TBUCHAREST,
Romania -- The Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized Israeli
President Shimon Peres on Friday for thanking Romania for
saving Jews, saying he should have condemned the Romanian
state for the tens of thousands of Jews who were killed there
during World War II.
On Thursday, Peres publicly thanked Romania for helping
400,000 Romanian Jews emigrate to Israel during the communist
regime that ended in 1989. Peres did that while making the
first visit to Romania by an Israeli head of state since
1948 when Israel was formed.
Peres was speaking at a news conference with Romanian President
Traian Basescu, who said that Romania would be a loyal partner
of Israel and NATO, if there was a conflict with Iran. During
that event, Peres did not mention Romania's role in the Holocaust.
In 2004, a historical commission set up to study the Holocaust
in Romania found the country was responsible for the deaths
of 280,000 Jews and 11,000 Roma during the Second World War
under the regime of pro-Nazi Marshal Ion Antonescu.
On Friday, Efraim Zuroff, the Israel director of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, issued a statement essentially saying
Peres should have mentioned this.
"His failure to condemn the horrific crimes of the
Antonescu regime against the Jewish people are likely to
have very dire consequences, especially in Romania and elsewhere
in Eastern Europe, where there is a growing tendency in post-Communist
societies to deny or minimize the highly significant role
played by local Nazi collaborators in the annihilation of
the Jews," said Zuroff, who also is a Holocaust historian.
During that time, Romanian administrators allowed the nation
to become "a gigantic killing field for Jews," said
Zuroff, whose center is the world's major Nazi-hunting organization.
On Friday, Peres made a comment while visiting the Holocaust
memorial in Bucharest that appeared to address
Speaking in Hebrew, the Israeli president acknowledged that
there was a "cruel and unfair" time in Romania
during World War II "when men, women and innocent children
were killed for the fault of being Jewish" at the hands
of "Romanian assassins."
But he also said Romania is a totally different today, a
free and democratic nation that respects human rights.
washingtonpost.com
|