Romania Shoah memorial role sparks unease

ROMANIA HAS taken over the chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), a research and education group, prompting mixed feelings from Jewish organisations.

The Eastern European country has only recently begun to officially recognise its role in the Holocaust, when its pro-Nazi dictator, Ion Antonescu, oversaw the massacre of up to 380,000 Jews between 1940 and 1944.

The director of the Elie Wiesel Institute in Bucharest, Alexandru Florian, said that the move was a reflection of “positive evolutions within the Romanian state, which has begun to acknowledge and assume responsibility for the tragedy of Jews in Romania as well as organise public memorial events and improve Holocaust education”.

However, he added that there remained a “grey area” of political activity in Romania which worked to “preserve the values and symbols of the Iron Guard — Romanian fascism”.

In July last year, Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis signed into law legislation punishing Holocaust denial and the promotion of the Iron Guard with prison sentences of up to three years.

Mr Florian said, however, that the law merely encouraged the far-right to promote a nationalist, neo-Nazi agenda.

The ban has led to outbursts of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, among them a petition against Mr Florian and calls for the publicly-funded Wiesel Institute to be closed.

Shimon Samuels, Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said: “It is inevitable that Holocaust perpetrator or collaborator countries of 75 years ago, still have blind spots in interpreting that period today. When those countries take on the chairmanship of IHRA, it must be based on full disclosure and remorse.

“The just-ending Budapest chairmanship of the IHRA was marred by revisionism,denial and resurgent antisemitism, as the Holocaust became a political football. We will be vigilant in the hope that, in Bucharest, these demons will not prevail.”