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":
I rest my case, I have nothing else to say. -- Voievod 00:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps some clarification is needed as to why (some) Romanians still foster such feelings. Years ago I had the privilege to meet several WWII veterans (and even a WWI veteran) who held Antonescu in a great esteem, and more so wished Hitler had won the war. Most people would be disturbed and disgusted by such views (as I was) . It was only later I understood their point of view, though I can't condone any form or racism or discrimination. To them – a generation now mostly lost to the ravages of time – Antonescu was the man who stood against everything that Soviet Union meant. They had no vision of a Romania under the third reich (had Hitler won the war) or perhaps they never cared to ponder. But sure as hell they experienced the other version of the story only too utterly. Siding with Germany was as far as they were concerned was the lesser of two evils. In the years following WWII, many of them saw their properties and lifelong earning confiscated, their liberties restricted, while being harassed, beaten, imprisoned and killed simply because they were members of the wrong political party, they had too much money, they didn't bow to the Soviet might, they had relatives/friends members of the priesthood, or simply because of invented guilts. What's more, Romania was condemned to a 45 years long communist rule, the effects of which are felt by many even today. It's no great surprise that their thoughts were echoed by the Romanian populace and media at the time. In the words of a well known stand up comedian of the day: “Rau era cu der, die, das / Da-i mai rau cu davai ceas” (It was bad with “der, die, das” / But it's worse with “davai ceas”). Shall we – in the name of political correctness – also declare Constantin Tanase a nazi collaborator? As a side note, simply making Antonescu responsible for communist rule in Romania is silly. What happened to Poland? 81.101.19.90 ( talk) 00:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
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!".
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)
"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)
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)
This sounds rather unlikely, has no source and has been like this for a few months. bogdan 21:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
To avoid further WP:EW, could 194.117.231.39 ( talk · contribs) explain why the following comments are (repeatedly since [1]) 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 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.
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)
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.
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)
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)
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)
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.
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.
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)
- one question. what is the nationality of mircion?
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)
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)
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)
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)
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":
I rest my case, I have nothing else to say. -- Voievod 00:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps some clarification is needed as to why (some) Romanians still foster such feelings. Years ago I had the privilege to meet several WWII veterans (and even a WWI veteran) who held Antonescu in a great esteem, and more so wished Hitler had won the war. Most people would be disturbed and disgusted by such views (as I was) . It was only later I understood their point of view, though I can't condone any form or racism or discrimination. To them – a generation now mostly lost to the ravages of time – Antonescu was the man who stood against everything that Soviet Union meant. They had no vision of a Romania under the third reich (had Hitler won the war) or perhaps they never cared to ponder. But sure as hell they experienced the other version of the story only too utterly. Siding with Germany was as far as they were concerned was the lesser of two evils. In the years following WWII, many of them saw their properties and lifelong earning confiscated, their liberties restricted, while being harassed, beaten, imprisoned and killed simply because they were members of the wrong political party, they had too much money, they didn't bow to the Soviet might, they had relatives/friends members of the priesthood, or simply because of invented guilts. What's more, Romania was condemned to a 45 years long communist rule, the effects of which are felt by many even today. It's no great surprise that their thoughts were echoed by the Romanian populace and media at the time. In the words of a well known stand up comedian of the day: “Rau era cu der, die, das / Da-i mai rau cu davai ceas” (It was bad with “der, die, das” / But it's worse with “davai ceas”). Shall we – in the name of political correctness – also declare Constantin Tanase a nazi collaborator? As a side note, simply making Antonescu responsible for communist rule in Romania is silly. What happened to Poland? 81.101.19.90 ( talk) 00:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
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!".
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)
"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)
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)
This sounds rather unlikely, has no source and has been like this for a few months. bogdan 21:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
To avoid further WP:EW, could 194.117.231.39 ( talk · contribs) explain why the following comments are (repeatedly since [1]) 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 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.
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)
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.
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)
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)
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)
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.
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.
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)
- one question. what is the nationality of mircion?
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)
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)
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)
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)