backThe Holocaust Commemoration Day in Romania
This is the message of our EJP Member in Romania Maximillian Marco Katz:
“Today, October 9th Romania is commemorating The Holocaust Day in Romania. Before the WWII there were 790000 Jews in Romania and after the war almost half of them were gone during the war, until August 23rd, 1944, Romania, led by Marshal Ion Antonescu, was an ally of the Nazi Germany. Another day when we remember why the existence of the State of Israel is essential for the Jewish people. I have to mention the efforts made by the Romanian Government for preserving the memory of the Holocaust and of the Holocaust Victims. Romania officially recognized and assumed, since 2008, full responsability for the crimes committed against the Jews by the WWII Romanian regime. In the same year, 2008, the Monument of the Holocaust, Romanian Holocaust Memorial, a project which I personally proposed, in 2003, to be built in Bucharest, was inaugurated. This is the place where on each October 9th, the Romanian authorities are commemorating the Holocaust Day. The Memorial is administrated by the “Ellie Wiesel” National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania. These days, Romania is implementing a National Strategy for Combating Antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Starting with 2023, all the high school students in Romania, are studying “The History of the Jews, Holocaust”. Also the project Marsurile Memoriei – Marches of Memory which I lead since 2019 together with proffesor (of history) Dita Nicolae from the Colegiul National “Matei Basarab” (National College) is gaining momentum. Today, a group of 60 high school Romanian students and their teachers will visit, for the first time, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum , in Poland. Since 2019, four such groups visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hopefully, in the future, we will add to this project another major WWII extermination camp.