![]() ![]() The Elie Wiesel Institute said it was "disturbing that the nsiders the law that makes it illegal to name streets after war criminals merely optional," local media reported.Ĭhitac later said his comments had been distorted and insisted he wanted to change the name of the street, though it's a complicated process. Mayor Vergil Chitac was asked about the controversial figure in February, and he replied that there were "various contradictory evaluations" of Antonescu, who, he said, had "a mixed record." The remark was perhaps a reference to Antonescu's ban on the deportation of Jews to concentration camps after 1942 - to the displeasure of Nazi officials - after the reported intervention of Romania's royal family. Romania's Black Sea port of Constanta has had a Ion Antonescu Street since 2000. The Washington National Cathedral unveiled a stone carving of Holocaust survivor and longtime political activist Elie Wiesel in April. ![]() "Romania wasn't merely a Nazi ally, it was the most important ally and was involved on a significant scale - compared to other Nazi allies - in the plan to exterminate the Jewish population in Europe." "The Antonescu regime.killed the highest number of Jews in Europe after Nazi Germany," Alexandru Muraru, the Romanian government's adviser on anti-Semitism, told RFE/RL. The streets and busts exist despite a 2002 law making it illegal to honor war criminals or people connected to the country's fascist regime during World War II, when Antonescu ruled and hundreds of thousands of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews living in areas controlled by Bucharest were killed. They include Antonescu, a Holocaust perpetrator who was executed in 1946 after his conviction by a People's Tribunal for war crimes and treason, among other crimes Radu Gyr, a poet who supported a fascist paramilitary group known as the Iron Guard and far-right philosopher and politician Mircea Vulcanescu, who served in Antonescu's government. There are, in fact, at least 17 places in the country with streets, busts, or institutions named after war criminals, according to the Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the Holocaust. BUCHAREST - In late April, the Washington National Cathedral unveiled a stone carving of Holocaust survivor and longtime political activist Elie Wiesel to honor his legacy as an international human rights defender.īut in the Nobel laureate's birthplace of Romania, Nazi-allied leader Marshal Ion Antonescu - a man who sent hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths - has streets named after him. ![]()
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