ROMANIA: Past Steps In to Upset Russians

By Claudia Ciobanu Reprint | | Print |

Claudia Ciobanu

BUCHAREST, Mar 8 2007 (IPS) - Russia and neighbouring Moldova have expressed anger over a Romanian court decision declaring Romania’s invasion of the former Soviet Union in 1941 legitimate.

The dispute has not died down after the Bucharest Court of Appeals delivered the decision in December 2006.

As a consequence of the ruling, members of the Romanian government who had been condemned in 1946 for their decision to attack the Soviet Union together with the Nazis were pardoned of any war crime of invading foreign territory.

“Pardoning an accomplice of the Nazis, whose crimes against the civilians from the occupied territories of the Soviet Union cannot be forgotten, contradicts the logic and essence of peace accords,” the Russian foreign affairs ministry said in a statement Mar. 1.

The Moldovan ministry of foreign affairs had taken a similar position Feb. 23.

Although it finished World War II fighting together with the Allied powers, Romania was a partner of the German-Italian-Japanese Axis throughout the war until the communists came to power Aug. 23, 1944.

A monarchy until then, the country was led by Marshall Ion Antonescu from September 1940.

In June 1941, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Romanian troops crossed the country’s eastern border together with the Germans.

Romanian leaders were trying to get back Bassarabia and Bucovina from the Soviet Union. The two territories had been a part of Romania since 1918, but had been absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1939 as a result of a Hitler-Stalin pact.

Bassarabia is present-day Moldova, a country of 4.3 million sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine. Bucovina is now largely a part of Ukraine, with only a few towns in Romania.

Antonescu did not stop after conquering Bassarabia and Bucovina in 1941. He decided to advance further into the Soviet Union with the Germans, pursuing the personal ambition of conquering Odessa (a city now in Ukraine).

Ethnic cleansing was carried out in Romania throughout the years when Romania was an ally of the Axis.

“Antonescu admitted during his trial that he was personally guilty of the deportation of 150,000-170,000 Jews from Bassarabia and Bucovina, of which 100,000 never came back,” historian Serban Radulescu Zoner told IPS. “He also admitted to being responsible for the Odessa massacre in which tens of thousands of people were killed.”

About 25,000 gypsies were also deported, and half of them were never heard of again.

It is not certain whether Antonescu himself intended the gypsies to be exterminated, but Gheorghe Alexianu, appointed by Antonescu as governor of Transnistria (a region in southern Bassarabia to which the Jews and gypsies were deported) was clerly guilty of genocide, historian Andrea Varga told IPS.

Ion Antonescu, together with Gheorghe Alexianu and 19 other members of Antonescu’s government were held guilty of war crimes.

They were tried by a Tribunal of the People set up by the Communist Party in 1946. Most historians agree that “the Antonescu lot” were guilty of war crimes. But they also share the view that the trial was politicised, and the decision to execute Antonescu and some of his men was rushed in order to get rid of political enemies of the communists as soon as possible.

Last year the trial was judged again by the Court of Appeals in Bucharest following an appeal by Alexandru Sorin Serban Alexianu, son of Gheorghe Alexianu. A renowned lawyer, Alexandru Alexianu had been trying for years to clear his father’s name.

Andrea Varga said she had no idea the case had come up before the Court of Appeals, and the decision by the court last December took her by surprise.

“I didn’t imagine they would clear Alexianu of war crime charges. I would have gone to the trial myself to present evidence that he is guilty of killing tens of thousands of gypsies,” Varga told IPS.

The Court of Appeals declared that it is only pardoning “the Antonescu lot” of “some” of the war crimes that were related to the invasion of the Soviet Union. The court said it cannot re-evaluate all the charges of war crimes brought against the defendants.

The court only reviewed the charges of invasion of a foreign land on the grounds that the Tribunal of the People was not aware of all the conditions that made it legitimate at the time for Antonescu to attack the Soviet Union.

Historian Radulescu Zoner said the decision of the Court of Appeals would help Romanians make peace with their past.

Romanians hold divergent views about Antonescu. Many resent him as a dark spot in the country’s past, but others almost worship him.

Antonescu made it to number 6 in the Top 10 of the Greatest Romanians in a vote on a TV show last fall.