Monument in Front of the Choral Temple

Monumentul de Templul Coral

In 1991, a monument in front of the Choral Temple in Bucharest, one of the largest synagogues in the city, was dedicated to the Romanian victims of the Holocaust. It is primarily dedicated to the Jews of Bucharest who were killed in the pogrom of January 1941 or who were deported to Transnistria in 1942.

History

In 1941, about 102,000 Jews lived in Bucharest, among them many refugees from other parts of Romania, who had sought refuge from the growing Romanian anti-Semitism in a larger Jewish community. In January 1941, the Iron Guard, which was part of the government led by General Ion Antonescu, attempted a military coup in order to take complete control of the government. Days of chaos and riots ensued, while members of the Iron Guard specifically targeted Bucharest Jews in their violence: Jews were arrested and abused, synagogues and Jewish property destroyed. During the pogrom of January 20 to 24, 1941, about 120 Jews died in Bucharest. The Choral Temple – as many other synagogues – was severely damaged. After the revolt had been suppressed, Antonescu's government introduced harsher anti-Jewish policies: from autumn 1941 on, many Jewish men were drafted for forced labour, and in 1942, Romanian authorities deployed over 28,000 Jewish men in labour detachments. Hundreds of Jews were deported from Bucharest to Transnistria, the Romanian-occupied part of Ukraine, where they had to live in catastrophic conditions in ghettos and camps and conduct forced labour.
When it became foreseeable that the Axis powers would eventually lose the war, Antonescu's government changed its strategy towards the end of 1943: contrary to previous plans, the Romanian Jews were not handed over the the Germans. Those who had been deported to Transnistria could return to their homes from the end of 1943 on, as had been demanded by the Jewish communities. In August 1944, in anticipation of the invasion of the Red Army, Antonescu was ousted from power by King Michael I. Romania changed sides and became an ally of the Soviet Union.

Bucharest, undated, Historical view of the Choral Temple, Yad Vashem

Bucharest, 2006, Choral Temple with memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Roland Ibold

Victims

A majority of the Jews of Bucharest survived the Holocaust due to the fact that Romania did not hand the Jews over to the Germans as had been planned, and instead becoming an ally of the Soviet Union after a regime change. At least 120 Bucharest Jews perished in the pogrom of January 1941. Thousands of Jewish men were drafted for forced labour, several hundred Jews were deported to Transnistria. It is not known exactly how many Jews from Bucharest died there.
In total, about 285,000 of the Jews who had lived in Romania before the Second World War perished in the Holocaust.

The Kingdom of Romania was politically unstable in the interwar period and threatened by territorial claims from its neighbours. The country sought an alliance with National Socialist Germany but the Nazi leaders in Berlin chose to support Hungary, Bulgaria and their temporary ally, the Soviet Union over the border issue. Romania had to agree to surrender large parts of its territory to these states during 1940. This led to increased radicalisation within the country. King Karl (1893–1953) granted unrestricted authority to General Ion Antonescu (1882–1946) but then had to abdicate to allow his son Michael (1921–2017) to come to the throne. The right-wing extremist »Garda de Fier« (Iron Guard), which was allied with Antonescu, immediately began to persecute the Jews. In 1941 Romania took part in the German attack on the Soviet Union. Romania organised the deportation of up to 155,000 Jews and 25,000 Roma from Bukovina and Bessarabia to the occupied Ukrainian territory of »Transnistria«. Tens of thousands died as a result of mass murder, imprisonment, forced labour, starvation and illness. Meanwhile, the Jews in northern Transylvania (part of Hungary since 1940) were subject to the anti-semitic legislation in this region. However, the majority were spared any violent persecution until the Wehrmacht invaded in 1944. The SS now began to deport Jews to Auschwitz in cooperation with the Hungarian authorities. The total number of murdered Romanian Jews is thus spread over various territories: 50,000 Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina along with 20,000 Jews from central Romania were murdered and around 120,000 Transylvanian Jews died under the Hungarian-German occupation. In August 1944, the Red Army offensive caused Romania to change sides. Michael I stripped Antonescu of his powers and the country came under Soviet control. The dictator was executed in 1946 and the king abdicated the following year. In the initial post-war period memory focused on liberation by the Red Army. A monument to the fallen Soviet soldiers was built in Bucharest. Romania’s alliance with Germany was ignored. Under Nicolae Ceausescu (1918–1989), who ruled the country with his secret service from 1965, the »liberation from the yoke of fascism« was presented as the achievement of Romanian heroes. With the end of the Ceausescu regime in 1989 many Romanians preferred to adopt a contrary approach: the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 was now more frequently viewed as a campaign against Bolshevism. There was growing admiration for Antonescu. In contrast, for some Romanians the king, now living in exile, became increasingly important as a symbol of democracy as he had toppled the dictator and was later expelled by the communists. There was no place for the Holocaust in post-war memory. Most survivors had already left the country by the 1950s. Memory was left to the Jewish communities, which established a small research centre in 1977 and a small museum in Bucharest the following year as well as a number of memorials. In 2004 a committee was set up to research the Holocaust and Romanian crimes. The committee was led by Elie Wiesel (1928–2016), a Romanian-born Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner. A National Institute has continued the research since 2005. In 2009, a central Holocaust memorial was inaugurated in Bucharest that also honours the Roma who had been deported to Transnistria. However, apart from this sign, there is still little remembrance to the more than 12,500 Romanian Roma murdered during the war.

Remembrance

The Choral Temple, which was severely damaged during the pogrom of 1941, was renovated already in 1945. That same year, the synagogue served as a hospital and as temporary housing for Jewish refugees from Romania and Hungary. Later, the synagogue was once again used for religious services. In 1947, about 150,000 Jews lived in Bucharest, many of them refugees. In the following years, many Jews emigrated to Israel, and the Jewish community shrank significantly. By the year 2000, there were only about 3,500 Jews living in Bucharest.
In 1991, after the collapse of the communist regime, the Jewish community set up a monument to the victims of the Holocaust on the square in front of the Choral Temple. It was one of the first Holocaust memorials in Bucharest. The monument consists of a bronze menorah mounted on a pedestal. Memorial plaques documenting the numbers of victims from the different regions of Romania have been affixed to a wall in the synagogue courtyard.

Bucharest, June 1945, Jewish refugees and survivors sleep in front of the Choral Temple, Yad Vashem

Bucharest, 2006, Monument and memorial wall, Stiftung Denkmal, Roland Ibold

Contact

+40 (0)21 3131782

Strada Sfânta Vineri 9-11
Bukarest

Bucharest, 2006, Memorial wall with the numbers of victims on the square in front of the synagogue, Stiftung Denkmal, Roland Ibold

Bucharest, 2006, Menorah in front of the Choral Temple in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, Stiftung Denkmal, Roland Ibold

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