Posted on October 10, 2019 at 11:26 am

By Carolyn Yeager

President Klaus Iohannis announced on Tuesday (Oct. 8) his official approval for the creation of the country’s first Holocaust museum in Bucharest, Romania’s capital. He said in a ceremony attended by ‘holocaust survivors’:

“The history of Jewish Romanians, their contribution to the country’s development and the tragedy experienced during the war… represent a legacy which was hidden from us for decades.”

He added: “This museum will not so much bring answers as raise more questions.” He said the goal was to recover the memory of the Holocaust [or maybe to invent it where necessary?]; strengthen the education about the Holocaust, and combat anti-Semitism [oh yes, that too – the actual main goal]. The museum will take up space in a WWII era eight-story building in central Bucharest.

Elie Wiesel behind the museum plan

The new museum will be coordinated by the Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, a “think tank” created by Wiesel and his handlers in 2005. Wiesel claims to have been born in Sighet, Hungary in 1928, which is now part of Romania. In 2004 an international panel led by Elie Wiesel estimated that between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews perished from territories under Romanian administration from a total of 750,000. It also found 11,000 Roma were killed. For reliability of Elie Wiesel Institute facts and figures, see “Elie Wiesel Institute Wrong on Romanian Grave Claims.” Also, previous story here.

Elie Wiesel died in 2016.

Only 3,200 (admitted) Jews still live in Romania, according to the last census in 2011; other sources say 8,000 to 10,000. [Jews moved to New York where the living is better. Thousands of others changed their identity to Christian and remain in Romania officially undetected.]

Romania switched sides in the world war in 1944. The government was originally strongly allied with the victorious Germany, but when the tide turned, the Romanian army deserted and opportunistically, with all their German weapons and gear, went over to the Allies. Romania was therefore under Soviet communist control for the next 45 years, remaining a backward, dreary and corrupt country. That was in large part what drove so many Jews to leave. They want communism for Gentiles, but not for themselves.