Post-World War II Romanian war crime trials

Following the end of the Second World War, Romania was one of the 4 countries to be officially acknowledged as an "ally of Hitlerite Germany" by the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties (along with Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland). ^[1] The treaty of peace with Romania obliged the country to apprehend and bring to trial people accused of "war crimes and crimes against peace and humanity". ^[2]

Only 4 Romanian war criminals were executed (Ion Antonescu, Mihai Antonescu, Constantin Z. Vasiliu and Gheorghe Alexianu) and hundreds more were sentenced to prison or forced labor. ^[3] Only slightly more than 200 Romanians were sentenced by the initial postwar trials, carried out by the "People's Tribunals". Although the two courts - based in Cluj and Bucharest - sentenced 668 people, the vast majority of these were foreigners. The Cluj tribunal sentenced only 26 Romanians, the remainder being Hungarians (370), Germans (83) and Jews (2). The Bucharest tribunal sentenced only 187 people. There were more trials concerning war crimes and "crimes against peace" after the "People's Tribunals" were disbanded, however. ^{[4] [5]} Romania was the only country in Eastern Europe to initiate only a small number of court proceedings against accused war criminals and collaborators. This declaration of practically singular responsibility allowed many of those guilty of war crimes and collaboration to escape justice in postwar Romania. In Czechoslovakia and Hungary, for comparison, tens of thousands were convicted and hundreds were executed. ^[6] In Bulgaria, death sentences alone amounted to 2,618, of which 1,576 were carried out. ^[7]

The postwar regime "went easy" on the mass of genocidal antisemites, sentencing them to relatively minor punishments. Early amnesties were often granted. For example, on 1 June 1945, Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu successfully had 29 death sentences commuted by the King. Although hundreds of high-ranking officials and officers were condemned to life or lengthy prison sentences, all who did not die in prison were released between 1958 and 1962. ^[8]

Background

Under Ion Antonescu's leadership, Romania joined the Tripartite Pact on 23 November 1940 as a sovereign state, took part in Operation Barbarossa as an equal partner of Germany, and was never occupied by the Wehrmacht . Hitler respected Antonescu, who led the third largest Axis force in Europe: 585,000 Romanian troops served on the Eastern Front during June-October 1941. Although not completely a voluntary partner, Romania was a partner and not a vassal, and the country remained under the control of a native ruler. After the Armistice of Cassibile in September 1943, Romania became the second Axis power in Europe. ^[9]

Hungarian-American historian John Lukacs praised the August 1944 coup, writing: "In August 1944, the Rumanians executed the most successful coup d'etat during World War II. With an entire German Army in their midst, they turned around within twenty-four hours and proclaimed their alliance with the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States. (Again the comparison with Italy is instructive: compared to this acrobatic feat, the descendants of Machiavelli were mere bunglers.)". ^[10]

The Holocaust

Main article: The Holocaust in Romania

Iași pogrom in Romania, June 1941

Romania ranks first among Holocaust perpetrator countries other than Nazi Germany. ^[11] The Romanian Holocaust was outside the control of the Nazis. Its beginning did not require Nazi intervention, Romania being the only ally of the Third Reich that carried out its genocidal campaign without the intervention of Heinrich Himmler's SS. ^[12] The "wholesale slaughter of Jews" in Romanian-occupied Soviet territories was "a genocide operationally separate from the Nazi Final Solution". It was by far the greatest extermination of Jews by non-German forces. ^[13] Romania also rejected Nazi designs on its Jews, ultimately declining to deport Romanian Jews to the Belzec concentration camp. Nevertheless, between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews died in Romanian-controlled territories. ^[14] Romania even took the lead in the Holocaust for the first weeks of Operation Barbarossa . This was acknowledged by Adolf Hitler on 19 August 1941: "As far as the Jewish Question is concerned, it can now be stated with certainty that a man like Antonescu is pursuing much more radical policies in this area than we have so far.". The regime of Ion Antonescu had been killing Jewish women and children, clearing entire Jewish communities, while Nazi Germany was still massacring only Jewish men. ^[15] Romania was the only country other than Germany itself that "implemented all the steps of the destruction process, from definitions to killings". ^{[16] [17]}

The trials

Further information: Romanian People's Tribunals and Rehabilitation of war criminals in post-Communist Romania

"People's Tribunals"

The only postwar execution of Romanian war criminals, Jilava, 1 June 1946.

The initiative to prosecute former Romanian dignitaries came from Vladislav Vinogradov, head of the Allied Commission in Romania. On 10 October 1944, Vinogradov submitted a list of 47 suspected war criminals to be apprehended. Further lists came on 18 and 20 October, and they included pre-Antonescu officials, such as prime minister Ion Gigurtu. Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, the Communist Minister of Justice, adopted laws on the prosecution of war criminals in January 1945. The subsequent "People's Tribunals", which specifically targeted alleged war criminals, only sentenced 668 people (many of them in absentia) before their dissolution in June 1946. ^[18]

The "People's Tribunals" were set up in Romania by King Michael I's decree on 21 April 1945. They were based on the Nuremberg model and had the same four categories of indictments: conspiracy to take over the country's legal government, crimes against peace, crimes of war and crimes against humanity. Some trials were still in process when the "People's Tribunals" were disbanded on 28 June 1946, so their sentences were pronounced at a later date. Most of the 668 who were sentenced by the "People's Tribunals" were Hungarian occupiers of Northern Transylvania and their collaborators rather than Romanians under Marshal Antonescu's regime. They were judged by the Cluj-based tribunal. The other tribunal, based in Bucharest, sentenced only 187 people. The two tribunals pronounced a total of 48 death sentences, but only 4 were actually carried out. ^[19] Out of the 481 who were sentenced by the Cluj People's Tribunal, only 26 were Romanians. The remainder were Hungarians (370), Germans (83) and Jews (2). ^[20]

Stelian Popescu was sentenced for war crimes in 1945 and rehabilitated by the Supreme Court in 1995

On 8 May 1995, after the fall of Communism, 10 of the sentences pronounced by the "People's Tribunals" were overturned by the Supreme Court of Justice. They were part of the 14 war criminals convicted in the "Journalists' trial" of 1945. Only one of the ten, Pan M. Vizirescu, was in attendance when the proceedings took place. He was a cabinet director within the Propaganda Ministry. From 1940 to 23 August 1944, he was deputy director of the radio-journal of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company. Regarding his conviction, Vizirescu stated: "Knowing that this Court [the People's Court] was a terrorist organization and that the judges were mere terrorist agents, I chose not to go. I had this conscience of the truth, because they had no right to judge us - it should have been the other way around. I am now satisfied of being declared innocent and I will face God in all peace, for I was not guilty.". Attorney General Vasile Manea Drăgulin presented the convictions decided upon in 1945 as illegal, believing the interpretation of the evidence to have been “retroactive, truncated, and tendentious”, therefore amounting to a “conviction decision, whose content is a synthesis of vehement criticism of their activity, to which we forcefully ascribed the character of war crimes”. The most notorious name in this lot was likely that of Nichifor Crainic. An ardent pro-fascist and admirer of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, he was vice-president of the National Christian Party and then Antonescu's Minister of Propaganda. Crainic was also among the 10 who were rehabilitated and he was welcomed back into the Romanian Academy. Stelian Popescu and Romulus Dianu were also among the 10 who were rehabilitated, while Radu Gyr was among the remaining 4 who weren't. ^{[21] [22]}

Prime Minister Ion Gigurtu, Antonescu's predecessor, was also rehabilitated in 1999. ^[23]

Subsequent trials

After the "People's Tribunals" were liquidated in 1946, trials associated with "crimes against peace" and other war-related charges continued in the following years. Law No. 291 of 1947, on the basis of which these trials were conducted, ruled out executions. It stipulated sentences ranging from 15 years to life imprisonment. ^[24] For instance, at least 8 members of Ion Antonescu's government were sentenced in 1949 for "crimes against peace", although one of them was rehabilitated by the Supreme Court on 26 October 1998. Gheron Netta, Antonescu's last Finance Minister (1 April to 23 August, 1944), was also sentenced for "crimes against peace". He was rehabilitated on 17 January 2000 by the same court. ^{[25] [26]} At least two war criminals were sentenced in 1953, Radu Dinulescu ("the Eichmann of Romania") and Gheorghe Petrescu, his deputy. They were rehabilitated by the Supreme Court in 1998 and 1999, respectively. Ion Pănescu, former commander of the Chernivtsi airport, was acquitted in 2004 by the General Prosecutor's Office. ^[27]

References

1. Claus Kreß, Robert Lawless, Oxford University Press, Nov 30, 2020, Necessity and Proportionality in International Peace and Security Law, p. 450
2. United States, Department of State, 1968, Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949: Multilateral, 1946-1949, p. 405
3. Baumel Judith Tydor Laqueur Walter, Walter Laqueur, Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, Yale University Press, Jan 1, 2001, The Holocaust Encyclopedia, p. 580
4. Roni Stauber, Routledge, Sep 13, 2010, Collaboration with the Nazis: Public Discourse After the Holocaust, pp. 246-247
5. International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, Tuvia Friling, Polirom, 2005, Final Report, Volume 1, p. 314
6. Stefano Bottoni, Indiana University Press, Oct 19, 2017, Long Awaited West: Eastern Europe since 1944, pp. 22-23
7. Benjamin Frommer, Cambridge University Press, 2005, National Cleansing: Retribution Against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia, p. 91
8. Radu Ioanid, Ivan R. Dee, Feb 18, 2008, The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944, p. 287
9. David Stahel, Cambridge University Press, 2018, Joining Hitler's Crusade, pp. 77-78
10. John Lukacs, University of Missouri Press, 1994, Destinations Past: Traveling Through History with John Lukacs, p. 117
11. Manus I. Midlarsky, Cambridge University Press, Mar 17, 2011, Origins of Political Extremism: Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, p. 297
12. Henry Eaton, Wayne State University Press, May 2013, The Origins and Onset of the Romanian Holocaust
13. Stanley G. Payne, University of Wisconsin Pres, Jan 1, 1996, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945, p. 396
14. Ion Popa, Indiana University Press, Sep 11, 2017, The Romanian Orthodox Church and the Holocaust, p. 30
15. Maksim Goldenshteyn, University of Oklahoma Press, Jan 20, 2022, So They Remember: A Jewish Family’s Story of Surviving the Holocaust in Soviet Ukraine, p. 8
16. David Sorkin, Princeton University Press, 14 sept. 2021, Jewish Emancipation: A History Across Five Centuries, p. 302
17. Peter Stenberg, University of Toronto Press, 1991, Journey to Oblivion: The End of the East European Yiddish and German Worlds in the Mirror of Literature, p. 135
18. Liesbeth van de Grift, Lexington Books, 2012, Securing the Communist State: The Reconstruction of Coercive Institutions in the Soviet Zone of Germany and Romania, 1944-1948, pp. 111-112
19. Roni Stauber, Routledge, Sep 13, 2010, Collaboration with the Nazis: Public Discourse After the Holocaust, pp. 246-247
20. International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, Tuvia Friling, Polirom, 2005, Final Report, Volume 1, p. 314
21. Andrei Muraru, "Elie Wiesel” Institute`s Journal, 2020, Outrageous Rehabilitations: Justice and Memory in the Attempts to Restore the War Criminals’ Remembrance in Post-Holocaust Romania. The Recent Case of General Nicolae Macici (I) in Holocaust. Studii şi cercetări / Holocaust. Study and Research, vol. XII, issue 1(13), pp. 345-348
22. Alexandru Florian, Indiana University Press, Jan 24, 2018, Holocaust Public Memory in Postcommunist Romania, pp. 73, 79 and 93-94
23. Wolfgang Benz, Brigitte Mihok, Metropol, 2009, Holocaust an der Peripherie: Judenpolitik und Judenmord in Rumänien und Transnistrien 1940-1944, p. 204
24. Roni Stauber, Routledge, Sep 13, 2010, Collaboration with the Nazis: Public Discourse After the Holocaust, p. 247
25. Henry F. Carey, Lexington Books, 2004, Romania Since 1989: Politics, Economics, and Society, p. 75
26. David Singer, American Jewish Committee, 2001, American Jewish Year Book 2001, Volume 101, p. 430
27. Alexandru Florian, Indiana University Press, Jan 24, 2018, Holocaust Public Memory in Postcommunist Romania, pp. 73, 76-77, 102