Aryanization Bureaucrats in Post-Holocaust Romania

Authors

Stefan Cristian Ionescu, Chapman UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-19-2023

Abstract

This article investigates the post-war life trajectories and careers of eight Aryanization (»Romanianization«) bureaucrats who were involved in the persecution and dispossession of Jews during the pro-Nazi Antonescu regime (September 1940–August 1944). While many of them were removed from the civil service, became unemployed, went into hiding, or were arrested, others thrived – at least temporarily – thanks to their skilful navigation of the post-Antonescu transition, their highlevel connections with the political establishment, and the ability to claim certain merits for their behavior before August 1944, either as victims of or by resisting against the Antonescu regime. However, most of these opportunistic bureaucrats were successful only in the short term; eventually their past caught up with them, and they were imprisoned by the communist authorities or had to flee the country to escape arrest. The article shows that the communist revolution was not as radical as the communist leaders liked to boast and that it did not immediately bring a complete transformation of the state, its institutions, and employees holding crucial positions. Especially during the first post-war transitional years, the connections between the two ideologically different authoritarian regimes – fascist and communist – continued on various levels, including the bureaucratic one.

Comments

This article was originally published in Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History, volume 31, in 2023. https://doi.org/10.12946/rg31/092-108

Recommended Citation

Ionescu, Stefan Cristian, Aryanization Bureaucrats in Post-Holocaust Romania, in: Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History Rg 31 (2023) 92-108, online: https://doi.org/10.12946/rg31/092-108

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

The authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.