Jewish resistance to "romanianization", 1940-44

In: Palgrave studies in the history of Genocide

Abstract

"In order to create a productive middle class part of an ideal society based on ethno-nationalism, the Antonescu regime (1940-1944) pursued Romanianization - a policy of excluding 'foreigners,' especially Jews and Roma/Gypsies from the economic sphere through property and business seizure and exclusion from employment. Taking an inter-disciplinary approach and drawing on a variety of official and personal documents, Ionescu investigates Romanianization and the patterns of responses to that policy by gentile and Jewish inhabitants of Bucharest. Ionescu argues that, though by the end of the Antonescu regime Romanianization had taken a harsh toll on Jews and Roma - houses had been expropriated, owners evicted, building and companies sold to gentiles, and employees fired - the authorities had failed to achieve complete Romanianization of real estate, businesses, and jobs. A crucial reason for this failure was the illegal (sabotage) and legal resistance conducted by Jews and Roma"--