29 June, 2006
Romania's President has said that children should be taught about the country's history during the Holocaust. Speaking on the 65th anniversary of the pogrom in the northeastern city of Iasi, Romanian President Traian Basescu said the Black Sea state needed to work harder to understand its painful past. The Iasi pogrom in 1941 killed almost 15,000 Jews under the orders of Romanian authorities.
Romania, which shed communism in 1989, has only just started coming to terms with its role in World War Two, admitting for the first time in 2003 it played a role in the Nazi Holocaust. Under pro-Nazi Marshal Ion Antonescu, Bucharest became a German ally in 1940 but changed sides just before the war ended. Schoolchildren were not taught about the Holocaust during the communist era, and the subject was introduced in non-compulsory classes only in 2004 after a row with Israel. According to a 2004 report by an International Commission set up to shed light on Romania's role in the Holocaust, the Iasi pogrom was carried out under Antonescu's explicit orders that the city be cleansed of its more than 50,000 Jews.
Between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were killed by Romanian civilian and military authorities in Romania and territories it controlled during World War Two. Only 13,000 Jews now live in Romania, which was home to 750,000 before the war.