By: Isabel Panek, Jelena Steigerwald In the last years, the Romanian authorities have officially recognise Roma as victims of the Holocaust. But still their suffering and loss is not firmly fixed in the memory culture. Different projects and initiatives exist to support Roma survivors to receive compensation and to give their story a voice, such as the film “Valley of Sighs” or the project “Helping Roma Survivors of Deportations to Transnistria”. On the 22nd of June 1941 Nazi-Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the war of destruction started. During the operation, which was called operation Barbarossa, more than four…
By Elisabeth Weber The interwar period, often dubbed “The Golden Age of Romanian Culture”, was also the age of student violence and disorder. Several student strikes and many violent conflicts between “Christian” students and Jews left their mark on the everyday academic life of those times. Anti-Semitic aggressions led to interventions from the authorities and university shut-downs lasting several months. If classes were not suspended, they were held in the presence of the military, which was requested to keep the campuses safe. The protests were legitimate, since the students were faced with overcrowded campuses and lacked the conditions to study.…
By David Schwartz […] The present text is not a historical research, nor does it aim for an exhaustive approach, but rather attempts to draw some basic directions – primarily on the basis of personal histories of progressive militants – in what concerns the way in which the political regime in interwar and wartime Romania treated leftist movements: from marginalization to outlawing, from surveillance to random arrests, beatings, torture, the gunning down of union members during the strikes and the physical extermination of Jewish communists during World War 2. The text is not in any way attempting to draw an…
by Veda Popovici and David Schwartz Our discussion is rooted in the presentation Veda Popovici gave at the conference-workshop Nationalism, Fascism and the Holocaust in Romanian History – A Critical Approach, organized by Third Generation Buchenwald during October 16 – 20 in Bucharest. Veda Popovici is interested in national identity and decolonization, topics which she pursues both in her artistic work, as well as in her theoretical endeavors. She completed her PhD on the topic of nationalism in 1970s and 1980s art. David Schwartz is a theatre director interested in the genealogy of nationalism in Romania and in histories of…
by Diana Dumitru * fragments from the study published in Holocaust. Studies and Research (Bucharest: The “Elie Wiesel” National Institute for Holocaust Studies in Romania), vol.1, no.2 / 2009, selected and republished here with the permission of the author In the context of our attempt to evaluate the attitude and behavior of the population of Bessarabia and Transnistria, it is important to note that the relations between the Jews and the local population were strictly limited and controlled by the regulations and situations imposed by the authorities. The Romanian civil-military administration undertook a series of measures meant to ensure minimal…
by Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu The city of Kishinev is a massive construction site. In the Eastern European public spaces, one of the asymmetrical struggles of the transition period was fought between the concrete of the common housing blocks and the digitally processed images of the commercial billboards. So long as most of the inhabitants had trained their gaze on black-and-white TV sets, the blocks had been “silver” and “new.” Long overcoats, pullovers and one-piece dresses were in fashion. Blue jeans, which fit the dry concrete aesthetics, were a smash hit particularly in Eastern Europe (a dancer from Alvin Ailey’s company, on…