Antonescu's crimes look less intentional. However, there is a very simple reply to this kind of revisionist strategy: intentions are ascribed to human subjects by exactly two things: their ACTIONS and the STATEMENTS about their actions. In Antonescu's case we have clear evidence for his actions/crimes in Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transnistria. And we have evidence for what he said about the Jews. It fits all very well together. Many of his statements about the darkness of the Jews were uttered as direct orders in the closed context of meetings of his Joints Chiefs of Staff. What kind of propaganda would he need to make there? Yours is a silly argument.

It is not important whether you agree or disagree with Antonescu's phrase. What is important is that he uttered that (and other) phrase(s). And that he commited crimes that perfectly fitted his 'metaphysical' ideology about Good and Evil. At no point did Antonescu change his views about the alleged evil nature of the Jews. In 1942 he had developed joint plans with the Germans to deport the remaining Jews to Poland, but became wary once the Axis began losing the war.

Last but not least, to further strenghten the case against Antonescu, we have knowledge of links between his statements and his crimes: direct ORDERS given to his secret service, the army and the governor of Transnistria, Alexianu.

Instead of changing the Holocaust section (which I will report to Wikipedia), I suggest you update your knowledge, e.g. by reading Ioanid's book "Antonescu and the Jews". Truth in history is a very important matter and not to be left to half-baked opinions.

  • I'm afraid you're missing the point. Wikipedia is about knowledge, not truth. If some consider Antonescu a war criminal, and others see him as a hero instead, then _both_ these views must have a place in the article, and _both_ should be adequately supported and/or disproved. If you don't agree with one or more arguments in the article, please discuss them in a respectful manner, without resorting to threats like "I'll report you to wikipedia". Thanks. IulianU 09:00, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)


mircion's answer: This is truly baffling... As if knowledge does not imply truth. As if knowledge means: mere opinion, conjecture, hypothesis, unwarranted belief, plain falsehood. I can't teach you philosophy here, but think for yourself: If it is true that you know that it is raining - is it raining or not? Of course it is raining! And if you know that my name is "mircion" - is my name "mircion" or not? Of course it is! Your mistake is to think that an encyclopedia is a place where every individual with some half-baked ideas and many gaps in his knowledge of a particular topic is entitled to express himself. But of course, in THAT case we should allow any Holocaust denier to contribute to the Wikipedia entry on the Holocaust. And any housewife ignorant of physics to state why she thinks that Einstein was wrong. And any conspiration theorist that J. F. Kennedy really was killed by the Mossad and that there was no moon landing. Etc. You confuse knowledge with opinion. It is well established and beyond any resoanable doubt that Antonescu WAS a war criminal. Please read Ioanid, Ancel, Heinen, Hausleitner and others before replying here again.


  • It's nice to hear the original author of this article, even I was not able to read your original version. My intervention in this discussion was about the phrase "Antonescu believed, just like Hitler, that the world was engaged in a dualistic struggle between the forces of Darkness (the Jews/Bolsheviks) and those of Light (the Christians, Aryans), and that it was up to the forces of Light to destroy the enemy." I disagree with the word "believed". I think that this "struggle between forces of Darkness and those of Light" was meant to be war propaganda, Antonescu's "explanations" of his dictatorial policy (regarding the war, Jews and Gipsies, and internally, against democracy) and he rationally used the same propaganda his German allies created.
  • I refuse to discuss about your allegations and presumptions about my person or my intentions. Anyway, you think that you have the right to be hotly sarcastic speaking about Romania, contrasting with your historian, presumed cold objectivity. If you are not able to refrain your sarcasm about Romanians, after doing that once again, please report yourself to wikipedia. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and understand the books written by Radu Ioanid.--Vasile 17:16, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • DEAR MIRCION (i don't know if you are still reading this page but you should to, since you are the original author). The truth is that many people in Romania, including part of the cultural-political "elites", do believe that Antonescu was a hero. (Arguments: he fought to recapture Bessarabia and Bukovina, which were historical Romanian regions and he was against Bolshevism). I can post links to semi-official Romanian educational sites where Antonescu is depicted as a hero. The truth is also that for the last years Romanians have started to dismantle Antonescu's statues (built immediately after 1989) and rename streets calles "Ion antonescu". But this is, methinks, not due to a real understanding of the fact that A. was a war-criminal or that Romania had a responsability for the Holocaust, but to foreign pressures. Most Romanians are unwilling to admit this (part of an explanation is that Communist Romania made the anti-Jewish Holocaust a taboo, claiming that the Communists were the main victims of the Nazis). That is, even if Romanians are at this moment (2005) ready to admit Romania's involvemenet in the Holocaust - at least officially- they do not and cannot sincerely believe and understand this.

If it is really an established fact that A. was a war criminal, then i suggest someone should put _online_ the indisputable evidence that you claim exists. (orders written by his hand that Jews of Odessa and Transnistria should be massacrated etc). Otherwise, the result will be that romanians will admit about Antonescu and the holocaust everything they are required to admit (by foreign pressures, be they the EU or the Yad Vashem), but will do so without really understanding the issue. (You seem to have philosophical inclinations: if i do assent to a sentence, like a parrot, without understanding it, do i really believe it? I think not).


MIRCION's reply to the last point: "someone should put _online_ the indisputable evidence ..." Nothing easier than that: Romania's government under Iliescu established an expert commission which eventually published a report about Romania's implication in the Holocaust. President Iliescu not only accepted the findings of that report, but unambiguously acknowledged and assumed Romania's guilt of ethnically cleansing Jews and Gypsies, and even established a National Holocaust Remembrance Day, as we have this in Germany, the UK, US and many other civilised countries.

The report has been published in both Romanian and English. Here is a copy (online, hence your request is fully met), including Iliescu's speech: http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/presentations/index.php?content=programs/presentations/2005-03-10/ Here are the main findings of this official report, as accepted by Romania's president:

• The Holocaust in Romania had deep Romanian roots in a century-long history of widespread anti-Semitism in the country’s political and cultural elites.

• Directives to degrade and destroy Jews and Jewish institutions came from the highest authorities in Bucharest.

• Between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were murdered or died at the hand of Romanian civilian and military authorities and in territories under their control.

• Approximately 340,000 Romanian Jews survived because the government terminated deportations in 1943, 16 months before Romania ended its alliance with Nazi Germany and entered the war against the Axis.

• Over 25,000 Romanian Roma were also deported during the Holocaust, and over 11,000 perished, resulting in the disappearance of some centuries-old Roma communities.

• Irrefutable and abundant documentary evidence shows Ion Antonescu’s personal responsibility for the deportation and the physical destruction of the Jews and Roma under Romanian jurisdiction.

• Approximately 135,000 Romanian Jews living in Hungary-controlled Transylvania and 5,000 Romanian Jews living outside Romania also perished in the Holocaust.

After a shameful period of denial and ambiguity, the debate over Romania's guilt is finally over. No nationalist denier will have an easy task from now on.

I am working on a "rise of anti-semtism in Romnania" paper for one of my university classes. For the class I read the ICHR report William Brustein's book found here: http://www.amazon.com/Roots-Hate-Anti-Semitism-Europe-Holocaust/dp/0521774780/ref=sr_1_5/105-8595615-2438825?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190385972&sr=1-5 Deletante's book which can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Forgotten-Ally-Antonescu-Romania/dp/1403993416/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-8595615-2438825?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190386019&sr=1-1 and Larry Watts' which can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Romanian-Cassandra-Larry-L-Watts/dp/0880332557/ref=sr_1_1/105-8595615-2438825?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190386094&sr=8-1

I am not a professional historian and my interest was merely to acquire some knowledge that was denied me by the previous Romanian government and get a good grade in the class. Nonetheless, I have taken a further interest in Ion Antonescu and historiography in particular to Ion Antonescu.

I think that it’s safe to say that politics as they are will continue to play a factor in how Antonescu will be remembered. Certainly a great deal of Jews have a stake in the question as a great number of them died. But I would also argue that a everyone has a right to more than the mere assignation of Antonescu as merely an “anti-semite” and “basically a fascist”. No fully formed human being is merely an “anti-semite” and “a fascist”.

For the sake of truth we have got to come to some understanding about the man and that will not be possible without taking an honest look and with an open mind. Some of what we are bound to find will be displeasing to everyone involved as we are dealing with an unsavory matter, but a large generation of Romanians, myself included, were denied to even know the man’s name, much less any of his accomplishments and failures.

Much history about Antonescu was falsified by the communist regime (if any of you are old enough to have gone to school in Romania in the 70’s and 80’s, I am sure you can attest to this approach).

A great deal of foreign material still survives, much of it in Germany, England and the U.S. Some of Antonescu’s letters survive. Some of Madarescu and Prezan’s documents survive. It is possible to arrive to some understanding of Antonescu, but it is not possible if discourse cannot happen and if we let the ugly hands of politics get in the way.

Brustein’s book takes a systematic approach to breaking down anti-semitism in different countries and as to what is actually understood by anti-semitism. It is invaluable in this respect. Deletant’s book is the devil’s advocate to Watts’. I strongly recommend that they be added to the wikipedia project, which sadly is locked because of the infernal squabbling.

Furthermore, I suggest that we try to set up an independent wiki commission, so that we can study Antonescu further and perhaps emerge out of this wiki deadlock with a better understanding, one that can hopefully advance the stalemate.

---CROMVLVS

[edit] Factual Problems

was the main architect of Romania's successful defense against the 1917 German invasion headed by Field Marshal Mackensen.

I've done some work on Mackensen and the First World War (note the username), and, well, Mackensen and Falkenhayn's invasion was wholly successful and the Germans entered Bucharest at the end of 1916. I've also had difficulty establishing Antonescu's role, if any, during the campaign. Mackensen 19:42, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I detailed that paragraph a little, please check if it's OK with you. Mackensen's campaign was not _wholly_ successful, since they attempted to take Moldavia (the north-eastern part of Romania, still free from German occupation) in July-August 1917, and failed to do so; pls refer to the third battle of Oituz (ended 10 August) and the battle of Marasesti (ended 21 August). IulianU 14:45, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Looks good to me, I'm going to read up on the campaign to refresh my memory, but I like the changes. Mackensen 15:36, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

For Antonescu's role look to Larry Watts' book "Romanian Cassandra". Watts contends that the war against Mackensen was going particularly well until the Romanian front against the Bulgarians collapsed. The main architects of the front against Mackensen were Prezan and Antonescu. According to Watts, Antonescu after becoming Chief of Operations, as a major no less, was the chief architect behind the successful operations at Marasesti, Oituz and Marasti. Averescu was the Romanian operating on the Bulgarian front. Berthelot was the French advisor to Prezan. Antonescu's office was the only one that operated without a French attache and Antonescu could not suffer the ignominy of such a presence.

21 September, 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cromulus (talk • contribs) 15:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] why dictator? it's outrageous !

As long as Hitler and Stalin are not named dictators or murderers in Wikipedia it is outrageous that Ion Antonescu is considered dictator. Maybe it's exaggerate to call him a patriot in a equidistant encyclopedia, even if I consider him like that. To keep the impartiality of Wikipedia I demand to remove the quality of "dictator" from the presentation of Ion Antonescu and let just the one of prime minister! Please be resonable, you the original author of this article ! (anonymous)

I put his official title of "conducător" (the equivalent of German "Fuerher"), for the sake of conformity with the Adolf Hitler article. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | Talk 12:06, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)


mircion's reply: This is a very silly view. Of course Antonescu was a dictator. If he was not, what was he? A democrat?? The leader of a democratic country?? The FUEHRER of a democratic country?? Is this how we call the leaders of democratic countries? Or shall we call him a 'patriotic politician'? Is THIS the most neutral term?? Has he not killed hundreds of thousands of Jews and led millions of Romanian soldiers into the certain death by following Hitler into a desastrous, ill-fated and idiotic war?

Antonescu has been described as a dictator by most historians and standard encyclopedias, e.g. the authoritative Encyclopedia Britannica (check it out online: www.britannica.com), because he fits the usual definition of the term. There is no place for historical revisionism in an encyclopedia.

If the articles on Stalin and Hitler do not describe them as dictators, then this is a problem of THOSE articles, not of THIS one. You don't correct a mistake by commiting another one...

Besides, Hitler IS actually described as a dictator on Wikipedia. And so is Mussolini.

Of course he was a dictator, but this discussion is about the lead section, where we should put the official title, which was not "dictator". bogdan | Talk 09:55, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gruesome

The execution part is a little bit too gruesome. I propose either to remove it or reduce the detail. User:Dinu

[edit] King Mihai or Michael?

I'm not sure what the relevant standard would be, but I for one found the use of the two versions with no explanation briefly and unnecessarily confusing. Would it be possible to either only use one version, or to explicitly relate the two? Blurble 15:33, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jewish connections

This paragraph was deleted from the article in 2004 by an anonymous user without any comment. If this is true, then we should put it back in the article. bogdan | Talk 20:26, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Although his step-mother was a Jewish woman called Frida Cuperman, and, as a military attaché in London in the 1930s, Antonescu married a French-Jewish woman named Rasela Mendel, Antonescu was attracted to anti-Semitism early.


[edit] Current Revision

Can someone do something about the latest revision? I'm not versed enough on the subject to contest it, but as a casual observer it appears to have been seriously de-NPOVed re: Holocaust. Geoff NoNick 18:32, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I made the edits. The material is all from the comprehensive report accepted by the Romanian president, and I would suggest that any interested editor read it first (The section on Antonescu is here). The previous version was highly POV, and did not match what historians, and even the Romanian government, say about Antonescu's involvement. Whatever his merits as a national hero, there is no doubt that Antonescu was directly responsible for much of the portion of the Holocaust carried out by Romania, and there is substantial documentation of this. The material quoted is from the official report on the subject, I would be happy to discuss any factual objections, of course. --Goodoldpolonius2 18:38, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I've read the report. My concern is that the whole of the section should not be based on one source alone - it shouldn't surprise anyone that Romania would be eager to distance itself from the Holocaust by blaming its leader solely, as the commission ultimately found. And a section that begins "Antonescu's role in the Holocaust is a very controversial subject" can hardly be considered "highly POV". I'd just like someone who is versed in Romanian WWII history to review the edits, since they seem to completely rewrite what was there before. Is that alright? Geoff NoNick 20:18, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Nobody will answer to this kind of doubts (why only one source) as this source was written by "historians" Jews(my statement sounds very antisemitic - but check their names!). There is a huge archive in Romanian army possession witch is not used as reference by historians(why???) witch could clarify some of the events. There are some Romanian sources(like Paul Goma [[1]]) ignored because it doesn't show the same "truth". The role of the Jews elite during those events, is largely minimized. It's ignored the fact that the Jew "elite" from Basarabia and Bucovina was "pro communists"(check the names on first communist government after the war - and we had to live 40 years of communism!!!). It's ignored the fact that in 1946/1947 census in Romania were living around 1 mil Jews - most of them have to say thanks to Antonescu(this is ignored and minimized also!). The sad thing is that those "sources" were used to fill all wikipedia subjects on this issues. In the light of the truth most probably this comment will e deleted very soon(because I'm not respecting the "truth" of course) - regards 194.113.59.80 (talk) 08:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC) Anon Imus
Actually, some argue that if it wasn't Antonescu, the Germans would have sent every Romanian/Ukrainian Jew to extermination camps, anyway and all 300,000 Jews that survived in Romania would have been killed.
But Geoff is right, it appears that the Romanian government decided to blame it all on Antonescu. There was even a law passed that says that it is illegal to try to put Ion Antonescu in a more favorable light... bogdan | Talk 20:31, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Geoff, sure, other people should look at the material, but I do want to make a couple of points. First, the report was not written by the Romanian government, it was an outside panel of experts. Second, the report is not the only source blaming Antonescu, and Antonescu obviously does not solely have blame -- he didn't personally call for each execution order, etc. However, this is an article about him, and he certainly was responsible or fully aware of many massacres and slaughters of the Jews; as far as I know everything here is factual. If you want to bring in other sources that blame others as well, feel free to do so, but to call his role "controversal" would seem to imply that there was somehow controversy over whether he bore responsibility for much of the Holocaust carried out by Romania, it is, in fact a very POV statement (like "Eichmann's role in the Holocaust is a very controversal subject" as the starting sentence of a similar section). Who says it is controversal? And in what way? In any case, the article discusses his halt to the killings as well, but to say that he saved the Jews by not killing all of them is highly dubious, especially as there is no evidence that this was done out of any sense of goodwill. Again, I do welcome outside input, but it would be very helpful to cite sources, rather than make assumptions. That will make the discussion easier. --Goodoldpolonius2 21:33, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I am myself specialized on Romania and WW2, and I must say that the new version is much better. Goodoldpolonius2 has done a good job. He is entirely right about the Romanian government's report. This report was only *commissioned* by the government, and compiled by some of the best experts in the field. Trying to relativize it without having read it, speaking of "external pressures" and using other relativizing terms (why don't you then apply the same kind of argument to Hitler too??), as some users do here, is futile. Antonescu's guilt is not "controversial" in any way, and that first sentence should be removed. I will, when time allows it, update the literature list, which is much too short at the moment --mircion 13 November 2005


And to say that he killed Jews by not saving them is equally dubious. If I understand the counter-argument, the claim is that his antipathy towards Jews caused him to play a largely passive role in permitting the pogroms to occur up to a certain point before putting an end to the exportations. As a leader, he certainly has to shoulder his share of the blame and he did provide direct approval of some atrocities, but the point is that he was probably not the causal force either for the killing or the saving: in both cases he seems to have been responding to internal and external pressure. He's certainly "responsible", but there are other forces at work that deserve to be pointed out. But I agree we need more than word-of-mouth to substantiate that argument. I'll see what sources I can find to back it up, if any. Geoff NoNick 12:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I see why we are having a misunderstanding. If you read the report, he was not passive at all. He personally ordered the massacre of Jews in Odessa, many deportations, etc. A few things from the report, by why of example:

  • "Ion Antonescu was directly involved in his regime’s major repressive acts against the Jews. Unlike in Hitler’s case, there is a wealth of documentary evidence proving this direct involvement. In early October 1941, for example, Col. Gheorghe Petrescu of the Supreme General Staff and gendarmerie General Topor initiated the deportation of the Jews from Bukovina on Antonescu’s personal order. Petrescu declared in 1945 that they had received their orders from Radu Dinulescu of Section Two (Sectia II) of the Supreme General Staff; this order—no. 6651 of October 4, 1941—also cited Marshal Antonescu’s decision to deport all Jews in Bukovina to Transnistria within ten days.12 The governor of Bukovina, General Calotescu, also confirmed that Petrescu and Topor had only been fulfilling Antonescu’s instructions"
  • From the November 13, 1941 minutes of the Council of Ministers:
Antonescu: Has the repression been sufficiently severe?
Alexianu: It has been, Marshal.
Antonescu: What do you mean by “sufficiently severe”?…
Alexianu: It was very severe, Marshal.
Antonescu: I said that for every dead Romanian, 200 Jews [should die] and that for every Romanian wounded 100 Jews [should die]. Did you [see to] that?
Alexianu: The Jews of Odessa were executed and hung in the streets….
Antonescu: Do it, because I am the one who answers for the country and to history. [If the Jews of America don’t like this] let them come and settle the score with me.
Actually, the Romanian Army received a unexpectedly powerful resistance from the Jews of Ukraine as the army was always under attack from behind the front. Even in Bukowina there were some organized militias that began sabotaging the Army installations. Antonescu was naive to think that a "severe repression" would stop this, but he was wrong: the Jews knew that in the eventuality of an Axis win, they'd all be exterminated. NPOW 14:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
The Odessa massacres started in response to a bombing that later turned out to be conducted by the NKVD. The response, under Antonescu's direct orders, was not mere repression, but the slaughter of up to a hundred thousand Jewish men, women and children, none of whom had anything to do with the bombing: "On the evening of October 22, the center and right wings of the Romanian military general headquarters exploded, killing sixteen Romanian officers (including the city’s military commander, General Ion Glogojanu), four German naval officers, forty-six other members of the Romanian military, and several civilians. Following Antonescu’s order, which demanded “immediate retaliatory action, including the liquidation of 18,000 Jews in the ghettos and the hanging in the town squares of at least 100 Jews for every regimental sector,” the Jews were rounded up and brought to the execution sites by the Romanian army, gendarmerie, and police. Some 22,000 Jews of all ages were packed into nine warehouses in Dalnic, a suburb of Odessa, an operation that continued past nightfall on October 23. The Jews were machine gunned, burned alive, or blown up. Almost all of the survivors were deported. Huge columns of Jewish deportees were sent on foot toward Berezovka and Bogdanovka." --Goodoldpolonius2 15:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
  • "Observing at the December 16, 1941, Council of Ministers’ meeting that even Nazi Germany was slow to act, Antonescu urged his lieutenants to hasten Romania’s solution to its “Jewish question”: “Put them in the catacombs, put them in the Black Sea. I don’t want to hear anything. It does not matter if 100 or 1,000 die, [for all I care] they can all die.” This order resulted in the deportation of the surviving Jews of Odessa to Berezovka and Golta."

You mention the pressures he was under, but these don't seem like passive acts in the face of pressure, they seem very deliberate. Let me know if you have sources to the contrary.. --Goodoldpolonius2 14:00, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] the article

This article is a very bad joke!!! Antonescu was up set with jews because his wife, a jewish woman, did not make him good meals.--Dacodava

[edit] Fascist or not

While the Iron Guard is widely described as fascist, fitting very well the ideology of a fascist movement, it seems that for Antonescu there's not a consensus. For example, here's what Keith Hitchins says:

The regime which Antonescu instituted on 27 January 1941 cannot be classified as fascist. A more apt description would be military dictatorship. Unlike Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, it lacked an ideology and was not supported by a mass political party. Instead of a philosophical justification for its existence, Antonescu made order and security, which he deemed indispensable for the progress of every society, the reason for being of his regime.
Hitchins, Keith (1994) Rumania : 1866-1947 (Oxford History of Modern Europe). Clarendon/Oxford University Press

bogdan 12:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Joining the Allies

In 1943, Antonescu tried to join the Allies, but they refused, at the request of the Soviets. If anyone has some data or references... :-) bogdan 12:12, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revising the Revisionists

Honestly, what an entertaining mess this article is, edited and revised by a serious minded historians on one hand and deluded Romanian nationalists and Fascist apologists on the other. I couldn't help but make two deletions to the Political Power section. Hitler's attack on the USSR was not "preventive". That's a somewhat subjective opinion, hardly good history. And the work of an editor with Nazi sympathies, I suspect.

And given that the section dealing with Antonescu's role in the holocaust ascribes him direct responsibility for up to 380,000 Jewish deaths it's a little ridiculous to have the statement "Antonescu was no anti-semite" in section above it. 380,000 dead sounds like anti-semitism to me.

This is the first time I've edited Wikipedia. This is a great project but it'll need defending from deluded extremists with their own agenda to push. —This unsigned comment was added by Caliban303 (talk • contribs) .

the links don't work! --83.60.192.231 11:36, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

What "deluded Romanian nationalists", brah ? As an unwavering Romanian nationalist, I can honestly say that no true "nationalist" in his right mind would rank Antonescu higher than feces, as he is the cretin responsible for losing Bessarabia and Bucovina to the Soviets, thanks to his brainless alliance with Nazi Germany. As far as I'm concerned, the only people who could glorify Antonescu are fascist nostalgists. Don't you go placing nationalists in the same boat with fascists, holmes. --Voievod 00:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Top 10 "Greatest Romanians" ?!

From a Romanian newspaper published in Montreal (Pagini Romanesti), I read that, along with Constantin Brancusi, Mircea Eliade, Mihai Eminescu, Carol I, Mihai Viteazul, Nadia Comaneci, Stefan cel Mare, Alexandru Ioan Cuza and Richard Wurmbrand...Antonescu made the Top 10 of a televised contest dedicated to "The Greatest Romanian". To the people responsible for allowing Antonescu to be on the list, I ask...what they have been smoking, as it's obviously something illegal. What has Antonescu actually DONE to deserve this "great honour" ? What worthwhile contribution has he made to Romania or the Romanian people ? Besides allying himself with Nazi Germany ? Catering to extremist orgainizations like the Iron Guard ? Collaborating with Hitler to organize the Holocast in Romania ? And, perhaps the most disastrous moment in the history of Romania, losing Bessarabia and Bucovina to the Soviets, no thanks to his bonehead alliance with the Third Reich ? Seriously, what exactly has Antonescu done that is or was beneficial to the Romanian nation ? Having direct responsibility for the collapse of everything that was accomplished after World War I, leaving Romania at the hands of the communists, thus condemning it to decades of misery and isolation ? To think that he is on the same list as geniuses like Eminescu and Brancusi, as great warriors and defenders of the country like Stefan, Mihai and Cuza, that just breaks my balls. The only explanation I have is that the all the fascists had nothing better to do (business as usual) and phoned in their vote. Not to say that this isn't little more than a mediatic roadbump, but it just lost even more merit. Congratulations to Antonescu, for making the Top 10 on merit of being an incompetent leader, and a spineless fool who reduced Romania to a state from which it will take centuries to recover all the territories that were lost thanks to him. --Voievod 00:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree, Voievod! --mircion 17:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


Further proof that the so-called contest ain't worth shit...Here's some runners-up to the prestigious title of "Greatest Romanian":

  • 71: Ion Iliescu
  • 12: GIGI BECALI
  • 10: NICOLAE CEAUSESCU

I rest my case, I have nothing else to say. --Voievod 00:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Execution of Antonescu

The official report stated that Ion Antonescu asked to be executed by the army, not by prison guards, but he was refused, to which he replied: "Scumbags, scumbags!".

"Then the command for the execution was given. The weapons were loaded and when they were fired the Marshal saluted by raising his hat with the right hand, after which they all fell down. The Marshal immediately rose up, leaning on his elbow and said: You didn't shoot me gentlemen, fire!, after which the chief guard went with his pistol to Antonescu and shot him in the head. The doctor consulted them and came to the conclusion that the Marshal and Vasiliu were still alive. The chief guard fired another shot in the chest of Antonescu and then of Vasiliu and the doctor examined them and said they still weren't dead. The chief guard went again to Vasiliu, but his pistol jammed when he tried to fire it. He took a rifle from one of the guards and fired one shot in Vasiliu's head, but then it also jammed."
"He changed it with another one and fired another three shots in different parts of Vasiliu's body and then went to the Marshal and fired 3 shots in his chest. The doctor examined them and said that Antonescu was dead, but Vasiliu was still alive. Again the guard fired a shot in Vasiliu's head. The result: Vasiliu's brains were coming out of his head, but he was still moving and saying something we couldn't understand. The guard went again to him and fired two shots in the head and after this the doctor said that Vasiliu too was dead." [1].

[edit] Transnistria

Even after the recapturing of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Antonescu took the Romanian army deeper into Soviet territory, trying to create a "Great Romania" at expense of Soviet territory which did not have Romanian population.

Actually, the occupied territory beyond the Nistru (named "Transnistria") had and still has some Romanian population, albeit the majority was Ukrainian, so the claim in the article is not quite correct. bogdan 11:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some apologists of Antonescu constantly vandalising the article

[edit] who weren't Romanian citizens or who were considered "Communist agents"

"In 1941, following the advancing Romanian Army and the attacks by Jewish "Resistance groups" (jews had also sympatized with the the occuping Soviet Army in 1940, shoothing and sometimes killing retreating Romanian soldiers in Bassarabian towns with a large jewish population like Edinet or Ismail) Antonescu ordered the deportation to Transnistria, of all Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina (between 80,000 and 150,000) who weren't Romanian citizens or who were considered "Communist agents" by the Romanian adminstration. Few managed to survive trains and the concentration (labor) camps set up in Transnistria."

On January 21st, 1938 the royal decree no. 169 signed by Carol II and Octavian Goga, President of the Counsel of Ministers, did set up the "revision" of the Romanian citizenship of jewish people in Romania. In an interview given in January 1938 to A.L.Easterman, correspondent of the "Daily Harald", king Carol II and Octavian Goga were talking about 250.000 and respectively 500.000 jews considered "illegal". According to the royal decree jewish people had to go in front of the court and prove that they did fulfill certain conditions in order to be able to keep their Romanian citizanship. Some of them managed to do it. They were also deported.

Bukovina is divided into northern and southern Bukovina. If northern Bukovina was part of Romania just in some historical periods, southern Bukovina was always part of Romania. Jewish people from cities like Suceava, Dorohoi, Radauti, Campulung Moldovenesc were also deported and these cities were always part of Romania. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.196.244.127 (talk • contribs)

Image:Rom1878-1913.png
Actually, Southern Bukovina was not "always" part of Romania before WWI: see the map. bogdan 10:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re-write/tidy-up

I've been right through the article for a major copy-edit and tidy up. I suspect many of the previous contributors were not native English speakers and the writing seemed a little awkward in places (still infinitely better than anything I could hope to write in Romanian). I don't think I've changed the sense of the article in anyway. I've also added some additional wikilinks when the context wasn't as clear to an uninformed reader (i.e. me), without much grasp of Romanian history. As ever, I won't be offended if you think I've made a complete mess of the article and re-write it again. David Underdown 10:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You can always count on Romania

"Of course I will be there from the start. When it is a question of actions against Slav, you can always count on Romania," he replied.

This sounds rather unlikely, has no source and has been like this for a few months. bogdan 21:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User reverts

To avoid further WP:EW, could 194.117.231.39 (talk · contribs) explain why the following comments are (repeatedly since [2]) added to the text concerning Ion Antonescu. The article should have WP:NPOV whereas these comment seems to be from work of apologist Iosif Constantin Dragan in 1993 article.

"in 1918 Romania had to make peace with Germany and her allies. At the same time, Antonescu sent two divisions into Bassarabia to restore order to a region brought into chaos by the disorderly Russian retreat."

"With France's defeat and Great Britain's isolation, Antonescu had no other choice than an alliance with Nazi Germany"

"because Antonescu knew that the war against the Soviests would lead to Romania's regaining of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, territories lost to the Soviet Union in June 1940. Also, by participating in the war on the Eastern front, beyond the historical borders of Romania, Antonescu hoped to persuade Hitler to give back the northern half of Transylvania"

"He couldn't do in one year what the political class had ignored in 20 (in the interbelic period, Romania had the smallest % army budget in Europe)."

"A few days later, the Soviets occupied (the term "liberated" was used by that time's propaganda) Bucharest."

"The only things he wasn't found guilty of were claiming a fortune of his years of government and of Romania's war against the Soviet Union. Like all trials having taken place durring the Communist Regime, the "Trial of Great National Treason" - as it was called by the time's media - has many questionable aspects. Ion Antonescu was sentenced to death six times and executed "

"In 1941, following the advancing Romanian Army and the attacks by Jewish "Resistance groups" (jews had also sympatized with the the occuping Soviet Army in 1940, shoothing and sometimes killing retreating Romanian soldiers in Bassarabian towns with a large jewish population like Edinet or Ismail)"

"However Antonescu, did not apply the "final solution" on Romanian territory, like other German-alllied states did, nor did he send Romanian jews to German extermination camps. Romania even sheltered jews from other countries, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, refusing to turn them over to the Germans."

Perhaps you could express your views more clearly on this talk page. friedfish 16:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


I'm repeatedly adding them because you continualy deleate them. i don't think citing JC Dragan is illeagal on this site. However all the words are mine, based on various sources (the last 3). I'll answer to you questions, in hope you won't delete these lines any longer.

1 is a fact. the Russians were leaving the front and plundering Chisinau, when the National Council asked Romania for help. It was Antonescu, from his position in the army, that sent troops into Bassarabia to disarm the Russians and restore order.

2 GB and France were traditional allies of Romania. However, in 1940 Romania could expect no aid from these countries, given the situation in the West. Germany was the only state able to guarantee the frail borders of Romania, and also the only one that could help Romania regain the lost territories to the Soviet Union.

3 This was not only the will of Antonescu, but of the entire Romanian people, who wished to redeem themselves for giving up Bassarabia and norther Bukovina without a fight one year before.

4 Another fact. Antonescu tried to reform the army in the 30s while he had important functions like Chief of Army Staff, but faced with the lack of funds, he quit, motivating that he wouldn't want to be responsable for the collapse of Romania's borders.

5 Yes, the Russians actually occupied Romania, and stayed for 13 years. Yet Romania continued to celebrate her "liberation" by her big brother from the East for 45 years.

6 another fact: from all charges, those were the only ones he was not found guilty of. As for the second part, I don't know where to start really. I think it's enough to say that the whole institution of the People's Tribunal was ilegal, as a tool of the Government, because it conflicts with the constitutional priciple of Separation of powers, or that the sentences conflicted with the principle of Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali, again from the Constitution.

7 This is from a testimony of G. Magherescu, who participated as a soldier to the Romanian withdraw form Bassarabia in 1940. You can find it the book "Antonescu" by your beloved JC Dragan.

8 All facts: no extermination camps on Romanian territory, Romanian jews sent to German extermination camps were from Hungarian occupied Transylvania. No jews were sent from Romania to German extermination camps, thus including the refugees form neighbouring countries. If we have a section about the Holocaust under Antonescu, then let's say the good things too, not only the bad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.117.231.39 (talk • contribs)

I won't comment on other points, but I don't understand why the essence of point (2) is so disputed. Dahn, I think the anonymous user is essentially correct about that specific item. Why do you dispute it? --Gutza T T+ 20:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't necessarily dispute, although I tend to view it as superfluous to this article and many others, and a bit single-sided, unless reformulated to "the new government though that such was the case". Let us not forget that the Iron Guard defended the alliance to Germany as an ideological tenet, not as the weakest of two evils ("in ziua urmatoare, vom orienta tara spre Berlin si Roma"), that the fall of British guarantees was not as obvious for, notoriusly, the peoples of Yugoslavia and Greece, and that several in Romania rejected Antonescu's solution from the very start (Maniu, Bratianu). In itself, the sentence would be coaching the reader into assuming that a more complex situation was simple and direct. However, you may introduce in the text something ammounting to that meaning (it was mpost of the rest of the points, their formulation, and their source which deserved a stiff revert). Dahn 08:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Please note that I explicitly said that the essence of point (2) seems ok to me, not the way it's currently formulated. Regarding the historical facts, I'm not disputing the Iron Guard's ideology--of course they were pro-German. But can you really talk about British guarantees when the Russians, Britain's allies, were chipping away at your territory? Hardly. The ironic thing is that Romania didn't want to fight against UK or USA, it only genuinely wanted to fight against USSR. Which subsequently ended up in a cold war with UK and USA. (Remember that by August 23rd 1944, Romania didn't fight on the Western Front.)

My opinion is that Romania was not pro-German as much as it was anti-USSR. Which all of Western Europe ended up being when it became convenient. I agree every country does what it suits them best (USSR helps spark a war between Western European countries, only to join it against the country it helped build the military capacity; the Allies use USSR which they despised to get rid of Nazis, and then start the cold war when things calm down, and so on.) But if we agree everything's hypocrisy and self-interest, why blame ourselves for doing what everybody else was doing at the time? A world war where every soldier is either coward or villain except all soldiers of two nations sounds very dubious to me.

First of all, allow me to apologize for spliting your posts into two: it makes it easier for me to reply. I had understood that your reply was aimed at the essence of the point (and I apologize as well if I had been vague in my awknowledgement of this). Moving on, some things need to be detailed. For one, the USSR and the UK were not allies, and maintained only the least cordial relation after the German-Soviet Pact had been signed. Romania's alliance to the UK had been compromised by the rapprochment between Carol and Hitler, with Romania accepting (from a Brit perspective) mediation on the Vienna Award/Diktat and some other crazy stuff. What Romania expected (IMO, absurdly so) was that the UK guarantee its borders while the UK was trying hard to break up the German-Soviet love affair (a lot of stupidity on all sides, given that the UK had rejected Stalin's offer to resist Germany as early as the Munich Agreement/Diktat - while we may well wonder if Stalin was serious about this, we could also evidence the fact that his main priority in the 1930s had been building a Popular Front against Hitler, everywhere but, for very intersting reasons, in Romania).
You are indeed very right about all the other points as applied to 1940, but not earlier and certainly not later in the war. For one, the choice to resist Germany (a state which was, as I have said, apparently in love with Russia at the time) would have been idiotic, as the Czechs had understood by then. However, this is not to say that Britain would not have supported such a move, as they did in Yugoslavia (who, as Romania, was by then a member of the Axis). Yugoslavia, I figure, was not as much wrong in making that choice, as the chance of winning seemed evident to them (and was more evident than to Romanians). I cannot ask that Romania had resisted: I can, however, point out that Romania chose between combativeness (which would have led to British support) and virtual neutrality (as, at that point, Germany needed Romania to be small and pacified). There are, however, other issues to address in the subsequent period, which make the point as formulated a bit harder to support: for one, Romania itself chose a little bit more than neutrality with a bowed head. It gave itself an Iron Guard government with Antonescu in there, knowing full well that a more balanced position was doomed (of course, the German preferences had a say in that, but it is hard to establish to what measure - indeed, the Nazis despised Carol, but they probablly could have done with a Bulgarian-like "Zveno"-type solution from the very start). On a side note, this indicates the very first reason why Antonescu cannot be the Mannerheim dreamed of by revisionists - he was playing with the big boys instead of offering a transitional solution.
On another level, much of my original answer was not about the chance of Romania in a probable anti-German resistance, but about what Romanians at the time knew and could argue. For example, I believe that the critique I have read in a left-wing magazine of the 1930s (Viata Romaneasca) about the failure of Romania to open some doors to the Soviets, while probably absurd in its assumption that the Soviets would have reciprocated, came back to haunt some of the public in 1940. This and other alternatives, if perhaps unworkable each and every one, would have still been present in the minds of Romanians, contradicting the solidity of the point about lack of guarantees, which may be obvious in hindsight (but the government at the times was not travelling in thne future). I admit that this is a hard point to support, given that public opinion stepped out of one dictatorship to jump into another. It is, however, very certainn that, after Vienna, most Romanian politicians were probably either too demoralized or to booed to even consider anything other than a fetal position while the Legionaires were rocking their cradle. Dahn 20:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

But I digress. Let's assume Romania had started the war on the side of the Allies, because it believed, like the Yugoslavs and the Greeks, in the British guarantees. On one hand, we have the comfort of hindsight now, which wasn't available at the time. But even so, what do you think would've changed? Do you think we would've had Bessarabia now? Or do you think we wouldn't have been Communists? I find both claims hard to believe. Of course, we would've received some monetary compensations at the end of the war, and maybe the communism would've been slightly more relaxed. But with Ceauşescu as president, I doubt we could've had a radically better situation than what we experienced.

The only real victims in the local Romanian hypocrisy and self-interest game were the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, etc detained, deported or murdered by Antonescu's regime. That is something I find tragic, and I would want that to have been different. But apart from that, which, again, is truly regrettable and probably could've been avoided in a great measure, I think it's hypocritical to keep blaming Romania very hard for making the other decisions it made, under the circumstances. --Gutza T T+ 14:08, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

As I have answered above, I think that Romania could not have been (and should not have been) an Ally in 1940. In hindsight, this would not even have been neccessary, as both Finland (the lucky one) and Poland (the unlucky one) have shown. In fact, the choice was less manicheistic at the time (let us note that Poland was one of Czechoslovakia's aggressors at Munich). There is, nonetheless, a world to cover between Romania and, say Bulgaria, and this is what adds to the point raised, although it may seem an answer to post-1940 realities: aside from the fact that the Iron Guard had been placed in power (compromising all future rapprochement with the UK), I cannot possibly understand the argument raised by those who claim Antonescu would have "turned us Ally" on his own in 1944, or even, given the chance and the momentum, at any other time in the war. When you kill hundreds of thousands of Jews, when you whipe out all the Roma pop. in Bucharest on the basis of a Vlad the Impaler-like take on moral justice, and when you go and make yourself an empire in Ukraine, you kinda lose that cherised Mannerheim position. This is not to say, of course, that you would not agree to this point (as you indicated you do), but it does bear a consequence on 1940: it is to say that Antonescu saw 1940 as a chance, as an excuse, as a means, and not just as a tragedy (as most Romanians arguably did). From my perspective, point 2 should at least allude to the differences between choices facing Romania (while pointing out what Romania had done to get there - and there is much to be said on Ro-Soviet relations in the 1930s) and choices facing Antonescu: otherwise, we risk turning it into an unvolontary excuse for Antonescu's own policies.
You raise an interesting point, which is a bit beyond the point of this discussion, but allows me to clarify my position on one matter. I cannot under any circumstance pretend that Bessarabia could have been returned to Romania, and I cannot vouch for us avoiding communism (although a scenario where Romania wouldn't have danced with the wolves could have, in pure theory, changed the situation for the entire Eastern Europe in various ways - from a Cold War turning Warm to the eventuality of less daring demands from the Soviets). However, I believe, and this is speculation given the presumption (but not speculation given the chances), that a Romania not having danced with the wolves would have given us an Eastern and Central European type of communism, not the original and bankrupt form we gave ourselves to save face from some utter chimeras (no need for a national communism, but rather a bureaucracy concerned enough to give the Comecom what is the Comecom's; no need for Ceausescu, but rather a Kadar, or at least a Gheorghe Apostol; no need for Patriotic Guards, but rather a Solidarnosc or Berlin-like riots to shame the communists for having lost not just the support of the intellectuals, but that of proletarians as well). Let us not forget that Romania had only become socially comparable to Czechia or Poland in 1944, and that the recouperation of a die-hard nationalism which came to pass into political discourse (of the communists! by the 1950!) removed all chance of any reasonable and productive way out. In my view, Antonescu is responsible for most of that. Dahn 20:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Before I start, I want both of us to take a moment and realize that, by the looks of it, we're probably going to fill the equivalent of several pages of print just to discuss one phrase. I don't find that ridiculous, just amusing. Ok, now on to the reply.

So, we agree on how regrettable the losses of lives were among the Jews, Roma and other minorities--it's bad that it happened, and it's good that we agree. Let's let that rest then--I don't intend to minimalize the issue, but we'd only go on patting each other's backs.

Regarding your assertion that Antonescu wouldn't have turned against the Germans on his own accord, I agree 100% with both the statement and the implied ideological reasons. Regarding Antonescu's willingness to murder "undesired" minorities, I can't say much. I've heard opinions going both ways ("he had to be convinced to slow down the killings/deportations", but also "he needed to play Hitler's way"). I'm not sure he would've initiated the violence against Jews/etc, but I really was unable to form an opinion on whether he did it because of German pressure or because he had the opportunity. At any rate, this is unconsequential--the important thing is that in this case nobody can use the ridiculous Ceauşestian "he didn't know about it" excuse: we know he not only knew, but ordered and probably indirectly supervised most of the atrocities.

I think, however, that it is very clear Antonescu was a violent anti-semite from back in the day (before the actual war), and I think we can agree that Romania's Holocaust was generally independent from both German overseeing and German control. It stuck with me that Eichmann once expressed his disgust for the uncivilised (read: chaotic, crude) way in which Jews and others were killed in Romania by Romanian authorities, and begged his superiors to allow German authorities to do it "the proper way". Dahn 22:05, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Again, I was unable to form an educated opinion about this, so I'll refrain from commenting. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I haven't got enough reliable data to agree either. --Gutza T T+ 23:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

However, this entire thing seems inconsequential when you really try to re-live 1940: Romania basically didn't have any viable choice except join whoever was fighting USSR at the time. Nobody knew what was about to start happening, and almost everybody wanted to fight back against the Soviets. That's what the phrase we're discussing is all about: options available at that time. I don't think it's fair to look forward in history and find reasons why that proved not to be a good idea after all--the reader can draw his own conclusions. --Gutza T T+ 21:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

In 1940, the Germans were not fighting the USSR, nor did they show that they were ever going to. In fact, the most vocal opponents of the Soviets were the Brits. Moreover, if you want to split hairs, Romania's borders were the way they were because of German policies, including those in Bessarabia. Dahn 22:05, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're obviously right on the first part, I got carried away. But of course there was the oil thing which persuaded the Germans to offer some territorial guarantees which nobody else seemed to be able to hold. However, I'm curious about the second part of your argument (the Bessarabia situation being caused by the Germans) which I'm curious about--what do you mean? --Gutza T T+ 23:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The territorial guarantees offered by the German were to a Romania without N.Transylvania and Bessarabia-Bukovina-Hertza (not to mention the Cadrilater). The Germans had guaranteed Russian demands in Bessarabia etc. through the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; at the time of the establishment of the National Legionary State, Germany and the USSR had been giving each other sizable presents in Poland. Germany had backed both Hungary and Bulgaria.
In 1940, Romania was already engaged in joining the Axis, and the Allies had, of course, lost too much to anger the Soviets by vouching for Romania - in any case, the former half of this sentence should kinda overweight the latter. In retrospect, Romania and Yugoslavia had already refused to guarantee Czechoslovakia's borders (which they were bound to do by forming the Little Entente), Romania had maintained extremely poor contacs with the Soviets and had refused Stalin's obscure (and probably insincere) offer for an anti-German block made before 1939 (the Pact with Germany was, indeed, his very last resort after knocking on all doors), and was simply hoping that the Germans would not hit too hard when they were to. Dahn 23:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I didn't slog through reading all of the long section here, but I believe I got the gist; my apologies if the two things I'm about to say are redundant to things already said.
1) Romania had been slowly tilting away from the western Allies, toward Germany, over the last few years of Carol's reign. As I understand it, Carol certainly preferred the Western alliance, but it had become obvious even before the invasion of Poland that France and the UK would/could do nothing for him. The first moves toward Germany were economic, then, increasingly, political. Hitler resented that Carol had held out so long, so he screwed him totally at the Second Vienna Arbitration, but Carol's very agreement to submit to the arbitration indicates how far his government had already moved into Germany's orbit. Anotonescu's overt alliance with Germany was just a continuation of a trend; the Iron Guard, of course, unquestionably favored alliance with Germany for reasons of ideology, not mere expedience.
2) On the matter of the Holocaust, Iliescu's official acceptance of the Wiesel Commission report should settle the matter: Antonescu's government and Romania's forces, even post-Iron Guard, actively—in some cases even enthusiasticaly—participated in the Holocaust. The fact that the Jews of Wallachia were never liquidated is a good thing, but only a small credit against the policy of a genocidal regime. One does not praise or exonerate someone merely for stopping short of fully exterminating an ethnic minority. - Jmabel | Talk 23:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent reverts

I don't understand why 194.117.231.39 (talk · contribs)'s edits are labeled vandalism, since obviously they don't fit the definition. At most they are not WP:NPOV, and that should be dealt with on the talk page, not by reverting. As for the I.C. Dragan "argument", why is that grounds for reversal?! As far as WP policies go I.C. Dragan is as good a source as any other since it's verifiable. Dmaftei 22:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks - looking back over the 4½ years of this article there have been so many reverts, opinions, apologies, etc., that it's difficult to sieve out the history of the man. 194.117.231.39 (talk · contribs)'s edits have been reverted, removed or whatever since June by many different users, that it's good that 194.117.231.39 (talk · contribs) is finally using this TALK page. Tell us more about I.C.Dragan. friedfish 00:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I was pointing out that you've been reverting edits that you considered vandalism while by WP policies those edits don't qualify as vandalism; please address the issue if you're interested in solving it. I'm not sure what to make of your "tell us more about I.C.Dragan" comment... If you really want to learn more about the individual I'm sure you'll find plenty of info at the library and around the Web. Dmaftei 01:24, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you - comments by 194.117.231.39 (talk · contribs) only add POV arguments to the article and compromises the "slowly emerging" neutrality of the article, hence why these are consistently removed/edited by myself and others. friedfish 09:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I suggest you review the WP policies regarding NPOV disputes. Constantly reverting edits that seem to you POV is not among the recommendations; if anything, that make you look like vandalizing. Dmaftei 12:47, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you - you speak from considerable NPOV dispute experience! friedfish 13:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Whether or not you want to listen to an honest observation is up to you... As regards your attempts at irony I find them both inappropriate and counterproductive, so I'm going to stop here. Dmaftei 17:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Dragan is a minority POV, a Ceausescu enthusiast, an amateur historian, and a widely discredeted source throughout the world, and, given his far right past, a biased source. He himself does not seem to be able to quote any source, and the result is an essay at best: containing his views on the matter, and not facts rubbing on facts. As none of the recent edits is confirmed by any other source, it is time to simply revert this bullshit. Dahn 23:52, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Which part of the above argument did you fail to comprehend, anonymous IP? As for your "point" about "testimony" (which, "of course", should indicate that Dragan "is right" about "resistance groups", the trial and some other things he fantasizes about), I suggest you do a little reading in the article for Sophistry. And, hell, why have you not been banned yet?! Dahn 07:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe because I'm right, you're vandalizing this article, not me. THat book wans't the only place I read/heard about the retreat of 1940 and the behavior of the jews. The sixth book in the references is another example, as well as a TV show on Bassarabia. So yes, in this case, Dragan was right. And again, as long as using Dragan as reference isn't prohibited on this site, I'm going to continue using him as source.

There are clear policies against using unprofessional references which do not back up their claims with anything but hearsay. It is also utterly bewildering that someone would indicate that Dragan was an eyewitness to all that crap you and him slid about the trial et al. This is answer to your "not prohibeted" point.
As to the behaviour "of Jews", let me indicate to people reading this the very obvious collective responsability which both the IP and Antonescu (and Dragan) endorse is, in itself, a moot point from a moral and rational perspective. This counts as apologism, and all "proof" that asserts such things in this manner, all claims that allow for Jews to be separated from the bulk of those pro-Soviet Soviet citizens (without at the very least pointing out that Romania was by then an officially anti-semitic state allied to the mother of all anti-semites), all of them, if referenced at all, should be referenced in a section dedicated to Antonescu and Holocaust revisionism. Dahn 08:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you should read the book before making any more comments. Then you'd see that it's structured as an interview given by G. Magherescu to JC Dragan. So Dragan wasn't the witness himself to these events. Secondly, if you read more carefully that paranthesis, you would have seen that it started with "these jews" thus reffering to those hostile to the Romanian administration. There sure were exceptions, although if you read G. Magherescu's words you will se that the entire jewish population of Iedinet was waiting eargerly for the "liberation" of the Soviet Army. I hope you understood now, if not, I can do no more for you.


[edit] Antonescu and the Holocaust (again)

21. I have not checked this entry in a while and it's sad to see that revisionists were allowed to edit my initial contribution as they pleased. I changed the text again, but it's far from perfect, as it needs more information and references.

- The fact that Antonescu had personal relations to Jews is entirely irrelevant with respect to his crimes. At best, it makes them even more unacceptable. I placed his personal information therefore at the end of the section.

- The article should make absolutely clear that Antonescu was an anti-Semite. As one user puts it: "380,000 dead sounds like anti-semitism to me". No user should be allowed to cast doubt on the fact that a man who is directly responsible for unspeakable atrocities against such a number of Jewish civilians should not be considered an anti-Semite. Should Antonescu not be considered an anti-Semite, I request that in his Wikipedia entry Hitler should not be considered one either. And then nobody should.

- The reports about "Jewish resistance" groups have no evidential basis and nobody has ever managed to produce any proofs. In future, we should speak here only of "alleged 'Jewish resistance' " groups.

- We should add some quotes about the Jews by Antonescu which show beyond doubt that his genocidal policy was intentional and based on ideological grounds.

- Somebody should update the literature list. It's almost non-existing and names like Dragan's are laughable.

--mircion 18:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with Mircion here (and I will note that not just the death toll, but also several statements made by Antonescu showed that he was an anti-Semite). This article needs a lot of work, and we should get around to actually producing interlinked and systematic articles on the Holocaust in Romania (we still don't...). The only reason why this article is patchy (and possibly wrong at times - I don't even have the patience to look through it) is because the task at hand is immense. Well, at least we are not overtly celebrating and kissing his feet like they do on Romanian wiki. Dahn 18:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

- one question. what is the nationality of mircion?

A telling ad hominem question. I could be Romanian. In which case I would be a traitor, I assume, or bought by the Jews (a Judeo-Communist, maybe?). Or I could be Jewish, which would not need any further comment. Or I could be German, in which case I should stick to the crimes of Germany, and anyway, as a foreigner I would not be qualified to discuss or judge Romanian history. In fact, only non-Jewish Romanians not bought by the Jews, i.e. righteous Romanians with a fear of God, love for the Holy Motherland and an acute sense for its poisonous internal and external enemies are qualified to discuss Romanian history. In other words: all those who do not share my view. A rather convincing argument. --mircion 17:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Partial rehabilitation?

That doesn't seem to be an unreasonable section header to me, it appears that some of the convictions have been over-turned (cites for this would be good however), so he is in some sense "not as guilty" as he was held to be previously. I've no connection with Romania, so I've no axe to grind either way, so I think this qualifies as a third opinion. David Underdown 12:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The term is used in: "Moldova critică reabilitarea parţială a lui Antonescu", BBC News, February 23, 2007. Turgidson 12:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Ya, but in this sourse it is used exactly to express a POV there. Look, if someone kills a man and steals 3 bikes, and is convicted, and later another court determines that one of the bikes was his, does it mean "partial rehabilitation"? The man is still guilty for the murder! the bikes are details. BTW, putting "has stollen his own bike" on the same verdict as "has killed X" discredits the latter. It is a shame it stayed on for so many years. :Dc76 13:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Arguing by analogy is always difficult. In your example the man is still both a thief and a murderer, so I'd agree whether or not it's 2 or 3 bikes is irrelevant. Conviction (and then quashing of that conviction) of what amounts to a war crime is on a slightly different level. I think it's unlikely that the BBC should have a bias in favour of Antonescu (although since I can't read Romanian I can't tell in exactly what sense it's being used). Would it be a reasonable translation of the headline to render it as, "Moldova criticises the partial rehabilitation of antonescu"? In which case a critic of that partial rehabilitation is accepting (under protest) that such rehabilitation has occurred. David Underdown 13:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I am not commenting on the term per se, just answering David Underdown's question -- yes, the term has been used (for better or for worse). Another example appears here (at gov.ro), on p.56, under the headline "Federaţia Comunităţilor Evreieşti din România, nedumerită de reabilitarea parţială a lui Antonescu". Note that all these refs are in Romanian; the only English ref I could find was in Communist tracts, such as this one, and this one. I am not sure how this should be dealt with in this article, but at the very least, I think it's worth mentioning that the decision by the Bucharest Court of Appeals has been viewed by some (e.g., the Government of the Republic of Moldova, and the Federation of Jewish Communities from Romania) as a partial rehabilitation. Other interpretations of the decision can be given, too, with proper sourcing. Once this is dealt with, the proper sub-heading (or no sub-heading) should become more obvious. Turgidson 13:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
To be honest I wasn't asking for cites of the specific term, just that the quashing of the conviction(s) had definitively happened (it's not the sort of thing that really makes the news in the UK). With that confirmed, "partial rehabilitation" seems a perfectly reasonable use of language to describe events. The fact that even opponents of the quashing of the conviction have used the phrase seems to strengthen the case for using it as a sub-header here. There is enough information in the article for the reader to decide for themself the extent of that rehabilitation (which isn't that extensive in my view). David Underdown 13:31, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, you are right about difficulty with analogy. BBC is not expressing any oppinion there, Moldova's foreign ministry is, and BBC is reporting very porfessionally. The context is obviously that of a half-year long accusations between the current government of Moldova and Romania, which started with Romania's entry into EU. Here is what BBC writes:

Curtea de Apel Bucureşti a revizuit decizia justiţiei din 1946 prin care Ion Antonescu şi alţi co-inculpaţi erau găsiţi vinovaţi de delictul de "crime împotriva păcii", ca urmare a admiterii pe teritoriul României a trupelor germane, care aveau să lanseze în iunie 1941 atacul împotriva URSS.

Instanţa nu a revizuit însă capul de acuzare "crime împotriva umanităţii", de care a fost găsit vinovat Ion Antonescu în 1946.

Translation:

Bucharest Court of Apeal has revised the decision of the justice system in 1946 by which Ion Antonescu and other idightied people were found guilty of the delict "crimes against peace", as a result of letting German troups to station on the territory of Romania, which were involved in launching the attack against USSR.

The court has not however revised the acusation item "crimes against humanity", of which Ion Antonescu was found guilty in 1946.

The rest are the position of the governing Communist Party of Moldova, which BBC faithfully cities and correctly attributes.

I think this speaks better than any comparison. Yet, to add more salt :-) let me just make one more comparision: Did Kuwait had legal right to allow USA and other conutries to invade Iraq in 2003? Now think that the invasion from Kuwait is only 10% of the total invasion, and that first stage of it is to recover some Kuwaiti territory. Was the decision of Kuwait then to go to war in 1991 legal? Was the decision of Saudi Arabia to allow the war to start from its territory in 1991 legal? If afterwards they commit crimes inside Iraq, that is a different question, imho. of course, the analogy...:Dc76 13:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

This analogy does not work as Romania had peace treaty with the USSR.--Dojarca 13:45, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Quite, in 91 there is not much major doubt about the situation, Iraq had invaded Kuwait first and there were specific UN resolutions allowing operations to restore Kuwaiti sovereignty. The 2003 situation is much more legally tricky, and who knows, maybe Blair and/or Bush will one day have to face charges on that. Whatever, the current appeal court has decided that those convictions against Antonescu should not stand (and maybe, as in the Nuremberg Trials) there was an element of "victor's justice" in the original charges. The fact remains that he no longer stand convicted of these charges, and even critics (such as Moldova) have seen this as an attempt to rehabilitate his reputation to some degree, and reporte as such by a neutral source. They are hardly minor charges - I suspect that a death sentence would still have followed even under just those convictions, leaving aside the holocaust aspects for now. Your argument does not convince me still. David Underdown 13:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Look, David, all I want is to kindly ask you to read the decision of the court before editting. If after that you change, i obviously won;t oppose that. Jewish community did not respond as a single voice. On the contrary, some reacted when they heard the name Antonescu without reading. Others read and were quite satisfied when they saw how blatantly the court refused the request to review "crimes against humanity" and also upheld that part the war after 1940 borders was a war of conquest. Hitler and Antonescu wanted to portray it as an anti-communist war, but that only was handy to them. the court upheld, just as Neremberg and others that the war past 1940 borders was a war of conquest.
I do not know how much weight "crimes against peace" had in determining the punishment. If Antonescu only did what he has been now aquitted for, he would have most probably had the fate of Manerheim from Finland.
Look, if you want to add a sentence along these lines: "The first reaction of some (better who exactly) to the news of the trial was to call it a rehabilitation of Antonescu." If you want that - absolutely, I don't mind at all. Originally i let this without specific title exactly b/c i did not want to suggest to the reader one POV or another. The text is sufficiently informative, the titles... Well, by now I guess you have read everything. So, please do what changes you find now necessary. I trust your judgement as an individual, I just want it to be an informed one, not a sentimental one.:Dc76 14:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Dojarca, there was no peace treaty between Romania and Soviet Union in 1940 or 1941! On the contrary, despite the international obligations that USSR undertook, it has pacted with the Nazi Germany, and it has occupied Romanian territories in 1940. In the first month of war, Romania in 1941, Romania recovred these territories. After that, Romanian army has stopped, and German army advanced from much-much norther. After one more month, Hitler has convinced Antonescu to send expeditionary troups inside USSR territory, and even to occupy a small portion of it. The Court has upheld that this second part (August 1941-on) was a war of counquest, and only said that June-July 1941 was not illegal because it was to recover own territory. Also, it said, to station troop of another country is the sovereign right of a country, no matter how amoral is that. The court refused even to consider the request to revise even some details of "crimes against humnity" (holocaust).:Dc76 14:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, it still seems to me that calling it a partial rehabilitation is accurate. The charges are not minor (it seems to me) look at Crimes against peace and War of aggression, the comaprison with Finland is interesting, but Finland probably benefitted from the beginning of the Cold War which made the Western Allies wary of the USSR, had Romania ended up in the Western sphere of influence the chargs against Antonescu would have been differetn one suspects. Of course the mater fo the Holocaust is still a very major one, and this is clear enough in the article, even with the wording of partial rehabilitation.
I've restored that wording, but also shifted the sections around, so it comes after the decsription of Antonescu and the Holocaust, so that the reader has read that before coming on the partial rehabilitation. I've done a few minor bits of copy-editing too. David Underdown 15:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I did two small edits. If you know of a reason why the second one would not be good, I have no problem to restore. About the first one, I see no problem to use the words "partial rehabilitation" as long as it is clear that they refer to "crimes against peace" not to overall. You see, in worder to be even partally rehabilitated one first has to be found not guilty or no longer guilty, which is not the case here. IMHO, the court stript out "victor's" and uphold "justice". :Dc76 16:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
If you still disagree with my last edits, feel free to revert. I am not interested in forcing blocking anyone for 3RR. I want to work with the person if he/she is constructive and receptable. Don't worry about 3RR with me - I will never hold you accountable for that. :Dc76 19:42, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I was the one who introduced the term, and I actually didn't look to see if it was in use (although I note it is). I had done this as a provisional change (I stated my goal to contribute much to the article itself in the future, and provide all details I can find about his responsibility in the murder of civilians, his racism etc from reliable sources - simply put, this article should be subject to a thorough and unapologetic rewrite). My rationale for the change in question was simple: you will note that, before being titled "Partial rehabilitation", the section was named "Rehabilitation", which is both misleading and in contradiction with the text of that very section. Dahn 20:51, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, now I am in the mood that a good argumented porposal from someone here can make me accept the POV that "rehabilitated" is a word that can be used (with proper adjectives). Don't rush. When you have time - edit. I have already accepted it in my mind half way.
I don't think I will have soon time to edit a whole article on WP. In the case of Antonescu's process, I was currious, and once spent almost the whole day researching about it. To edit the whole article - I don't have so much energy and time. And in fact, personally I know about Ion Antonescu much less than I should. I'd need to do much-much more reading first. I'd be happy to help on a secondary or tertiary role (re-reading edits, wikifying, etc) :Dc76 21:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
No, look: for all I care, the title may be removed or rephrased completely. My priority was indicating that Antonescu was not "rehabilitated", as the previous title claimed. Glancing through the discussion above, I would suggest "2007 Court decision" as a working title (I rather dislike the immense title that we have now), and let the reader decide what it was. I would also suggest adding a paragraph about the Jewish Community response to this, and their view that it amounts to a rehabilitation - with mention of their dissatisfaction. What I want to do for this article refers to many other issues (for one, this article cites almost no sources, and there are plenty of reliable ones out there). But that, as I have said, is an immense task to undertake. I would also like to stress again my satisfaction that contributors are apparently making sure that this page is not taken over by negationism and neo-fascism (in contrast to a variant of this page on ro wiki). At least that's a start. Dahn 22:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. I agree with everything you said. It remains... :-) to do it. As for negationism or neo-fascism, I believe few are individuals that when shown murder would try to negate it. Political opinion is political opinion, murder of civilians is murder of civilians. The only killing that a normal person can "condone" is solder to solder on the battlefield. :Dc76 22:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
And with one slice Dahn chops through the Gordian Knot - that was just too obvious. David Underdown 08:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, when a justice decision is partly overturned, then it's a "partial rehabilitation". So, technically, the previous title was OK, too. However, given the current political correctness rules I guess the current title is OK, too (it's just less precise, one could assume there's no change). Dpotop 09:56, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

How political correctness is connected with this article? Naming the section otherwise would be only fogging truth.--Dojarca 23:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
What "truth" are you talking about? You mean, the partial overturn of a stalinist court decision? Or the fact that a Romanian court finally decided that Romania attacking the Soviet Union was actually OK for the (sole) purpose of re-taking Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina? Everybody seems to have said at some point that the Moltov-Ribbentrop pact was illegal, but this is one of the sole places where the illegality of M-R actually changed something. Dpotop 06:41, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
There was a treaty between Romania and the USSR, which was broken by Antonescu. Anyway the truth is that Antonascu was (partially) rehabilitated. Probably Hitler also could be rehabilitated on these grounds as he argued invasion in the USSR was necessary to protect Romania.--Dojarca 21:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Horthy

Sorry to bother you, I´m writing here in hope of finding neutral respondents. Is the section below (from Miklós Horthy) O.K. ?

"The mass deportations stopped on July 9, after 437,000 Jews had been sent to Auschwitz, most of them to their deaths.[5] Horthy was informed about the number of the deported Jews some days later: "approximately 400 000". [4]

HORTHY, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, DID A GREAT DEAL MORE FOR THE JEWS THAN THE NON-AXIS LEADERS, OR THE WESTERN MEDIA. He did voluntarily apply the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws in Hungary, and did ignore the Vrba-Wetzler report until there was international pressure put on him to stop the deportations. Still, the survival of 124,000 [7] Hungarian Jews in Budapest until the arrival of the Soviets could not have been possible without Horthy’s reluctant implementation of German orders. [8] After returning the trainload of Jews to Kistarcsa, [6] on July 15, 1944 the The New York Times had an article praising Hungary as the last refuge of Jews in Europe, and that “Hungarians tried to protect the Jews.” [9]"

And was Transylvania "regained" by Hungary in 1940 ? I´m not sure about the connotation of the term in English. --Venatoreng 00:03, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DOUBT AND UNDERLINING

DOUBT.

I would like to know on what sources was based the information that during the reprisals of the peasant’s revolt of 1907 in Romania, Antonescu’s nickname was “Red Dog”.  The term is used mainly to deleteriously describe a person with communist convinctions. In 1907 was far too early for that.

UNDERLINE.

I think it was too little emphasized the fact that ANTONESCU BLUNTLY RFUSED TO APPROVE THE DEPORTATION OF THE JEWS from what it was left of the Romanian territory. Despite enormous pressure from Berlin. And this, in all objectivity should be added as a quality to the portrait of this controversial character. Because IT WAS THE ONLY CASE, IN ALL THE COUNTRIES ALLIED WITH AND CONTROLLED BY GERMANY !

   I would also very much to see a photocopy of the order 302826, especially the part in which it was alledgedly asked specifically, by Antonescu’s hand, the execution of 200 jews for every officer and 100 for every soldier killed in the bomb attack. I would also like to see the autentification of the orriginal. Too many “proofs” are taking for granted nowadays, just because they come apparently from reliable sources. Because another sad truth, all over recorded history is that VICTOR’S PROPAGANDA  BECOMES THE VANQUISHED’S HISTORY.

And the haste to brand as a war criminal and a blood-thirsty, coming from people who’s parents or grand parents may have suffered, but who didn’t suffer at all, themselves, from the Holocaust should be checked. I appeal to what is left of their sense of justice: since their Jewish communities were subjected to such monstrous treatment, they should be very careful NOT to promote injustice themselves. And in this light, I will adress directly to them and to the author or authors of the article of Ion Antonescu in the Wikipedia Encyclopedia:

Doesn’t strike you as odd such formidable discrepancies in someone’s character, all of them, mind you, appeared after the age of 55, when, any psychiatrist would confirm, major changes are impossible if the person is sane ? A nazi lover and sanguinary war criminal, anti-semite to the core, was married to a Jewish woman ? Mark this, quoted straight from the US Library of Congress: "Despite rampant anti-Semitism, most Romanian Jews survived the war. Germany planned mass deportations of Jews from Romania, but Antonescu balked. Jews acted as key managers in Romania's economy, and Antonescu feared that deporting them en masse would lead to chaos; in addition, the unceasing personal appeals of Wilhelm Filderman, a Jewish leader and former classmate of Antonescu, may have made a crucial difference".

And another thing: it’s TOTALLY FALSE that Antonescu had a change of heart in 1943 after it was clear that Germany will lose the war and it was only after that he stopped Jewish deportations. There was NO DEPORTATION during the entire period of Antonescu government. Nor as it was, before that.

So, Nazi lover by definition, anti-semite to the teeth and still, he refuses to ingratiate himself to Hitler by denying him deportations from Romania ? Why ? Wouldn’t be more realistic the profile of a soldier with the rigid soldier mentality but an indiscutable sense of honor, a soldier that, unprovoked, would not make war on civilians ?

How conveniently the Allies forgot how much their own people, officials, governments openly admired, even cherished Hitler ! Encouraging him therefore to gamble the provisions of the Pact of Versailles, breaking them one by one. And therefore, transforming him from a histerical megalomaniac into an overpowerfull dictator. Watch the history, dear author ! Troughout, Romania was allied with France and England, ostentiously so during the WW 1, when it had a german king. The alliance with Germany seemed to be the only way to preserve some territory and some independence, and a slight chance to get back part of what was lost.

Antonescu was a soldier from head to toe, rigid as an iron bar, totally unfit for politics. He refused the leader’s position at least 3 times, accepting it in the end at the supplication of the major political party leaders, arguing that apart him, there was no one capable or willing to do the job. But he was no fool. He took his cues from the fate of Poland and Tchekoslovakia, both military allied with England and France, both sacrificed in cold blood without as much as a shot being fired for them in due time by their gallant allies. In WW 1, the political alliances costed Romania the loss of 75 % of its territory and a terrible loss of life. The germans were stopped at Marasti, but all the help Romania got from its allies was some machine guns and best wishes. Add to that the fact of the appaling Ribbentrop-Molotov pact to realize that not Antonescu, but any lifelong experienced politicians would have been out of options in his place. So, in conclusion, after reading hundreds of pages of history and biographies, my own modest research states that:

1. Antonescu was a soldier in a politician’s chair, and a patriot, trying to preserve decency and military honor within the territories still under his control.

2. He tried to stop the loss of territory and independence in the only way he could imagine, by allying Romania to Germany in their common fight against USSR.

3. Neutrality was not a viable option. He was a warrior, he knew that for the battle to be continued, the warriors in Hitler’s entourage would press him to invade Romania, neutral or not, its oil was too precious. In which case, all hope of ever re-taking Bukovina and Basarabia lost to the russians was lost.

4. Antonescu was NOT a nazi, nor an extremist. He tried a political alliance with the Iron Guard (a legit political party at the time, which was leading the government), but when the Iron Guard pursued its policy of gaining influence trough murder, he made open war on them.

5. The victims of pogroms alledgedly atributed to Antonescu’s orders in freshly conquered territories were mostly attributed to hearding the Jewish people in concentration camps in Transnistria. Those camps were under german administration. The direct and unprovoked participation of any units of the Romanian Army in deliberate killings along with the Einsatz SS detachments, is highly questionable. That was a war zone, prone to horrors and devoid of central authority and control, as all war zones. Given the crushing superiority in troops and armament, the control, much as it was in Basarabia – Odessa, was unquestionably german, not romanian

Thank you for your time M Simu —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mihai Simu (talk • contribs) 17:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but most of that has been proven false by most researchers, and the results of this research can be found in the Final Report, with adequate proof that the Romanian state carried out mass murders of Jewish and Romani civilians. I personally will not even consider debating on this issue. Dahn 18:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

M Simu: Thank you for your feed back, but...who are you ? Are you a historian ? Are you the main author of the Wikipedia article on Ion Antonescu ? Your signature says you are a user; if so, don't crush me with your contemptious superiority. This is a talk page, so let's talk.

I would be grateful for any data that would bringh light to the subject, believe me. "Let Justice be done should the Heaven fall ! ", remember ? So, please be specific: WHAT researchers prove false the fact that Antonescu first wife was Jewish ? Or that a leader of the Jewish community in Romania, like Filderman was his personal friend, and that Antonescu respected his vues to the point of letting them influence his decisions ? How exactly do those researchers and how do you, personally, Mr Dahn, explaint such acts, sympathies, friendships in the behavious of an antesemite ? Most of all, I'm exceedingly curious to hear (read) your explanation of Antonescu's opposition for deportation in Romania. And this, mark you, since the very beginning, since he was in a position of power, allied with Germany that was winning on all fronts, and BEFORE US was joining the Allies. Doesn't strike you as odd, inconsistent, therefore possibly not true ? How come that altjhough there were clear plans for a concentration camp in Romania, it was never built, for Antonescu never signed his approval ?

I said "possibly", please remember that. I think I'm not biased and I think I can preserve enough scientific objectivity. To make my position clear : I personally don't like the man much. For all I know he was the wrong man in the wrong position and his rigidity and political ineficiency cost Romania almost half a million lives. Sacrificed to what he considered to be an unbreakable code of honor. I do admire though his verticality and I think he was a man of principles, unyielding even when the pressure came from such high authority as Berlin. I do protest again what I consider to be an absurd ant totally injust state of affairs: normally I, and other Romanians, should have plenty of reasons to criticize him and his decisions and the Jewish community should admit that Antonescu tried and succeded to protect the Jews within the territory he had under control, and therefore show some restraint in its accusations, since it seems utterly incapable of gratefulness.

Mr Dahn, I am a Romanian (may I know your nationality and present country ?). I tried in my personal research to stay as objective as I could and therefore I based it on written text mostly. Still, recently I have discovered that written text is no absolute proof of objectivity and that Trevanian's axiom " The victor's propaganda becomes the vanquished's history " still stands. So, I extended my research to personal sources, the memories of my parents, grand parents and their friends, who, unlike me, lived trough those terrible times. And believe me, none of us is anti-semite, quite the contrary in fact. And there was a strange uniformity: nowhere in the Romanian territory (which excluded at the time northern Transylvania, Bucovina and initially Basarabia) did they hear, much less witnessed anything remotely resembling like govermental engendered persecution of the Jews. There were not gettos, no pogroms, no arrests and executions without trial and no obligation of wearing David's stars. Jewish businesses, big and small were not confiscated nor destroyed. As for what happened in Odessa, of course there's no excuse. But there is an explanation: the War Zone, Mr Dahn. As you are probably aware, the horrors of the Front are elligible to be stamped "war crimes", but not Holocaust. Holocaust involves by definition the monstruosity of cold deliberation, of planning and organizing ahead the killings and the total lack of acting under stress or lack of control from a superior authority.

I do hope that my views do not offend you, also that you might reconsider your decision of not debating the matter. I hope I am speaking to an intellectual, capable of constructive debate, devoid of emotional content. I would be very grateful to you or anybody that reads these lines and knows more than I do, to share that knowledge, thank you. I am still waiting for clear answers to the discrepancies mentioned in the second paragraph of this present input, in the phrases that end with interogation marks, thank you. Don't forget Mr Dahn, psychology is the key, and its harmony. Inconsitencies and discrepancies are always the signature of the false track.

M Simu

To repeat: I do not consider Antonescu's murders up for debate. After the totality of reliable historians have evidenced them and the Romanian state has accepted the evidence, there is little anyone (historian or pleb) can speculate about. Sorry to say, but virtually all the supposed challenges you present to me are non sequiturs (the Jewish wife, the "opposition" to deportation, the "War Zone" theory) and the answer to your questions has for long been offered in literature that you probably did not include in your assessment. Good luck with your personal investigations, but I do very much believe that they are irrelevant to the article or to a professional treatment of the topic at hand. Dahn 11:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Hm, I don't know what you call "reliable historians", but from what I read, each historian has a different oppinion on the matter. Not something like black and white: Most of them accept some degree of responsibility from the Romanian part. But if you read the various oppinions published on the matter, you see that the Wiesel report (and assumed by Iliescu and so by the Romanian state) conveys the most extreme (as opposed to average) position on the matter. So:
  1. On the matter "did mass murders occur", about everybody agrees.
  2. On the fine print that must be presented here, there is no consensus, and the Wiesel report is a rather extreme presentation. Dpotop 12:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I actually intend to make the Wiesel Report one of the main sources for this article. Not the only one, but certainly one of the main. When it comes to scholarly consensus and expertise, there is little to reach the level of that report, and making this seem doubtful by adding references to one's own political views is beyond the purpose of any discussion I'm willing to have. Furthermore, I would be interested to know where in the report you found a notion to back up your "black and white" theory. Dahn 13:07, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

M Simu:

Excuse me Mr Dahn, but these are not answers, though my questions were rather clear. Please, consider me naive and share with me your personal opinion in these matters. I'm not selecting from the "good questions" category, meaning hard or impossible to answer. I'm genuinely interested in expert answers to these discrepancies. And please remember that these, Sir, are FACTS, trully un-debatable (see my quote from the Library of Congress). Again :

1. An anti-semite marries a Jewish lady

2. No deportation from Romania - Old Kingdom, BECAUSE ANTONESCU BALKED ("Germany planned mass deportations of Jews from Romania, but Antonescu balked", see above).

3. Personal and old friend of Wihelm Friedman (classmate)

4. No gettos within the Romanian - controlled territory (meaning devoid of German troops)

5. No Jewish businesses damaged, confiscated or closed after January 1941 by personal order of Antonescu nor any other members of his government(date of the suppression of the Iron Guard armed rebellion).

6. The military suppression of the Iron Guard rebellion (An organization much closer to the hysterical fanaticism, the equivalent of "national-socialist ardour", especially appreciated by Hitler; by comparison, mind you, Antonescu was a suspicious character who fought against Germany in WW 1, educated in France, with diplomatic activity in France and England before the war. It was a gamble, Antonescu calculated correctly that Hitler will prefer his military prestige, therefore insuring the adherence of Romanian troops to Horia Sima's murderous enthusiasm and trigger happy thugs)


7. The downright schizofrenic change of personal values and ethics at the age of 55-56, while still sane, therefore responsible.

From allies-philiac to allies-phobic practically over night. Wow ! Freud must do sommersaults in his grave...


Mr Dahn and esteemed contributors, I would very much appreciate if you would indicate which of the above statement you consider to be false and, if not, how do you explain them.

I have deliberately omitted the interogation marks, in order to stress the reality of these allegations.

EVERYBODY ! I AM very much interested on educated and documented explanations to the seven points I have raised above, anticipated thanks. Specific references would be much appreciated.

Mihai Simu 23:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


                                         --//---  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mihai Simu (talk • contribs) 21:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

hey man, didn't you see cioroi's documentary?Anonimu 08:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

No, sorry, I didn't. What was all about ? Did he offer answers to my above-questions ? Do you have some ? Mihai Simu 00:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


STRAIGHT FROM WIESEL COMMISSION REPORT

Each paragraph written in straight Times New Roman letters represent a quotation, exactly reproduced by copy and paste from the Wiesel Commission Report. I left out brackets to avoid confusion, since some passages contain quotes of their own. Comments in italics.

By early January 1941, Antonescu was convinced that the Legion’s actions no longer served the interests of Romanian nationalism and that the Legion had become an instrument of extortion for its own members.22 On January 14, 1941, Antonescu met Hitler in Obersalzberg and obtained agreement on his plan to do away with the Legion.23

The Conducator wrote back, asking Filderman (Dr Wilhelm Filderman, leader of the Jewish Community in Romania) “to show understanding and to make the members of the Jewish community from all over the country understand that General Antonescu cannot perform miracles in one week….I assure Mr. Filderman that if his colleagues do not undermine the regime directly or indirectly, the Jewish population will not suffer politically or economically. The word of General Antonescu is a pledge.”4 On September 19 1940, a new decision of the Ministry of National Education for Religions and Arts suspended the implementation of the September 9 resolution on places of worship (temples and synagogues) until there was a definitive regulation on the status of associations and religious communities in Romania.

On December 9, 1940, after receiving one of the memoranda, the Conducator wrote the following resolution: “The Ministry of Internal Affairs together with a Legionnaire from the Legionary forum designed by Mr. Sima will urgently investigate all of these cases [in the memorandum]. The findings will be written in a report and presented to me as soon as possible. If I find that the claims are accurate, I will take measures. I pledge that I will respect the promises made to the citizens of this country, and I think that the partnership with the Legionnaires is real, not just words.”5 During December 1940, some dozens of memoranda were sent.

In his explanations, Filderman did not accuse Ion Antonescu, but he did accuse the Iron Guard. He stressed the difference between Ion Antonescu’s approach and the Legion’s as well as the fact that the Legionnaires revolted against the Conducator’s policy by trying to solve the Jewish problem on their own.

On September 8, Filderman obtained an audience with Marshal Antonescu and came accompanied by the Jewish architect H. Clejan. The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss the yellow star. “After a short conversation, the Marshal said to Mihai Antonescu: ‘All right, issue an order to forbid the wearing of the sign throughout the country.’”12 During a session of the Council of Ministers, the Marshal explained that the measure had “great consequences for the public order and from other points of view. The representatives of Jewish community came to me, and I promised them to strike down this measure.” Considering the results of this “battle,” Israeli historian Theodor Lavy observed, “it was a battle in which the victims were victorious.”13

On February 24, 1942, General Vasiliu summoned Streitman and Gingold to the Ministry of Interior and promised them he would refrain from adopting any severe measure against Jews. He also asked that the Jewish population be made to understand that it had been under constant suspicion after the attitude it displayed during the 1940 withdrawal from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, so the government was obliged to take safeguard measures. General Vasiliu also ordered the dismantling of hostage camps, though that did not mean that all hostages were set free.

In the summer of 1942, the Antonescu regime agreed in writing to deport the Jews of the Regat and southern Transylvania to the Nazi death camp in Belzec, Poland, and was planning new deportations to Transnistria. Yet only months later, the same Romanian officials reversed course and resisted German pressure to deport their country’s Jews to death camps in Poland. Initially, Romania had also approved the German deportation of Romanian Jews from Germany and German-occupied territories, which resulted in the death of about 5,000 Romanian citizens. But when the shifting tides of war changed minds in Bucharest, thousands of Romanian Jews living abroad were able to survive thanks to renewed Romanian diplomatic protection. And while Romanian Jews may have been deported en masse to Transnistria, thousands were subsequently (if selectively) repatriated. Ironically, as the vast German camp system realized its greatest potential for killing, the number of murders committed by the Romanians decreased, as did the determination with which they enforced their country’s antisemitic laws. Such contradictions go a long way toward explaining the survival of a large portion Romania’s Jews under Romanian authority.

Documents do record some instances of Romanians—both civilian and military—rescuing Jews, and many of these have been recognized by Yad Vashem as “Righteous Among the Nations.” But these initiatives were isolated cases in the final analysis—exceptions to the general rule, which was terror, forced labor, plunder, rape, deportation, and murder, with the participation or at least the acquiescence of a significant proportion of the population.

Within the framework of the negotiations with Radu Lecca at the end of 1942, the Jewish Agency proposed to transfer the Jews who had survived in Transnistria first to Romania and then to enable them to leave. The ransom plan was viewed as a possibility to make the Romanian government change its policy or at least to win time. And, indeed, various liberal, or simply decent, Romanian politicians and public figures occasionally intervened on behalf of the Jews or Roma.

It must be remembered, however, that voices of moderation were not the only ones clamoring for Ion Antonescu’s attention. He also received numerous pleas to proceed still more vigorously against Romanian Jewry. In an October 1943 memorandum, the so-called 1922 Generation (former Legionnaires and Cuzists) demanded that “all the assets” of the Jews be “transferred to the state” in order that they might “be placed in the hands of pure-blooded Romanians.” (Although by that date the assets of the Jews, with few exceptions, had already been transferred to the state.) These diehards continued to demand “the mandatory wearing of a distinctive insignia by all Jews” and the prohibition of Jews from numerous professions. “The radical and final solution of the Jewish question,” they wrote as if the recent course of the war had been completely lost on them, “must be carried out in conjunction with [the plan for] the future Europe.”

Romania under Antonescu was a dictatorial regime, and Antonescu’s orders could condemn to death the Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina, just as they might allow for the survival of most the Jews of Moldavia and Walachia

When the Antonescu government decided to stop the extermination of the Jews, the extermination did stop. The change in policy toward the Jews began in October 1942, before the Axis defeat at Stalingrad, and deportations were definitively terminated in March-April 1943. Discussions regarding the repatriation of deported Jews followed. The result of this change in policy was that at least 290,000 Romanian Jews survived.

Care to comment ? Mihai Simu 21:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

One sentence: "When the Antonescu government decided to stop the extermination of the Jews, the extermination did stop". If you read the rest of the report, you'll find out what this is in reference to. Dahn 12:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes Mr Dahn, I did read the rest of the Report, come on sir, I was hoping to have a fair debate and to find out new things if possible. This is after all a talk page and I never claimed to be infaillible. To accuse me from the start of superficiality it's cheap, I could do the same thing, since apparently you refuse to answer my questions and decided to examine events unilaterally and to count only when it suits you. Don’t worry, I won’t.

But to be sure, for me the Report is no Gospel. To begin with I fail to see how it can considered objective a Commission lead by a victim of the concentration camps. What I could not gather from the Report was the composition of the Commission, who exactly were the members. Perhaps you can help me in this respect, by indicating a source of information ? thank you. When examining the veracity of a statement one must consider the source, a basic legal principle isn’t it ?

Anyway, any psychologist will tell you that it takes an exceptional spirit to be able of objectivity after one had much to suffer. The victim is by definition biased and exceptions are by definition rare, if you’ll excuse the apparent platitude.

I do state that the nomination of Dr Wiesel as head of the Commission doesn’t make sense not even from the direct expertise point of vue. Dr Wiesel, by his own admission was held in a ghetto in Sighet, northern Transylvania, lost territory by Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty, then under Hungarian administration. The ghetto period lasted from 1940 to 1944, when he was deported at Auschwitz. I am sympathetic to his ordeal and I won’t claim that I know what he’d been through. But this confinement erases any possibility of first hand experience or information from the territories still under Romanian administration.

An objective Commission would have encompassed in my opition as few Romanians as possible (but nevertheless present), as few Jewish as possible (but nevertheless present) and as many as possible third parties experts, not even marginally involved in the events of the WW 2 Romania. And the Jewish and the Romanian experts should have been chosen, if possible from people with direct knowledge of the events of the time, or, if that was not possible, from people with access to direct witnesses of such knowledge. Was this the case ? Was this the Commission composition ? Mihai Simu 15:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


Here's a paragraph that i like: "efforts to rehabilitate the perpetrators of these crimes are particularly abhorrent and worrisome. Nowhere else in Europe has a mass murderer like Ion Antonescu, Hitler’s faithful ally until the very end, been publicly honored as a national hero."Anonimu 16:04, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes Mr Anonimu, even this paragraph you chose should cast a shadow on objectivity, since it's patent nonsense to call "Hitler'f faithful ally until the very end" someone who, was trying to reach a separate peace treaty with the Allies since 1943. It's in the article.

And I might say that to ignore deliberate efforts in sparing hundreds of thousands of lives is even more abhorrent and more worrisome, don't you see ? The victims of the dead camps and the war crimes have whole Comissions to vindicate their rights,sometimes uselesly, since no one sane could deny their suffering.

On the other hand, people who got caught in impossible situations by events over they had little or no control, and even from those impossible positions and at a great personal risk tried and sometimes succeded to do the right thing, have no one. To speak for them. Please remember that the recommendation of the modern Justice, throughout the world is: better absolve a culprit than to accuse an inocent. (Inocent of premeditation, that is. Inocent of the accusation of deliberately singularize the Jewish as targets of his blood lust. One million Russians and Romanians and Tartars and God knows what other ethnic-nationals died in the first three months of the Barbarossa. NOT inocent of war crimes, unfortunately for him...at a time when crime was the only way to make a war, anywhere)

Are you religious, sir ? Do you know that by Divine and human laws, both, there is not a graver sin than to brand in unfair fasion, or to deliberately ignore a good deed ? To paint the white in black ? Especially when speaking of someone who's dead and cannot defend himself...  And devoid of any scientific objectivity, of the spirit of "Audiatur et altera pars", listen to the other side too, as the Romans were saying.

And, to paraphrase, I might add that nowhere else in the world, much less in Europe, is someone responsible for saving 300 000 lives called a mass murderer, so the dagger of the accusation can point both ways.

I absolutely agree with you though on the injustice of calling Antonescu a national hero. Frankly, personally I never heard the term applied to him. Someone who engaged Romania in a conflict that cost the nation half a million lives, can never be a hero. But then, can you point at many heros on the losing side, throughout history and especially in 20-th century ?

Point is, sir, as Einstein is known to have been said: "If your theory checks all the angles, explains all the facts, eliminates all the contradictions, then your theory is the truth".

I do have a such a model that explains the crimes and the saving of lives, should you be interested, I could outline it for you.

I don't delude myself though. You are too eager of aligning to the consensus of the time, of marching to the official beat, since is the easier thing in the world. As it is to ignore the discrepancies and the contradictions, instead of finding explanations for them. Well, sir, at least MY opinions are my own, after considerable personal research, and believe you me I did "audiatur et altera pars", in fact much more than the pro-Antonescu theories. Mihai Simu 15:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but gentlemen, this (your comments) is like stating that the elephant is a snake, after touching his trunk, blindfolded. You are obstinately cringing to the crime aspect (which I do not contest, let us be clear on this point. I do contest the context, though; some of the labels are wrong in my opinion). Please explain the mercy aspect. Much as it seems to irritate you, the deliberate sparing of almost 300 000 people cannot be ignored, especially in those circumstances.

So, indulge me please, and share your opinion. I mean completely. I gather that the base of it consists of denying any positive intentions from Anonescu’s part, correct ? OK, let’s try to take them out of the equation and see what’s left. If there was not humanitarianism at all, then, logically there are just two possibilities. One (nr 2) was mentioned in the Wikipedia article; strangely, the Wiesel Report was more restraint on such an interpretation.

The two points I alluded were : 1. The homicidal maniac thesis. I think we can leave that aside, at least in that I hope to have your consent; such a thesis would automatically declare Antonescu irresponsible, therefore not fit to be judged, a patient not a criminal.

2. The ulterior motives. Two were quoted a) The Jews within old Romanian borders were spared because their removal would have brought havoc in an economy and commerce already strained by war to the breaking point. And b) Political prudence, fear of reckoning, of being judged for war crimes. Let’s examine them :

a) Ilogic, given previous statements, the “rampant antisemitism” the “romanization” at all cost. The German model offered no such subtleties; besides, apparently the German economy prospered even after ousting Jewish people from all official positions, and the loot was impressive ! Confiscation brought the Reich millions. Since Antonescu was accused of being even more aggressive in his antisemitism than Hitler, these should have been his reasons too, don’t you think ? Rather than complaining the loss of obviously gifted commercants and economists, he should have enjoyed the multiple positions left open to be filled with co-nationals. Why admitting openly that Jewish people had ireplaceable qualities ?

b) Even more ilogic, downright absurd. The pressure from Berlin, regarding the deportation to Germany’s and Poland death camps of Romanian Jews increased and culminated in the summer of 1942. A full 7 months BEFORE the Stalingrad disaster; nobody on either side wouldn’t have dared to bet on a soon-to-be defeat of Nazi Germany.

The only setback at the time was the failure to conquer Moskau the previous winter, but Hitler and his staff liked to believe it was due rather to his decision of re-directing the offensive southward, towards the oil of the Caucasus. Even so, in the spring, a russian offensive was crushed, with a staggering 750000 casualties. Most of the productive Soviet Union was under German ocupation, well to the Moskau meridian; in Ukraine, Himmler was already implementing the first phase of his intended SS state in the East, with Hitler’s blessing. At that time, these were dangerous people to cross and the moment couldn’t have been worse.

Yet, Antonescu did it. Why ? Please explain. The step from ally to enemy was so dangerously little it required literal political rope-walking; the Yougoslav’s example was fresh from April 41, when the coup in which a pro-nazi government was replaced, was followed by operation "Retribution": the invasion in 10 days, that left half a million dead. In August 42 the Dieppe disaster was another example of german efficiency in dealing with bungled offensives and even after Stalingrad, rapid victory was nowhere on sight. What fear of retaliation could have prevailed ?

If you have other valid theories, or data, able to explain these points, I’d be happy to see them.

Mihai Simu 09:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Mihai Simu, I'm not interested in speculative history and psychological arguments, as fond as you may be of them. A document you have allowed yourself to cite inncompletely fully references Antonescu's war crimes, his antisemitism, and the measure of responsibility he had in the killing of European Jews. That would, in itself, make this persistent posting of yours fruitless and irrelevant. In addition, as I have stressed above, your messages are riddled with fallacies, inconsequential details and off-topic assumptions.
I will stress again: this project works on the basis of reliable proof, not of speculation and things that could be said. The evidence is overwhelming and universally accepted, and you requesting other editors to contest your theories (with their own!) is a non sequitur. Dahn 15:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I fully agree with User Dahn. The official report should indeed be taken as the basis of the article. Mr Simu, your apologetical ruminations (disguised as an "honest" quest for truth) about undeniable crimes committed by Antonescu are shameful. Instead of wasting everybody's time here, have the decency and read some of the literature you generously reject, be it only Jean Ancel's or Radu Ioanid's books. Or at least Saul Friedlaender's recent book The Years of Destruction, which puts Antonescu's crimes in the murderous historical context in which they belong.
Before your hero, Antonescu, came to halt the deportations, he and his underlings in the Romanian government made sure that over 200.000 Jews were killed. To claim, as you do, that halting the deportations deserves credit is nonsense. In general, we do not give credit to a murderer who kills, let's say, only 10 people, just because he COULD have killed 20 or 30. Instead, what we do is trial the murderer for the crimes he HAS committed. How much more is this true of the killer of some 200.000 people. Your sophism will not go through.

--mircion 01:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Link FA

Please add the {Link fa} template on the article for the Hebrew language (he). Thanks. Morshem 03:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


Mr Dahn, I would be only too happy to deal only with facts. - Saving 300 000 lives against the odds, the pressure and the sheer logic, if one is criminally antisemitic through and through, is a fact sir. - Dismantling the Iron Guard, a declared antisemitic and pro-german organization, is another paradox - Marying a Jewish lady as an antisemit, doesn’t make sense - Allowing the Jewish community to have official representatives, to befriend at least one of them, the lider of that community and to lend him an attentive ear and to let him convince you to change some of the previously issued orders and laws, does not, again, fit into an antisemitic profile. - Allowing some of the deported Jews in Transnistria to be repatriated, is not, again, an act of an atisemite. (It is another unprecedented act; can you quote one single similar occurrence in an Europe under the german boot?)

Please explain this. My request is NOT rethorical. I do agree on your superior erudition in the matter, for all I know, you might be a historian, whereas I am just interested in history. And PLEASE don’t refer me to other books, reports, authors. Just give me your own opinion on the points above. Not your opinion that they do not matter, but how do you explain them? I accept your patronizing unpleasant as it may be, if you’ll just explain.

And try to see my point: I DO accept the possibility of being wrong. I try to stay as objective as I can, but till now, I heard rather unilateral accusations, rather than specific proofs and facts. That’s the diference between us, when confronted with discrepancies, you sir seem to deliberately ignore them, because the authors you read do so; me, I start my own research. I have spoken personally to at least 50 people, who lived through those terrible times, not Jewish, unfortunately, but certainly not antisemitic. (It’s not much, but at least I did it; what’s YOUR personal research ?) They are spread over all major Romanian regions, my witnesses, covering many different trades. Not one, mind you, ever heard, much less witnessed, any antisemitic violence ORDERED BY ANTONESCU or his government on Romania – old territory. Please quote contrary evidence, first hand if possible. I confess, I couldn’t find Jewish witnesses, all my Jewish friends and aquaintances are too young for that, but I’m still looking.

And excuse me, the accusation of “incomplete quoting” the Wiesel repport is ludicrous. Would you want me to quote the full text ? My point was that even in a report that I consider unilateral and biased (like a trial with prosecutors only and without defenders), important facts like apparently inexplicable acts of mercy and a definite orriginal Jewish policy, totally opposed to that of Germany, at a time when Germany was still all powerfull, could not be remained unnoticed. The Wiesel Commission itself, sir, could not ignore those facts; how can you ?

The Wiesel Report allowed such colossal mistakes as blaming a whole state, a whole nation, I remember of having read the phrase “the crimes committed by Antonescu and the Romanian nation against Jews”. You never blame a whole nation, a whole population.

The blame sir, is INDIVIDUAL, as Frederic Forsythe says. And so is the salvation.

An intelligent man knows that when you deal with great numbers, you have to apply statistics, over-generalization is one of the most unforgivable acts. And such a phrase lies in the same report in which there are mentioned pro-Jewish acts, both from government level and from individuals, only to underline that they don’t count. And you want me to take such a report as gospel truth, a model of impartiality and justice ?


MR MIRCION, kindly, get a grip on yourself. To state that Antonescu is “my hero” proves you didn’t even tried to read what I wrote; if so, how and what are you criticizing ?

I repeat, to be sure Antonescu was involved in war crimes. Commited in war zones. He was not involved in crimes against humanity, in cold-blood premeditated murder, based on an ethnic cleansing policy, on the contrary, he tried, and partially succeeded to stop it, against considerable political pressure and certainly against the major antisemitic trend in a Germany dominated Europe. He is to be condemned, of course, but NOT for the wrong reasons. At the time of the reckoning, both good and bad deeds should be put in the balance. Romanians, sir, have the right to criticize, accuse, and condemn Antonescu. Not the Jewish people from Romania-old kingdom, since Antonescu saved 300 000 of them while sending almost half a million of his own people to their death.

To be sure, this is just my opinion, but it’s based on facts.

If you have explanations for the points lined up in the answer above to Mr Dahn’s reply, based on facts, not on second-hand accusations and on arguments that other people are  writing so, I’d be interested in them.

And no, sir, to express an opinion is not shameful; shameful is to try to suppress it. To insult someone and to call his reasonings “ruminations” just because you disagree, falls under the heading cultural nazi-ism, sir of the same kind as the one practiced by the Nazi themselves sixty five years ago and the communist dictators afterwards.

I’ll try to find the books you mentioned sir; I can only hope that you are able to realize that limiting yourself to this, means to borrow other people’s opinions. Ever tried to find out for yourself ?

And for both of you, Mr Dahn, Mr Mircion, I politely ask for YOUR OWN explanation to those incongruities listed higher up FOR THE FIFTH TIME at least. Could you just once answer them, othewise than sneering at me ? You should appreciate that I didn’t try to change one comma in the article, although theoretically I should have the same right as you. But I agree, I don’t know enough yet. I’m still gathering facts. And I do NOT chose to ignore those I do not like.

Mihai Simu 23:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Mr Simu: You have not understood my argument about the cessation of the deportations of the Jews, otherwise you would not continue to claim that we have to take into account both Antonescu's bad and "good" deeds before judging him. I hope that with time, more careful, less self-righteous reflection and by studying the literature, you will understand it. Antonescu never gave up the plan of ethnically cleansing the Jews in Romania (making Romania "judenrein"). The Jews in the old Regate were supposed to meet a fate similar to those in the North East, by deporting them to the deathcamps in Poland. There is no doubt about this, since Antonescu's commissioner in Jews matters, Radu Lecca was already working on such plans with the Germans (Gustav Richter in particular, the RSHA representative of Eichmann in Bucharest). These plans were dropped once Antonescu realised the defeat of the Axis in the East. He now simply changed the method of his ethnic cleansing. Instead of killing the Jews, he offered their emigration in exchange for foreign currency to the Allies. He did not do this "against all odds", as you claim, since the Romanian oil and military assistance against the SU provided him with a strong leverage in his negotiations with the Germans, but out of rabid nationalism and racism, which informed his entire Jewish policy. Even in 1944 he wrote in a letter (to Herman Clejan) that he regretted that not all Jews from Bukovina had been deported. (Deportation of an ethnic group constitutes genocide under the UN Human Rights Charta, as you know). All this is well documented, Mr Simu, and there is no point in repeating the facts here in extenso. Please read chap. 8 of Ioanid's The Holocaust in Romania. Alternatively, you can read the shorter, but sharper analysis by Armin Heinen in his article "Ethnische Saeuberung. Rumaenien, der Holocaust und die Regierung Antonescu" (in: Krista Zach (ed.), Rumaenien im Brennpunkt, Muenchen 1998). (FYI: Heinen is the leading historian of Romanian fascism.) I understand that this is a painful topic for you, since you are a patriot, but really there are no incongruencies whatsoever. The history of the destruction of the Romanian and Transnistrian Jews is as logical and consistent as anything can be in a Balkan country. --mircion 16:03, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

HMycroft 18:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)Thank you Mr Mircion for mentioning finally some precise sources and for apparently giving me the benefit of your doubt, regarding my bona fide. I disagree with you however regarding the timing and therefore the motivation of Antonescu's actions. I will re-post a few excerpts from Wiesel Report, please note the dates:

"The Conducator wrote back, asking Filderman (Dr Wilhelm Filderman, leader of the Jewish Community in Romania) “to show understanding and to make the members of the Jewish community from all over the country understand that General Antonescu cannot perform miracles in one week….I assure Mr. Filderman that if his colleagues do not undermine the regime directly or indirectly, the Jewish population will not suffer politically or economically. The word of General Antonescu is a pledge.”4 On September 19 1940, a new decision of the Ministry of National Education for Religions and Arts suspended the implementation of the September 9 resolution on places of worship (temples and synagogues) until there was a definitive regulation on the status of associations and religious communities in Romania."

"On September 8, 1941 Filderman obtained an audience with Marshal Antonescu and came accompanied by the Jewish architect H. Clejan. The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss the yellow star. “After a short conversation, the Marshal said to Mihai Antonescu: ‘All right, issue an order to forbid the wearing of the sign throughout the country.’”12 During a session of the Council of Ministers, the Marshal explained that the measure had “great consequences for the public order and from other points of view. The representatives of Jewish community came to me, and I promised them to strike down this measure.” Considering the results of this “battle,” Israeli historian Theodor Lavy observed, “it was a battle in which the victims were victorious.”13"

"On February 24, 1942, General Vasiliu summoned Streitman and Gingold to the Ministry of Interior and promised them he would refrain from adopting any severe measure against Jews. He also asked that the Jewish population be made to understand that it had been under constant suspicion after the attitude it displayed during the 1940 withdrawal from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, so the government was obliged to take safeguard measures. General Vasiliu also ordered the dismantling of hostage camps, though that did not mean that all hostages were set free."

"In the summer of 1942, the Antonescu regime agreed in writing to deport the Jews of the Regat and southern Transylvania to the Nazi death camp in Belzec, Poland, and was planning new deportations to Transnistria. Yet only months later, the same Romanian officials reversed course and resisted German pressure to deport their country’s Jews to death camps in Poland. Initially, Romania had also approved the German deportation of Romanian Jews from Germany and German-occupied territories, which resulted in the death of about 5,000 Romanian citizens. But when the shifting tides of war changed minds in Bucharest, thousands of Romanian Jews living abroad were able to survive thanks to renewed Romanian diplomatic protection. And while Romanian Jews may have been deported en masse to Transnistria, thousands were subsequently (if selectively) repatriated. Ironically, as the vast German camp system realized its greatest potential for killing, the number of murders committed by the Romanians decreased, as did the determination with which they enforced their country’s antisemitic laws. Such contradictions go a long way toward explaining the survival of a large portion Romania’s Jews under Romanian authority."

"Within the framework of the negotiations with Radu Lecca at the end of 1942, the Jewish Agency proposed to transfer the Jews who had survived in Transnistria first to Romania and then to enable them to leave. The ransom plan was viewed as a possibility to make the Romanian government change its policy or at least to win time. And, indeed, various liberal, or simply decent, Romanian politicians and public figures occasionally intervened on behalf of the Jews or Roma."

I pray you to remember that the outcome, at Stalingrad became obvious only in January 1943. Von Paulus surrendered in February. You realize that the latest date in the quotes is "end of 1942"; that's still too early for anyone savvy to talk about certain german defeat. So no, "the shifting tides of the war" is not the explanation, since the tides didn't shift yet, at that time. HMycroft 18:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

As for deportation being unlawful under any laws, UN Magna Carta included, (I don't know abou being equal to genocide, semantically genocide should involve deportation plus sistematic murder); still, singularizing Antonescu, taking him out of the historical context is tantamount of quoting the same Magna Carta, in a slightly corrected way, stating that all people HAVE to be happy, instead of having the right to try. Deportations? Nazis themselves are not the champions,russians are, if Soljenitsin is accurate, more than 30 million people were deported just during the interbelic period. By the end of the 20-th century, the number must have exceeded 50 million.

On the same note, I never heard of Americans being accused of genocide or even just deportation, in spite of the 100 000 Japanese deported during the war, nor acknowledging the obviously very embarassing discrimination, since they were unable to do the same to the german-americans and italian-americans, they were just too many.

Nor have I heard about the English being accused of deporting their citizen of german orrigin in the Isle of Man. I'll grant you though that the treatment of the American Japanese and of the English-Germans was infinitely better than the one inflicted in the concentration camps.

The invention of the concentration camps goes to the Brits, as you are probably aware, the first ones being built during the Boer's War. So Hitler and Himmler had plenty of material for inspiration, compared to them and the russians, Antonescu was downright shy. And, an important point from where I sit, the camps were in Transnistria not in Romania (the Tirgu Jiu camp was a joke compared to Maidanek or Sobibor) and they were NOT extermination camps. Brutal treatment led to many condemnable deaths, but they were never equipped nor functioned with the monstruous efficiency of Auschwitz. HMycroft 19:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)



[edit] CRITICISM PARAGRAPH - (Protected edit request)

{{editprotected}}

Since one has the same right as anyone else to make contributions or express a different opinion, I would welcome help in opening a "criticism" paragraph at the end of the article.The fact that the article is a controversial one and subject to debate is already signaled, this talk page is proof enough. My own contribution to that paragraph will be, of course, documented. Thank you. HMycroft 15:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

N Not done - "this template should be accompanied by a specific description of the request." Also, if the edit is controversial I won't make the change unless a consensus supporting the inclusion exists. Please make sure anything you propose includes reliable sources and no original research or personal opinion. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:40, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
This request should be resisted. There is no need for a "Criticism" (actually: "Revisionism") paragraph, as there is none for such a paragraph in the entry on Hitler or Heydrich, let's say. History entries on Wikipedia do not record opinions, but facts, as established by the consensus of the scientific community. --163.1.162.20 21:11, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I was going to go with simply ignoring the nauseating spam posted by Mihai Simu and HMycroft, but I will intervene to say that I fully endorse the point made by 163.1.162.20. Precisely: a "criticism" paragraph (criticism of what?!) would imply that the overwhelming consensus in all published scholarly, professional, unbiased, relevant, coherent, rational sources is "a point of view", and spuriously equivocating it with the rants we have had the displeasure of reading on this page. Dahn 22:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

REPLY

Mr Dahn, I am pained to see such a reaction from an intelectual of your stature. “Nauseating” ? Just because I happen to have another opninion than yourself ? “This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved.” That, sir, is the first line one reads when opening the article on Wikipedia’s Ion Antonescu. Meaning I was not the only one to have objections. So in your opinion, all of those who do have objections are…what ? Nazis ? How simplistic.

What happened to the universal values of self expression ? What happened to the “ I disagree to what you have to say, but I’ll fight to the death your right of saying it ! “ ? If you are so sure of your being right, backed as you are by an international consensus engendered by a report of a commission led by a Nobel Prize laureate, why do you fear of what I might have to say or object ? If my objections are so feeble and ludicrous, they will fail, to be sure. But if not…

Sir, I…am a scientist. And a patriot, thank you Mr Mircion for giving me at least that. I am also deeply religious. And, although you might find this hard to believe, more than a Jewish admirer, I am a Jewish lover ! Should I have been born thirty years earlier, I swear I would have helped and defended and fought for the opressed Jewish community at the risk of my life. I honestly think that one can rarely find an ethnic group with so many outstanding qualities in all recorded history.

Being a scientist, I think the world of the scientific method, which, simplified, can be reduced to this two points: 1. Elaborate a hypothesis and 2. Check it out trough an experiment. In my opinion this is still best way to find the factual truth. The truth based on facts…since otherwise, truth is a philosophycal concept that might regard unfactual and imaterial items, subjected to culture bias, as I am sure a person of your erudition is fully aware. If we are of different culture, my truth and your truth, might be completely opposite; meanwhile facts will be always there, unmovable, to be sure subjected to different interpetation, but at least a solid basis on which to build those interpretations.

Contrary of what you might think, I took as a work premise my impossibility of being totally objective, since I am a Romanian. So, I have run simulations. You are surely familiar with the discipine of Debate, as it is taught in American schools, in which the contender has to be as argumentative as he can for one side, and then for the opposite. I tried to do that the best I could, all the time fully aware that I must compensate for my inherent Romanian bias. I started therefore as a premise with your thesis, “Antonescu is an antisemite by personal convicion and personal action “ and searched for consistency, arguments, proof.

And I drew a blank ! After analyzging the best I could his whole life, THROUGH HIS ACTIONS mind you, I drew a blank. There are inconsistencies, of such a magnitude, that they could not being explained otherwise than dropping the premise. You agree, I hope, that when there is a divorce between the actions and the words of an individual, it is the actions that matter, that will ultimately tell you what he really believes in.

Sir, in my trade, (I am a practicing physician), one learns quite a bit of applied psychology. (You are wrong to scorn the discipline, since it is the only way that can give one an insight on the motivation for a person or group of persons acts. And, like it or not, it IS science). Most of my patients are in such a poor shape when they check in Intensive Care, that they are laying down their bare soul for you, with no hesitation, second thoughts or attempts to lie. I frankly doubt that there are many priests of my age who should have heard more confessions. By this I mean also that I already have met at least five times more individuals than any lay person in a lifetime (at an average of 30 to 50 new ones every week)…and I practice for more than a quart of a century. This enabled me, I think, to have an adequate knowledge on human nature. Sufficient to help me to establish some axioms. To be sure, they are personal and I won’t impose them; to be sure, so help me God, I saw them checked thousands of times and never contradicted, not once ! ( Don’r roll your eyes, I can feel I irritate you and I’m sorry for that, bear with me a little longer, I’ll come to the point). Here are some of them, the ones that could be appied to the topic of discussion:

1. People are basically good. (All people, Antonescu included) This is not wishfull thinking, it is based on biology, the gregarious spirit is so deeply imbedded in our genes, that we are utterly incapable of being happy otherwise than by having the approval of our group. This goes far, far back, exiting the frame of ontogeny, getting into phyolgeny for it is indeed older than the human race, it is certainly present to all mammals and to be sure, to all group-living animals. And, the genetic gregarious trait, it is reinforced by education. Unconditioned reflex way of thinking and acting is reinforced by conditioned reflex. From the craddle, we are taught the virtues of obedience, self sacrifice, serving the others.

2. Still, civilization is a fine layer on a thick mass of instincts, among which the survival one is very powerful. Subjected to malignant stress (situations one cannot possibly solve, he knows that, still he can't bail out), everyone has his breaking point. For some of us, that point is lower than for others (look at your own reaction, trying to suppress corrections and the very mention of criticism in a free-editing encyclopedia, just because subjectively you feel that this is threatening you).

3. Any leader, democratically elected or dictator, according to point 1, wants to go down in history as a positive figure, no exception. Actually, any person wishes to be remembered as a positive figure.

4. Different trades leave their mark on individuals. Professional military are very little or not at all prone to compromise, and therefore they make the worst politicians. For a professional soldier, there are ironclad values, to be held in all situations: God, country, military honor for instance. Such a person will risk his own life and those under his command without a second thought, in order to preserve them.

5. Nobody is “good by accident”. Especially when those actions spread over several years. People can only be bad by accident, when pushed far enough, and when this happens, it is almost always temporary.

6. Psychotic pathology excepted (fancy word for craziness), an adult will not become a turncoat over night, he won’t recant those values especially if he had a military education. On the contrary, against all odds, and risking unfair branding by posterity as a criminal (is there a higher punishment ? except perhaps being damned…), he will abide by them. There is total inconsistency in the natural acceptance of someone who was instrumental in stopping the germans at Marasesti, who was educated at Saint Cyr, who represented Romania in France and England, to turn into a savage beast at 58. And of course, when instead of recognition he thought he deserved, he gets blame, one might get sour remarks, even without really thinking them, like those alledged regrets, expressed in 1944, that he didn’t deport more Jews, presumably after finding out that the allies were ready to put him in the same basket with Hitler (like some people we won't mention) in spite of his actions.

God ! you know, sometimes I almost wish you were right and I were wrong, God forgive me. Because this, Mr Dahn and Mr Mircion, would simplify thinks so much. We’ll all celebrate the status quo, I’ll be a little sad for a while, for having misjudged Antonescu so, but brothers, what a relief !

Can’t you see ? The nightmare begins if I was right and you were wrong ! Because then it goes far deeper than tarnishing the memory of someone who tried and risked everything, including his place in history, to do the right thing. This is part of the perpetuation of Evil. Look at the XX-th century, eighty million dead in two world wars, and, if you were to believe statistics, more than that as casualties engendered by armed conflicts and armed aggression, between 1945 and 2000.

You claim that saving some 340000 lives is irelevant ? I say that every little bit of good should be emphasized, since it is in such a short supply. Not the killings, not the ugliness, not the injustice. We already emphasized those enough.

If I you are right, all I have learned in school still goes (my generation still learned of Antonescu as being a war criminal and nothing else). But if I’m right (and I’m almost afraid I could be), you are just fighting the lies with lies, the injustice with injustice, erecting a monument to injustice and evil, making it more than perennial, making them everlasting !

To cut a long story short, I will state the only hypothesis that in my opinion could explain consistently ALL Antonescu’s actions, that could reconciliate A) the positive - the Jewish influence in his life (stepmother, first wife, personal friend in the person of Dr Friedlander) - actions, like it or not, unique in all Europe, especially in a country allied with Germany, as quoted from The Library of the Congress: actively saving those 340000 lives, not just “letting them live” or “stopping killing them although he could”, repatriating Jews-Romanian citizens, TRANSFERING SOME OF THEM HOME FROM LABOR CAMPS – totally unheard of; counteracting racist dispositions like the obligativity of wearing the star of David AND THAT IN 1941; opposing to the deportations AND THAT IN THE SUMMER OF 1942 (look in the Wiesel report Mr Mircion, that’s 5 to 8 months before Stalingrad !; there goes your interpretation of him yielding only to the probable outcome of the war) with B) the negative: ordering the Odessa massacre, creating the labor camps in Transnistria, which, even if not death camps, produced thousand more deaths. The only explanation that could reconcile A) with B) is this:

He ordered killings in Transnistria, only too aware that those poor Jewish people were doomed anyway, if he would have refused and tried to protect them, disregarding the fact that among the victims of the 22 October 1941 attack were also german officers, the SS would have done the job in his stead, most probably at a far greater extent, no labor camps whatsoever, just killing. And such an efrontery and lack of solidarity with the german ally, would have undoubtedly bring his demise. Followed probably by his replacement with a pro-nazi marionette, only too happy to apply “the final solution” to those 340000 Romanian Jews. His rigid military mind, used to assess things only in black and white, identified those against he retaliate as russians first, communists and ennemies therefore, and jews second. Foreign jews, not HIS jews, not Romanian jews. One certainly cannot pin on Antonescu the association communism-judaism, very much en vogue since the beginning of the 20-the century, especially since, although exagerated, it wasn't totally unsubstantiated. Many communist exegetes WERE Jewish, historically speaking, starting with Karl Marx himself.

• That’s my explanation, what Antonescu did was realistic calculation. Look up the “talk” page, there is a transcript of a discussion of Antonescu and a high ranking military, regarding the Odessa retaliations, posted by “goodoldpollonius”. I assume that you agree it’s genuine. From the November 13, 1941 minutes of the Council of Ministers: Antonescu: Has the repression been sufficiently severe? Alexianu: It has been, Marshal. Antonescu: What do you mean by “sufficiently severe”?… Alexianu: It was very severe, Marshal. Antonescu: I said that for every dead Romanian, 200 Jews [should die] and that for every Romanian wounded 100 Jews [should die]. Did you [see to] that? Alexianu: The Jews of Odessa were executed and hung in the streets…. Antonescu: Do it, because I am the one who answers for the country and to history. Actually, the Romanian Army received a unexpectedly powerful resistance from the Jews of Ukraine as the army was always under attack from behind the front. Even in Bukowina there were some organized militias that began sabotaging the Army installations. Antonescu was naive to think that a "severe repression" would stop this, but he was wrong: the Jews knew that in the eventuality of an Axis win, they'd all be exterminated. NPOW 14:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC) (My thanks to the user or editor (?) “goodoldpollonius”for presenting this transcrips on the “talk” page of the article).

This proves several important points

a) There was provocation. Antonescu didn't just round up the Jews in a peaceful city, SS style. The attack of 22 October and the “attacks from behind the fronts” had a powerfull Jewish participation. A courageous attitude, to be sure, but also one that would engender mandatory retaliation. This, along with the lesser of two evils calculation and the irritation of a general who already lost 70 000 soldiers in taking Odessa, might account for the lack of hesitation in ordering the retaliation. Still, that is NOT cold blood, premeditated planified murder, death camps fashion. Killing civilians, a reprobable act, but so widespread in a war zone, for war zone it was.

b) Antonescu was answerable to a higher authority “for the country and to history”. Since no one wants to go down in history as a mass murderer, the only valid explanation was his concern for the German reaction. He was accountable “for the country” in the eventuality he wouldn’t have defused the situation and turned Romania into an ocupied country. The immediate authority to whom he was answerable then, and on whom his continuation as a leader, his country’s independence and probably even his life depended was Hitler’s Reich.

c) He definitely was not in total control, since he was so worried about the retaliation could be interpreted as “sufficiently severe”. To someone in a position of absolute power, absolute authority, answerable to no one, the only concern would logically be the improvement of self image. Killing-retaliations can hardly improve anyone’s image. If Antonescu wasn’t even considering his image but was concerned that from outside the repression was seen as “sufficiently severe” even if it tarnished that image it should be obvious that higher interests were at stake.


d) Lack of options and the lesser of the two evils. Antonescu was in position of having access to classified data as early as 1940. (Another proof of astonishing naivete at best is the allegation in the article that Antoescu was noticed by Hitler of the Eastern offensive only 10 days in advance. Any military commander can tell it is utterly impossible to plan and implement a 10 divisions offensive in 10 days. For a successful joint operation, Hitler must have made his plans known to Antonescu much earlier). Then, in 1940, for seven years already the whole world could see Hitler’s antisemitic paranoia passing from theory to facts. During the common offensive Antonescu is sure to have received reports about the treatment inflicted by Einsatz SS to the Jewish in the conquered area. He was only too aware of the Himmler’s plans for the Jewish population in Ukraine. He knew that any attempt to openly protect the Jews in Transnistria, especially after the October 22 attack would bring him on a direct collision course with Berlin, i.e. to his destitution and to no use whatsoever to the Jewish population in the area, who would have been sacrificed anyway by the SS, at an even greater extent. And the Romanian Jews were sure to follow.

What is really puzzling is that non of the master historians contributing to this article bothered to comment on the main author of the Odessa Massacre: the NKVD. With a dark mastership, they succeeded in implementing the 22 Oct bombing, knowing perfectly that retaliation will follow, (the precedents were countless), knowing perfectly who's going to be the ethnic group targetted, and therefore getting the romanians and the germans to do their dirty work and getting the area Jews-free. The anti-Semitism was a reality in Soviet Union also.

Sorry for the length, wish I could have been more concised. Anyway, it’s shorter than your article….:)

One last point and I’m done: kindly LEAVE MY COUNTRY OUT ! Pick on Antonescu, if you can’t even consider of other possible explanaions, pick on me, if it makes you feel better, but leave Romania out. If anything, Romanians excelled by tolerance and almost total lack of aggressive expansion, 2000 years of history are there to prove it. Along with certain unique acts of mercy, during the WW2, that you CHOOSE to ignore. Don't spit where you ate, even if you didn't like the food, is a matter of moral hygiene.

If you have any decency in you, erase that ignominious phrase, with Romania having taking part in the Holocaust more than any other country except Germany, even if it comes straight from the Wiesel Report. There are the Report documents, available, and the article on that, leave it there, and don’t add insult to injury. One never EVER blames a whole nation. Jewish prosecutors stressed the fact that they were not blaming the german nations, just the individuals involved in killings. Germany is represented by Goethe and Beethoven, as Romania is by Enescu and Eminescu. (Yes, well intentioned as I think he was, Antonescu is not fit to represent the Romanian nation, his errors were too great). The English philosopher Burke was right when he said, "I do not know the means for drawing up the indictment of an entire nation." There is no collective guilt, for the Bible relates how the Lord wished to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for the evil of the men who lived in them, with their women and children, but how there was living among them one righteous man, and because he was righteous he was spared. Therefore guilt is individual, like salvation.” (Frederic Forsythe – The Odessa File).

Oh, I almost forgot: gentlemen, that’s still me, M. Simu. I logged out of Wikipedia unfortunately and I was unable to log in again. I tried to create a new account with the same name and the system replied that the name was taken. So that’s the solution I found, I’m not trying to hide. Should you want to continue to insult me in particular, or who knows, be able to discuss things in civilized and unemotional fashion, my email is soyouz_55@yahoo.com

And Mr Dahn, I expect you to reconsider, as an administrator, and to grant me my right, even to help me to add that criticism chapter to the article. The main substance of which, if you wish, I am ready to subject it to you on the talk page. I most certainly would do that for you, if our positions would be reversed.

I agree too with the user --163.1.162.20 and, as I promised, I will mention in my criticism only facts, that the author or authors so conveniently dismissed. Along with some pointing at obvious slanted interpretation of the facts that are mentioned. One of those facts being that, no matter how much you personally dislike Antonescu, many of his actions preclude him of being putted in the same pot with Hitler or Himmler, who almost never spared, much less saved a Jewish life, for political reasons or otherwise. HMycroft 03:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Sock or meat? Dahn 11:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know Mr Dahn, I have never tasted socks. Obviously we have different culinary preferences. HMycroft 17:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} PROTEST

I do protest on the the mentioning of and the inclusion of the article of Ion Antonescu under the headings and within the project on Fascism. His regime, dictatorial no doubt, was not modelled afer the german nazi nor italian fascism. The specifically ethnic-targeted abuses were also absent; isolated cases could be blamed on the action of extremists against whom he and his government fought.

In fact he crushed the Iron Guard, the pro-nazi political movement, in open military confrontation. He is also known for remarcable pro-Jewish measures within the Romanian borders, measures uniques in a Europe dominated by nazism, that resulted in saving over 340000 Jewish lives.

Even such notorious anti-Antonescu figures as Elie Wiesel and his Commission, could not ignore that specific and clearly stated opposition of Antonescu on Jewish deportation from Romania-Old Kingdom borders resulted in the saving of 290000 to 340000 Jewish lives. Other clear pro-Jewish measures like allowing of official representation and official INTERDICTION of wearing the star of David, are also in the Wiesel Report, although under the negative interpretation of being the result of political caution and fear of recknoning.

This is a blatantly inaccurate interpretation since the dates of those actions place them well before the time the realization that Germany will lose the war, i.e. before november 1942. I have repeatedly posted the quotings from the Report on the talk page, they are here, and in the Report itself, for anyone to read.

I protest also on the fact that even such figures and facts as those described in the Wiesel Report are intentionally left out from the article on Ion Antonescu, since they could cast a doubt on the fierce anti-Jewish orientation the authors want to promote.

I ask therefore that at least the facts admitted and mentioned in the Wiesel Report such as the number of the Jewish lives saved, should be mentioned, the authors personal views kept to a minimum and that the reader be offered a fair chance of weighing the pro and the contras and let to decide by himself.

Reliable proof exist on the fact that for the whole duration of Antonescu's being in power, the Jewish community in Romania was permitted to have its own organization, and cultural settings, like Jewish schools and a Jewish theater. He even offered sanctuary in Romania for Jews that were caught by the events outside the borders, he offered pensions to any Jew who ever worked in Romania, even if that person would have neglected to have processed the proper paperwork before leaving Romania, and this resulted in a massive flow of Jewish refugees for the only place in Europe, except neutral countries, where they could find sanctuary. The taxations to which Jews were subjected were justified by their exemption from the military service in time of war, another clear measure designed to protect them, and one that the authors never mentioned.

THIS FACTS ARE UNIQUE IN HISTORY ! Neutral countries themselves could not claim of having offered more to the Jewish during WW2. Considering that these acts of undisputable caring were offered from and within a country who was a german satellite more by necessity than by choice and who was risking therefore the wrath of the superpower Germany was at the time, makes them even more meritorious.

I don't expect the authors to include that, only to take this fact into careful consideration and to avoid smearing Romania in their valiant attempt of destroying the reputation of a dead man.

To be sure, he is guilty of war crimes, since he specifically ordered retaliatory killings in Odessa and Ukraine, and there was a clear anti-jewish orientation in his orders.

Still, there is a non-disproved interpretation of thoses events that by doing this he was pursuing a deliberate policy of chosing the lesser of two evils, that his actions in Ukraine were an ostentious proof of bona fide vis a vis his overpowerfull german ally, and that by ordering himself retaliation against foreign Jews (Russian as he was seeing them) who with or without him were doomed(after the bomb attack of 22 Oct 1941 in which german officers died, this was unavoidable, the SS and the Gestapo were there, watching, eager to take over if necessary),by ordering killings that were about to take place anyhow, he managed to remain in power and capable of opposing Jewish killings and outside deportation in the territory where his control was greater.

Historical analysis and objectivity will prove that although allied with Germany until August 1944, at no moment during Antonescu's government were present all the parameters of a nazi or fascist regime, including those established by Wikipedia's authors of the article on "Fascism".

Therefore, I ask for the necessary corrections, in this article, in the biographical article on Ion Antonescu and his exclusion from the Fascist project of Wikipedia:

1.The introduction in the article of the fact that 340000 Jewish lives WERE saved, by direct decision of Antonescu.

2. The admission of other pro-Jewish measures in Romania promoted and permitted by Antonescu: right of organizing and representation; of maintaining cultural identity (Jewish schools and theaters that functioned for the whole duration of the war); the interdiction of wearing the star of David, the retroactive offer of pensions even for Jewish who were not Romanian citizens but who had worked in Romania and who in the meantime had left the Romanian territory, the offer and active help in repatriation of Jewish-Romanian citizens stranded outside Romania at the time; repatriation of Romanian Jews from the camps in Ukraine (who's existence I do NOT deny, nor try to diminish the importance).

3. MOST OF ALL, I ASK THAT ALL REFERENCE, IN CLEAR OR INNUENDO, TO ROMANIA ITSELF AND ROMANIAN NATION PARTICIPATING AS A WHOLE IN THE HOLOCAUST SHOULD BE REMOVED . I ALSO ASK THAT THAT THE ARTICLE CLEARLY STATE THAT THE ACCUSATIONS BROUGHT TO ANTONESCU BY NO MEANS REGARD OR CAN BE TRANSFERED TO THE WHOLE OF ROMANIA OR THE ROMANIAN POPULATION. By all possible laws, juridical and moral, collective accusations are forbidden. Unless is proven beyond any possible doubt that a whole nation or ethnic group willingly engaged in criminal actions, all the millions of people who are part of it (and this never happened as yet), nobody, no person, juridical or physical, and no authority has the right even to try it, much less to do it. Even if everything Antoescu is blamed of in the article were true (which obviously it isn't), the misdeeds of one person are not to be blamed on a whole nation. At Nuremberg and at the trial of Eichmann himself, there were no accusations and certainly no verdicts agains Germany. Individuals were tried for individual crimes.

4. Clearly mentioning the context in which Antonescu's crimes were perpetrated.

I do personally regret the horrific treatment the Ukrainian Jews were subjected to at the hands of romanian troops; I do state however that german troops and german authority was very much present and very much in a position of power.

Still, having an accomplice in crime is not an excuse, nor makes the crime smaller. I totally agree that the victims themselves or their living relatives are entitled to material compensation. Of course, as soon as the Russians equally agree of compensating for the Romanian civilians killed in the process of the Romania's invasion, not "liberation" by soviet troops in 1944, for the Romanian AND Jewish (interesting that nobody mentions that part) robbed and deported from Bassarabia after the region being lost to Soviet Union in 1940 and before the german-romanian troops re-conquering it in 1941; for the Romanian-German civilians deported to Russia AFTER the war, for the families of German and Romanian prisoners exterminated in Russian camps with a brutal efficiency equal to their SS counterparts (500 survivors from 90 000 Axis prisoners at Stalingrad - surely they were the agressors, but once prisoners of war, they should have been immune, under the Geneva convention).

This is the context of Antonescu's crimes, to be added to the more than three million lives, civilian and military lost in Ukraine during the war as a direct result of fighting. In this context, one can understand the somewhat diminished impact of a comparative 25000 Jews dead in the Odessa Massacre and the total of 100 000 Jews killed during the whole occupation in Ukraine (Wikipedia figures). This context is conveniently and constantly ommited. Not an excuse, but an explanation, for the Romanian troops involvement. When death and crime and horror represent the background and the foreground is very hard, maybe impossible to remain pure.

5. The clear statement that by historical parameters by which nazism and fascism are defined, Antonescu and his regime were none of these, and that he proved that factually by fighting such organizations.

For instance, checked out against Wikipedia parameters, he never declared his government as being part of a nazi or fascist party and, to be sure he did not engaged in systematic crime targeting political opponents. Pro-german, maybe,(though highly debatable too, being given his past) but not pro-nazi or pro-fascist, as forms of government.

This has less to do with Antonescu's rehabilitation than it has to do with demonizing Romania and with the concept of respect for historical accuracy.

Since I am not allowed to input these HISTORICALLY ADMITTED FACTS in a free-editing Encyclopedia, I appeal to the moral qualities of the authors to make the changes themselves.

I do protest also about their censoring me and about other administrators refusing to help. In all objectivity, once he contributor proves that his contributions are documented (mine are mostly from the Wiesel Report, I avoided other sources to emphasize the information validity - even an anti-Antonescu group mentions them), he should be allowed to insert them. I find highly objectionable the clause for "consensus"; if my input, valid as it is, is contrary to the personal opinion of the first authors, they will never agree and we will never have consensus.

To avoid any missintepretations, I repeat that my position is that of an enthusiastic and unreserved and affectionate PRO-JEWISH. HMycroft 16:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

N Not done I am closing this protected edit request with similar reasons to J.S. This isn't what the template is for. The template is for if you have a specific, non-controversial request to make (like Please change in the 5th paragraph "throughoughly" to "thoroughly" because it is misspelled). You are making non-specific, controversial requests. If you feel the page is ready to be unprotected so you can continue to edit the page, you are welcome to request unprotection. If you need to discuss matters further here on talk, then do so, but please understand why your editrequest was denied. -Andrew c [talk] 02:12, 4 October 2007 (U

{{editprotected}} Boy, you sure know how to give someone a hard time. Still, I might have missunderstood the use of "editprotected". Please tell me, does this feature insure also non-erasing from the talk page before my request gets through ?

Anyway, if it's that simple, yes please, I do request unprotection. Of the article itself, not of the talk page. Question: once granted, can I fill in the material directly, or it has to be approved by administrators first ? Question 2: in order to keep everybody happy about the validity of the procedure, where exactly am I to indicate my source of documentation ? Immediately after the insert, or in the lower page bibliography area ?

Thank you for your prompt feedback, Andrew. Best regards HMycroft 03:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I am removing the edit protect template because AGAIN you are not requesting for an admin to make a specific change to the protected page. If you would like to request unprotection, please follow the instruction at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. I'll try to address your other questions. If the article is unprotected, you are welcome to make minor or even bold changes to the article (by yourself, without the approval of an admin). But keep in mind, if you are reverted, please do not edit war by insert your changes again. For controversial changes, it is usually best to make proposals here on the talk page and gain consensus before adding them. As for citing sources, you can read WP:CITE. What we normally do is add ref tags surrounding the text of the reference (ref tags look like <ref>this is where the text of the citation goes</ref>). You can also use Wikipedia:Citation templates, which automatically format the reference, assuming you fill in the required fields. These also should be surrounded by the ref tags as well. Basically, you need to have the author's name, the work's name, the year, the publisher, and the page number. Other users can help you format and work out that sort of stuff, as long as you ask for help and provide ample information regarding the source you are citing. Hope this helps.-Andrew c [talk] 22:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Note: please ignore the first part of my message because the page has been unprotected.-Andrew c [talk] 23:07, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

HMycroft 05:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)NOW YOU'RE TALKING !

Thank you again Mr Andrews.

And thank YOU Messieurs Dahn, Mircion and other possible authors of this article, in advance, for your fair play and understanding. Now that the page IS unprotected and theoretically I could paste on it any silly negationist items that, NOW only will I certainly refrain from trying to implement anything, without at least trying to get a consensus first.

To be sure, I disagree with the general tone of the article and with many important omissions of historical facts; however, out of respect for your work, undoubtedly professional and documented (even if somehow one-sided), I AM ASKING FOR YOUR PERMISSION TO INTRODUCE A PARAGRAPH THAT I WOULD CALL:

"CONTROVERSIAL ITEMS":

Many Romanian nationals, in an official capacity or not, as well as some exponents of foreign press and even prominent members of the Jewish diaspora are generally holding different views than the ones expressed in the conclusions of the Wiesel Commission Report, or even of the Romanian Court decisions of 2006.

The most virulent are claiming that the accusations of direct participation at the Holocaust of Antonescu's government became increasingly aggressive after 1990, as the number of Romanian Jews was dwindling and their willingless of bearing testimony in favor of Antonescu and Romania was corroded by the perspective of material gain.

Such persistent claims and accusations were apparently absent for decades, practically during all the communist rule in Romania; since Ceausescu, dictator as he was had no jurisdiction or power to silence tongues and quills outside romanian borders, the only alledged possible explanation was the acknowledgment by Antonescu accusers that, if challenged, Ceausescu would have been able to produce irefutable anti-Romanian Holocaust witnesses, and consequently to ask for compensations then was a lost cause.

Appreciating this as an obvious text-book case of Holocaust Industry, the critic parties are explaining the 2004 sudden taming of the Romanian government and of President Iliescu as being the direct result of politico-economical blackmail (alledgedly the acceptance or Romania as a member of European Community was conditioned by a generous donation to the instances regulating the Holocaust compensations and by the ferm promise of indemnizations of the survivors of the deported Jews in ukraininan labor camps under romanian and german control during the war).

They point out at the sequence of events as an indirect proof (the nomination of Romania as honorary member of E.C. in 2004, to become a full member in 2007), and they appreciate Dr Wiesel phrase addressed to President Iliescu (“Don’t turn your back on your past and you shall prosper; fail to do that and you shall be doomed”) as a deliberate threat and proof of the blackmail thesis.

There is also criticism regarding the classification of the massive killings of Jews in Odessa and western Ukraine (Transnistria) unde the heading of Holocaust and Crimes against Humanity, since the deliberate premeditation clause cannot be filled – the Odessa Massacre, gruesome as it was represented relaliation following documented attacks against romanian and german military personnel after the official surrender of the city and therefore contrary to the promise by the defeated party (i.e. the russian troops and the civilians of Odessa) of ceassing all hostility.

On the same strict legal note, one could argue the complete lack of proof of criminal intent, that Antonescu never issued specific orders that the deportations at the camps in Transnistria should be preceded, followed or accompanied by executions or torture. To be sure, a commander ultimately IS responsible for the actions of the men under his command and is answerable himself for the crimes of his men; still the lack of orders that would present deportation as a stage in staged killings on a grand scale, legally should preclude those killings to be classified as Holocaust. The enormity of the retaliation is sure to justify the classification of the killings as war crimes against civilians, perpetrated in a war zone, but not Holocaust, since the victims were designated mainly on the main grounds of retaliation after provocation, and therefore not on the appartenance to the Jewish ethnicity as a sole criteria.

Other reason for criticism is represented by the alledged deliberate omission from the post-war established list of casualties directly caused by military confrontation of any person of Jewish persuasion. The critics point out at the total absence from these lists of any Jews as a physical impossibility; since the Jews were so numerous, many of them were bound to be among the civilan casualties of the war itself, after all, they say,shells and bullets do not choose and the retaliations and the killings took place after the violent fighting that led to the fall of Odessa, not during or before it. The Jewish victims of war, if subtracted from the number of the victims of retaliation would, in their opinion, diminish the latter considerably.

The wide approximation of the number of Jewish victims in legal documents is considered in the same circles as being at best proof of deliberate sloppy research; not to be sure if the total number was 280000 or 380000 is unacceptable, being given that it represents the main reason for accusations of crime. There is not such a thing as a “mere” one hundred thousand dead more or less, the figure being already equal with the population of a medium size city. They find tendentious the uncertainty of the figures, even in the present encyclopedia, Odessa Massacre is bound alledgedly to have produced 25 000 and 100 000 Jews were killed in Transnistria during the whole war(the Odessa Massacre article) while the present article speaks of 100 000 in Odessa only during and immediately after 22 Oct 1941 and over 300 000 in Ukraine.

Objectionable are also, according to these persons :

- the failure to mention that between 290 000 – 340 000 Jews were actively protected by Anonescu, as early as the summer of 1942 (Wiesel Report) when the project of deporting Romanian Jews to the death camps in Poland, although finished was not signed by Antonescu; the gesture found confirmation in october the same year, when Anonescu expressed his refusal in writing despite vigurous protests from Berlin and the pro-german factions in Romania. Since these events took place obviously many months before the defeat of german troops at Stalingrad and the beginning of the retreat, critics state that political prudence from the part of Antonescu could not be the cause of his decision.

- The documented better treatment of the Jewish community within Romania itself (excluding newly conquered territories) than anywhere else in Europe during the war, neutral countries included. This treatment alledgedly regarded:

o - the right to political representation by the Jewish League, who’s leader Dr Wilhelm Friedlander was alledgedly a personal friend of Antonescu, that maintained a notable positive influence over the dictator during the war o – the specific order in september 1941 to FORBID wearing of the star of David by the Jewish population in Romania. o -the possibility of specific cultural access (the Jewish school in Bucarest remained opened during the whole duration of the war, and so was the Jewish theater, who’s performances were attended constantly by Romanian admirers also o – exemption from military service, (this being by the said critics opinion the main reason for which the Jewish community was asked to pay a fee), at a time when the chance of survival of Romanian soldiers on the Eastern front were less than 1 in 10 o – the counter-balancing by the anti-jewish laws by definite pro-jewish ones, like the law that alloted Jews that have worked in Romania a pension, for any documented time since 1919, including emigrated Jews or Jews of other citizenship than Romanian, even if the Jewish claimer did not processed the proper paperwork for pension application before leaving Romania; this alledgedly produced an unprecedented influx of Jews from all countries of Europe. o – The offer of sanctuary for Romanian citizens of Jewish orrigin stranded outside Romania at the beginning of the war, providing passports with proper visas to those who had lost them and facilitating repatriation o – the repatriation of Romanian Jews deported to labor camps in Transnistria by mistake (the order of deportation regarded exclussively Jews from Bucovina and Bassarabia, lost to the Soviet Union in 1940) o – the dismantling of hostage camps in feb 1942

Protests were heard also on the topic of tendentiously constant association of Romania and Romanian Nation with the Holocaust. With some substance, protesters state that it is totally illegal and unethical to accuse a whole community, a whole nation, that prosecutors at the Nuremberg trial stated several times that individually identified criminals were on trial and not Germany or German Nation. Such presentation from a prestigious commission charged of checking and establishing historial facts like the Wiesel Commission would be unacceptable not only by romanian nationals but mostly by international laws.

To state that Romania (not just Antonescu and his government, but Romania, implying Romanian Nation, undiscriminately) has produced most Holocaust victims, second only to Germany itself and to deliberately ignore that same Romania on its own territory realized the unique performance of saving more than 300 000 Jewish lives while offering them conditions that, far from being luxurious were nevertheless the best to be found in Europe at the time, is in their opinion more than objectionable, downright condemnable.

Gentlemen, thank you for your time. I do welcome criticism. I apologize for not inserting the bibliographical texts, sources and links at this time, they are there, I assure you, I still try to find the best way to do it. I hope to have your opinions and who knows, eventual consensus soon. HMycroft 05:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Nothing of this nature should go in until there are utterly reliable and unassailable sources. So faras I can see this is all your personal interpretation. David Underdown 08:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

HMycroft 04:13, 6 October 2007 (UTC)Kind of harsh, good sir. "Of this nature ?" As it would be clear slander from the start and nothing else ? Come on, you should appreciate the fact that I could have pasted all the above directly into the article, and till someone would have erased it, there was a good chance that quite a few readers get the gist of it. It IS bona fide, you have to give me that.

Anyway, I want to thank you for your feedback and to ask for specific directions and suggestions regarding the introduction of the reference and bibliographic notes in a proper and comfortable way for YOU, my critics and the orriginal authors to check. Far as I can see, there are at least two variants: 1. Mentioning just the number of the list of sources and leaving you and other readers with the rather extensive task of finding the right paragraph; 2. Introducing the precise quotes between brackets or parantheses after each paragraph - precise no doubt but prone to increase the bulk.

If you are an author then you know more about proper wikipedia procedure than me, thank you for sharing. Especially since it will make your life and task easier, and other authors too. You are now more than authors, you are my critics and censors and I really need your help, thank you.

I'm looking forward to meet the original authors of this article, it will be a pleasure, I'm sure. Not that I'm discriminating in any way but if there are persons of Jewish descent among them, as I think they are, I invite them to admit it, that would make both our positions clear, mine is crystal, name, nationality, trade, all stated on this page. Hope I'm not prying, names are perhaps not so important, nationalities are. If you are feeling uncomfortable of talking it here, I repeat, my email is soyouz_55@yahoo.com

I try to make it clear that we are NOT on opposite sides. I do resent what I consider to be an injustice (the way Romania and Antonescu are presented in the article) but I certainly understand how it got that way. If me and mine are hit, then it IS personal and it stays so. From the point of vue of a Jewish person who got trough the horror of seeing her familly slaughtered and she herself staying alive possibly by pure chance, labels are immaterial. I couldn’t care less if the responsible party is a war criminal or a criminal against humanity, all I’d want would be to nail the bastards.

But the bastard is nailed in this case and it might be the wrong bastard. And for the survivors, both victims and the bastard’s co-nationals labels ARE important, since the Holocaust cathegory is infinitely worse. War crimes might be sometimes the equivalent of passion crimes perpetrated by individuals who were driven too far and got out of control by stress, fear, fatigue and hate. Holocaust is none of these.

Holocaust, crimes against humanity, are worse than terrorist crimes since a terrorist might still be fighting for a good cause the wrong way. Holocaust…means waving the quality of being human, worse, of being part of the living things since its perpetrators hold human and life and its basic values in contempt. Certainly it places them far lower than an animal, for an animal when it kills it is driven by fear and hunger, maybe even hate and revenge if animals can get that complex. Never out of sadism, contempt, indiference or downright relish to the victims suffering. Never the result of a longtime planned butchery, carefully ergonomized for better efficience.

A war criminal may be a sadist or just a hot-head, a scared man with too much power at the wrong time; a Holocaust perpetrator is a monster. And this is the ultimate anathema, ultimately a conflict between humans and God, since God can forgive even this but humans can’t.

Every attempt should be made therefore and no effort should be spared, and every possible benefit of the doubt should be given and investigated and cross-checked before disclaiming someone the human quality. Because, if the accusation represents the highest and most horrendous kind of guilt, a responsibility of a matching magnitude will fall on the accusers, should the accusation be even partially false.

The prosecution’s case HAS to be perfect, airtight, solid as the rocks of the Mount Sinai, no creaks or doubts or discrepancies or unexplained-but-still-abandoned items whatsoever. Far, far better to err by being lenient to a guilty criminal than to misjudge a man and to try to damn his memory for generations to come.

Especially, no pecuniary angle must be allowed to bend opinions and decisions. There is a Romanian proverb stating that “Money is the eye of the devil”. Never truer. Money angle should NOT be tolerated.

The future impact and the ressentment caused by such a mistake would be immense. Philo-Semites can be turned into anti-Semites that way overnight and anti-Semites will appear and multiply more effectively than by any nazi propaganda. Goebbels will do sommersaults of joy in his hellish cauldron of tar seeing his victims continue his work so successfully.

And for the co-nationals of the victims of the misjudgement it would as hard to forget as it would be for the accusers to forgive the real monsters.

I am addressing now to the Jewish authors and readers of this page. In my opinion you could and should be the Guardians of everything that is pure, and good and beautiful and holly in this world.

For you have learned the value of all these values, and God ! at what shuddering price ! Nobody, no people in history suffered more. Nor longer.

After being the targets of injustice and suspicion and stupidity of other people for thousands of years, you maintained enough of those other Divine qualities to answer with philosophy and even good humor, to answer brutality with treasures of creativity and science that you choose to share with a suspicious and hostile mankind.

True, the 20-th century has been the worst. More victims in your ranks than in all the more than five thousand years that marked your civilization combined. Your unique and uninterrupted civilization. But there were victories too, a home again, after 2000 years of perpetual refugee life. And not anywhere, mark you, but, by your efforts, on the Place of your Fathers, certainly the holliest place on Earth for at least two main religions and a revered one for the third.

After paying a toll of 6 million of yours in the War, sacrificed by monsters produced by human ignorance, greed, intolerance and indifference and many others in many wars after that, you still found in your hearts to share your hard-won home with Semite cousins that tried to take it away from you for just themselves and after loosing repeatedly in fair fight, they tried by using terrorism, and continue to use it in the most revolting fashion, after grudgingly accepting your gift.

And I clench my teeth on my rage when I think how many potential Enstein and Heine and Mendelsohn were among those sacrificed and how miserably we were all deprived of what they might have create. I have made my own modest research and I can state head-high that Jewish persecution and slaughter troughout history set back the mankind with at least 500 years. Perhaps more. 500 years of technological and scientic retard was the figure expressed by the exegetes of the history of science as the price paid for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. The number of potential Jewish geniuses killed or just harrassed enough to stop their intellectual growth over 2000 years of anti-Semitic paranoia has to be greater than the authors of the Library’s lost treasures.

But now there is a turning point. For the first time in 5000 years of merry slaughter (alledgedly 270 of years of peace total, in those 5000 years of more or less recorded history), there is the silver lining of the chance of putting an end to it. Because the technology was finally found a good use also and it enables communication and exchanging opinions and knowledge and understanding as never before. To understand means to forgive, remember ?

Now is the time for us, Guardians of Human Decency, to rally round, to combine effort and to coordinate. To point out at other sources of adventure than war, other sources of immense revenues than weapons-the biggest business of all times and other sources of satisfaction than just mindless power over other people’s lives. To focus on targets that can use the maximum of human resourcefulness for an as long a time as one can imagine. Like Outer Space and its infinite gifts for instance.

“Happy the Peace Makers, for they will be the Sons of God!" ...

But to do this we have to stop the ever-turning wheel, the hell circle of poverty – injustice – ressentment – war – back to poverty. Not a circle actually, a spiral, since it has cycle of course, but at higher levels of weapons technology and therefore of destruction, at the ever increasing height of successive epochs.

Help me in fighting to eliminate the sordid and the possibility of error in evaluating history, for it is absolutely essential in our fight against universal destruction by universal greed and universal blindness.

To risk wrong labels is bad enough; to allow price tags and distorsions to bend the factual truth is catastrophic ! The hell-circle is reset again from injustice-ressentment onwards.

I pray God to make you listen. You have no ideea what hopes I, we, have invested in you, brothers !

And I feed my hope and I find sanctuary on history and historical facts. My Saviour, the Son of God and the founder of my religion IS Jewish.

HMycroft 04:13, 6 October 2007 (UTC)


Mr Simu, HMycroft or whatever is your name: None of your requests are acceptable. They amount to revisionism, denying Romania's indubitable contribution to the Holocaust, are morally outrageous and historically nonsense. READ the literature I have suggested before you spam us again with your amateurish speculations. You are in no position to give us lessons. You know next to NOTHING about the incriminated period, and your fervent love for your country does not make up for your blatant ignorance and your tendentious apology. And spare us your prayers to God and the Saviour and the Holy Motherland and what not. There won't be any reply by me anymore to anything you say, but I will watch closely any changes of the entry. --mircion 15:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography

I have added some titles and deleted Florin Constantiniu's book, which is not specifically on Antonescu, not a serious monograph and ignores the crimes against the Jews (apart from mentioning, and misdescribing, the Iasi massacre). Will expand the literature list at a later point. --mircion 17:37, 6 October 2007 (UTC)


Mr Mircion, you understood nothing of what I have tried to say. Is it because you failed to read most of it again ?

Sorry if my religious connotations offended you, they shouldn’t have. They were trying to convey my philo-Semite orientation, my loyalty, in a way. You really think your position, personal and collective. is so secure that you can afford to slap away an extended hand ?

And where on earth did you get my mentioning the Motherland from ?

I totally reject (and resent !) your accusations of ignoring my country’s history and and I personally certainly have no reason to be apologetic, especially towards you. I suggest you check your dictionary sir, apology = expressing remorse. I have expressed empathy, if I may hope you can grasp the meaning of that word. Real grasp, like capable to feel it...

I resent and reject the accusation of "revisionism" also, since you are using it in the sense of "negationism" and not of historical revisionism of distorted facts.

I repeatedly pointed out to serious omissions of historical facts in the article itself, last time on this page, after your former comment to one contribution on this talk page. (Former as associated with latter, meaning “the first of the two”). I have used for that the one source you could not label as “revisionist”, the Wiesel Report.

1. One big time omission is the failure to quote the fact that in Antonescu’s Romania between 290000 to 340000 Jewish lives were not just spared, but actively protected from deportation and murder. The Comission couldn’t ignore that, even if it gave it a negative interpretation.

2. The misplacement of historical dates, regarding pro-Jewish actions prior to the autumn of 1942, or even in 1941 and 1940. Since you seem to suffer from a strange affliction that prevents you from reading replies, and/or from scrolling up the talk page, I will re-post a few excerpts from Wiesel Report, please note the dates:

"The Conducator wrote back, asking Filderman (Dr Wilhelm Filderman, leader of the Jewish Community in Romania) “to show understanding and to make the members of the Jewish community from all over the country understand that General Antonescu cannot perform miracles in one week….I assure Mr. Filderman that if his colleagues do not undermine the regime directly or indirectly, the Jewish population will not suffer politically or economically. The word of General Antonescu is a pledge.” On September 19 1940, a new decision of the Ministry of National Education for Religions and Arts suspended the implementation of the September 9 resolution on places of worship (temples and synagogues) until there was a definitive regulation on the status of associations and religious communities in Romania."

"On September 8, 1941 Filderman obtained an audience with Marshal Antonescu and came accompanied by the Jewish architect H. Clejan. The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss the yellow star. “After a short conversation, the Marshal said to Mihai Antonescu: ‘All right, issue an order to forbid the wearing of the sign throughout the country.’”12 During a session of the Council of Ministers, the Marshal explained that the measure had “great consequences for the public order and from other points of view. The representatives of Jewish community came to me, and I promised them to strike down this measure.” Considering the results of this “battle,” Israeli historian Theodor Lavy observed, “it was a battle in which the victims were victorious.”13"

"On February 24, 1942, General Vasiliu summoned Streitman and Gingold to the Ministry of Interior and promised them he would refrain from adopting any severe measure against Jews. He also asked that the Jewish population be made to understand that it had been under constant suspicion after the attitude it displayed during the 1940 withdrawal from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, so the government was obliged to take safeguard measures. General Vasiliu also ordered the dismantling of hostage camps, though that did not mean that all hostages were set free."

"In the summer of 1942, the Antonescu regime agreed in writing to deport the Jews of the Regat and southern Transylvania to the Nazi death camp in Belzec, Poland, and was planning new deportations to Transnistria. Yet only months later, the same Romanian officials reversed course and resisted German pressure to deport their country’s Jews to death camps in Poland. Initially, Romania had also approved the German deportation of Romanian Jews from Germany and German-occupied territories, which resulted in the death of about 5,000 Romanian citizens. But when the shifting tides of war changed minds in Bucharest, thousands of Romanian Jews living abroad were able to survive thanks to renewed Romanian diplomatic protection. And while Romanian Jews may have been deported en masse to Transnistria, thousands were subsequently (if selectively) repatriated. Ironically, as the vast German camp system realized its greatest potential for killing, the number of murders committed by the Romanians decreased, as did the determination with which they enforced their country’s antisemitic laws. Such contradictions go a long way toward explaining the survival of a large portion Romania’s Jews under Romanian authority."

"Within the framework of the negotiations with Radu Lecca at the end of 1942, the Jewish Agency proposed to transfer the Jews who had survived in Transnistria first to Romania and then to enable them to leave. The ransom plan was viewed as a possibility to make the Romanian government change its policy or at least to win time. And, indeed, various liberal, or simply decent, Romanian politicians and public figures occasionally intervened on behalf of the Jews or Roma."

I ask you to remember that the outcome at Stalingrad became obvious only in January 1943. Von Paulus surrendered in February. You realize that the latest date in the quotes is "end of 1942"; that's still too early for anyone savvy to talk about certain german defeat. So no, "the shifting tides of the war" is not the explanation, since the tides didn't shift yet, at that time

I would certainly like to see this data presented in the article, with the clear mention that they could imply another interpretation of Antonescu’s actions than political adaptation. Since they are clearly documented and from the Wiesel Report, surely you won’t object Mr Mircion. Please insert them or I wil.

I want to extend my simpathy and condoleances (one day maybe you’ll grasp these meanings also), regarding the recent passing away of Prof Raul Hilberg, one of the leading historians of the Holocaust. It did happen this August, I didn’t know, I was looking forward to write to him. Sad that the number of witnesses and really documented scholars is dwindling, a matter of profit for some…Prof Hilberg was, as you are aware I think, very appreciative of Dr Norman Finkelman’s work, another remarcable Jewish figure, with both parents survivors of death camps. (Don’t ge me started…) HMycroft 01:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Let me see if i can make you understand once and for all: the Report you are "citing" from does not allow you to make any of the claims you made above, HMycroft/Mihai Simu. It is simply infuriating and insulting to anybody's intelligence that you would be persistently spamming here about Antonescu's supposed innocence by citing texts which, even when cropped, make it extremely clear that his regime deported Jews (and not just) to a place whence very few ever returned. The exact numbers of victims are plain to see in the Report and countless other sections of scientific literature - all of which you seem to ignore - clearly indicating that the Romanian state through its political leadership was responsible for a genocide.
There are clear policies on this project referring to what you plan to do here. On one hand, editorializing from a source to make it seem like it endorses a point it refutes is contrary to WP:OR; on the other, as you were already told, we are here to use reliable sources, not personal deductions. As far as I can tell, admins have a zero tolerance attitude toward Holocaust revisionism; to be blunt: it clearly decreases the value and credibility of this project. This especially since speculation such as the one on this page will most likely land one a fine in Romanian jurisdictions.
As for the rest: I have little interest in debating a person who manifestly cannot see the difference between fascism and antisemitism (and will not look into sources saying saying that Antonescu's regime was both), I have little patience for the implied notion that anybody who admits Antonescu was a murderer has a philo-Semitic bias, and I simply laugh at "sound psychological" investigations into Antonescu's character. It is frankly too much trouble to hunt down and list all of the fallacies laid out in your posts. Any such debate would constitute education, and I'm afraid I cannot be asked to provide that service for free. You, sir, have the opportunity of educating yourself, instead of making a mockery of this page. Dahn 03:15, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

HMycroft 12:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Let's keep our emotions to ourselves, Mr Dahn, shall we ? I am sorry that what I have written infuriated you. Frankly I have hoped to get another reaction. That in itself is a clear indication of an incapability of historical objectivity, since history and historians are required to deal with facts first and only then with their interpretation. And it proves, as in the case of Mr Mircion that you didn't read what I wrote, or didn't read all I wrote here.

A contribution at a talk page cannot be called "spam" = unsolicited electronic mail, since I don't have to ask for your permission to contribute to such a page. What I "plan to do here" (I wasn't aware that I had a plan), was to indicate a clear bias of the tone of the article, and, conforming to the requests of Wikipedia article, I have tried to point out at what I considered to be errors and omissions that ultimately might reduce the intrinsic value and work put into this article by their original authors. Am I to understand that you deny that my quotations from the Report are genuine ? Please point out where and be specific in your criticism. For all I know, I have copied and pasted them from the Wiesel Report, without direct editing, so if there are errors, they have to be minor and they are certainly not mine.

You seem incapable also of appreciating that my quotations were NOT followed by protests or comments against the negative interpretation of positive facts, though God only knows I disagree with those interpretations; my point was that though the article’s authors deliberately ignored them, the Wiesel Report itself found proper to mention them, and the Report is certainly not pro-Antonescu prose. I am genuinely curious to know your interpretation of the dates in question. If you insist that even according to them Antonescu's "change of hearts" was strictly political motivated and datable only in 1943, I would like to know your arguments.

I am surprised and pained to see your total lack of appreciation that even AFTER the unprotection of the article, I have extended you and other authors every courtesy and I have tried to obtained a consensus, as prompted by Wikipedia status, before adding or changing anything.

I also remind you that according to Wikipedia policy, threats are off the charts, and yours, regarding my being fined by Romanian authorities just for expressing other opinions than your own, represents in itself a breach on same Wikipedia policy, along with your insults, not to mention manners.

It is nowadays ilegal in most civilized countries, including Romania to overtly state that the Holocaust never took place. I have made not such statement.

It should be illegal for a historian to ignore facts; the universal access provided by Wikipedia makes enforcing such a requirement impossible. That leaves the ethical aspect: if an amateur in the field, a person for whom history is a passion but not a profession tries hard to abide by that requirement, a professional historian has no excuse for not following it.

There is nowhere mentioned in Wikipedia policy and advice on the proper form of an article, the necessity to please the administrators, or to cajole their opinions. Should I be a revisionist or a clear negationist, (which I am not), I would still have the right of expressing my vues on the talk page.

I am not familiar with WP:OR, could someone explain ? It is true however that I was trying to beat the authors bias with their own weapons, by showing that even the Wiesel Report is more objective, since it presents data the authors choose to ignore.

I still insist on presenting ALL historically documented facts in the article, even those subjected to your personal dislike, even those that could be interpreted in Antonescu’s favor, along with the negative ones and let the reader decide for himself. My position, sir, is much more objective than yours, since I am not trying to supress the authors opinion and to censure what I disagree with, but merely asking that ALL facts should be presented. This is in total accordance with the requirement of NPOV of a Wiki article.

I am not the only one that made observations on the “strong anti-Antonescu bias” of the article, look further up on the talk page. And bias should be avoided, agreed ?

Since it deals with objective facts and not opinions and interpretation, history is a science, although it might not fit the rather narrow frame expressed in the phrase “if it cannot be measured it’s not a science”.

I assure you of my being totally sincere when I state that, although I think it unlikely, scientifically there is a possibility that I might be wrong. You on the other hand you don’t even dream about such a possibility on your side, do you ? Although logic and reason should tell you that you might not be in possession of all the facts, obviously you react violently even at suggestions that contradict your vues and refuse to examine such facts even when mentioned by anti-Antonescu partisans.

I is impossible of knowing the exact number of victims during a war, as you say. The fact that among military and civilian casualties there is a "missing" cathegory is the proof of that.

You say you are not willing to debate; I say you are not capable (at least not yet demonstrated) of civilized debate. Are you at least capable to examine and comment facts ? I enclose the following proposition, to spare eachother self-righteous indignation from now on, to avoid getting personal and to have a dialogue, politely if possible, based on facts. If you disagree with something I wrote just say it, point at it and leave labels and insults aside.

Feel free to leave aside my psychological arguments too, since they seem to bother you so (although for more than forty years now investigators all over the world are using psychological and psychiatric profiles as powerfull tools for building a case and experts in those profiles are frequently asked to bear testimony in courts of law). Speaking of education, I cannot ask someone that lacks specific information in a field to accept or process specific data; this is NOT an insult, just common sense, nobody can be knowledgeable in everything.

Please tell me exactly which of the facts I have presented on this here page are you challenging. HMycroft 12:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I have named in the article the highest romanian decoration who's recipient Ion Antonescu was: The Order of Michael the Brave. Hope everybody agrees, since it represents factual information and constitutes the object of a separate Wiki article.

Author, please provide the source regarding Antonescu being nicknamed The Red Dog (cainele rosu), thank you HMycroft 12:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I wish to congratulate the guardians of this article, authors or not, for the excellent job they are doing. You really manage to cool down the enthusiasm even in genuine Jewish supporters.

There were rumors that the Israeli government had secret treaties drawn with several states that in case Israel was overwhelmed by ennemies, those states should accept Jewish refugees. Romania apparently is on the list. After the initial shock of such a perspective diminished (in the Middle East conflict I back Israel 100 %) and after I realized that this doesn’t mean it is so bad so soon, but it’s rather a contingency plan, worst case scenario, I tried, as I always do, to imagine myself in the middle of the events.

At the time, my first reaction was that I would be glad to invite even a whole family of such refugees in my house. Now, I don’t know…If by doing that I might see myself accused a few years later of having deported or imprisoned those people, I’d rather not take that chance. HMycroft 22:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Factual error

"Romania engaged along with the Three-Party Pact Aliance in an war of aggression against the Soviet Union and the United Nations".

I account this to be a factual error. The UN was established in 1945, Romania officially ended its participation in the war in 1945 and before that Romania had discarded its alliance with the Axis powers. Moreover there was no formal UN participation in the war. Austerus —Preceding comment was added at 09:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

It is not a factual error, see Allies of World War II, the term United nations was initially coined by Roosevelt to refer to those allied againt the Axis powers, and from this grew the modern organisation. David Underdown (talk) 11:00, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I know that, but capitalized as a name it refers to a registered organization. Roosevelt used the term in a speech, but the allied powers never officially called themselves as such, being known only as the Allies (see any official document). If the author that contributed the passage I quoted wanted to be correct, he shouldn't have used capitalization (and also to name the source of the construction) in order not to cause confusion. Austerus 10:59, 28 January 2008 (GMT)

Order Michael the Brave I think that he received the order in 1919 serving as an aide to General Prezan`s staff in the Hungarian campaign. King Ferdinand is said to have personally pinned Antonescu with his own decoration. therefore, 1913 is incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.136.162.149 (talk) 15:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox image

Although a recent spate of edits have been horrifically commented, the principle that neutral photo should be in the infobox is a sound one. We don't use post suicide images of Hitler in the infobox, nor should we use his pre-execution image. That can easily be placed at the appropriate point in the text. ThuranX (talk) 22:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

But we don't include personal drawings made by nazi sympathisers, either. I support an actual portrait photo, if we find any free one. bogdan (talk) 22:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll copy the reply I left to Thuran on AN/I here:

":::To Thuran: I partly agree. There are several problems regarding both versions. As far as I can tell, the actual edit replaces a pic of Antonescu minutes before he died with a portrait of his that was most likely drawn by Mirelam herself (I'm saying "herself" because the user name seems to encapsulate a female name common in Romania). It also removes the article from a set of specific categories (probably because these were added between her previous edit and this one).
Now, here's where the problem is: I feel that allowing users to draw their own impressions of a person and other purely artistic stuff (as opposed to drawing a map, a plan, a copy of a blueprint, as well as to adding notable images created by artists who do not contribute to wikipedia) is not what wikipedia is for. Imagine the long-term consequences: wikipedia will transform itself into a promotional tool. I don't know if this issue was ever discussed, but I do know that wikipedia does not allow users to post doctored photographs - the same should apply here. Update: If the image was not created by Mirelam, then it is most likely a copyright violation. In any case, I do believe the indefinite block would have to imply the image being deleted either way?
When it comes to the image it replaces, I have to say I for one am not an advocate of that picture as much as I reject the one added in its stead. The issue is raised by Mirelam as a "self-fulfilling prophecy", and pushes a false dilemma: she claims that headlining the article with an image of Antonescu [shortly before] being executed is an attempt (of "the Jews", I presume) to undermine his public image. That reasoning is awkward and its presumption fallacious: I could just as well say that such an image will risk enforcing the image that Antonescu was "a martyr" and whatnot. But the main problem with that picture is that it may not actually be usable on wikipedia: it is not actually PD, and a fair use rationale would be awkward. In the past, users have added similar pictures of Antonescu, which were deleted for not being PD, and some of which were picked up from neonazi sites (which is also quite grotesque).
If this is really a problem, then, between a creativity contest involving Antonescu's supporters and picking up random photos that are sooner or later deleted, I do believe the article can do without any pictures."

My 2 cents. Dahn (talk) 22:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)