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9 - The Romanian Holocaust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Peter Kenez
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
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Summary

In every country the Germans found people who were willing to deliver Jews to them, knowing fully well the consequences of their actions. Yet, except for Romania, no country murdered its Jews unless it came under direct German occupation. Bulgaria, for example, was a German ally but was not occupied, and its Jewry survived.

Aside from Germany no nation took such an active role in the murder of its Jews as Romania. The story of the Romanian Holocaust therefore should be understood not simply as a part of the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewry, but as a parallel event: The Romanian government carried out mass murder on its own. Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Poles might have been just as antisemitic as Romanians, and indeed their citizens did murder Jews in a particularly brutal fashion when they had the opportunity to do so, but these countries had no sovereign governments that could take an active role in mass murder. Therefore the number of their victims was much smaller than that in Romania. Of course, without German inspiration and the Nazi example, the Romanian massacres would not have happened. Nevertheless, although other German satellite governments contributed to the Holocaust by delivering Jews to the German killing machine, it was only Romanians who, on their own and following orders from the highest authorities in their government, did the killing themselves. (Paradoxically, of all countries of Eastern Europe with the exception of Bulgaria it was in Romania that the largest percentage of Jews survived.)

Type
Chapter
Information
The Coming of the Holocaust
From Antisemitism to Genocide
, pp. 176 - 195
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

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References

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  • The Romanian Holocaust
  • Peter Kenez, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Book: The Coming of the Holocaust
  • Online publication: 05 June 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107338234.013
Available formats
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  • The Romanian Holocaust
  • Peter Kenez, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Book: The Coming of the Holocaust
  • Online publication: 05 June 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107338234.013
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Romanian Holocaust
  • Peter Kenez, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Book: The Coming of the Holocaust
  • Online publication: 05 June 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107338234.013
Available formats
×