Language:
English
Year of publication:
2006
Titel der Quelle:
Nationalities Papers
Angaben zur Quelle:
34,4 (2006) 471-500
Keywords:
Antonescu, Ion,
;
Antonescu, Mihai A.,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Jews
;
Jews
Abstract:
Proposes an explanation for the policy of genocide of Jews in Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina - a policy that was implemented by Antonescu's regime only in these two provinces. Argues that Antonescu had a consistent worldview, at the core of which were Romanian ethnonationalism and extreme xenophobia; his main goal was an ethnically homogeneous Romania, which demanded ethnic cleansing. He chose Bessarabia and Bukovina as model provinces which he would be able to "purify" of minorities. The first minority that became the immediate target of this policy were the Jews - both because this was consonant with the Nazi Final Solution and because it could propitiate the army, which was antisemitic and coveted revenge for the putative "Jewish betrayal" of 1940 (when the Romanian army was humiliated and forced to retreat from the advancing Soviet army). Although revenge for "Jewish betrayal" was not among Antonescu's motives, this myth was used as a rationalization for the whole action. After the Jews, other Bessarabian minorities were to be eliminated. Antonescu gave up his plan of ethnic cleansing in 1942 because he lost his belief in Germany's final victory.
DOI:
10.1080/00905990600842106
URL:
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