ANTISEMITISMUL LEGIONARILOR CODRENIŞTI - FOŞTI DEŢINUŢI POLITICI
THE ANTI-SEMITISM OF CODREANU ZELEA’S LEGIONARIES. EX-POLITICAL PRISONERS

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this study is to present how Codreanu Zelea’s group of legionaries, ex-political prisoners, found ways to hide their anti-Semitic beliefs in order to survive, or to cover it in such manner that allowed them to re-enter and continue playing the political game of that time. Besides being legionaries, they were also ex-political prisoners, and this particular status gave them a rather common feature amongst those who belonged to a democratic order that is first of all an anticommunist one. If we are to follow the norms of the democratic order after 1989, and try to create a symbolic image of a certain social-cultural environment, we have to reconsider and reanalyze the anti-Semitism phenomenon. Thus, when we try to place anti-Semitism within the general picture of the legionaries we have to consider the unity of the group’s memory and the type if techniques they use to communicate with the other competitive formations (the Simist groups and later the “terrific children” of the new generation) in order to acquire monopole and deepen their roots into the democratic interwar political order. They are anti-Semites in a time when the number of Jews in Romania is very low, but they are driven by old fears. They are people burdened by so many “debts” that they cannot but behave under the influence of their past. Deep down inside they truly believe that the country can be rebuilt only by totally eliminating the Jewish danger; even though they are now under the fourth regime they still long for the first one. Their speech is no longer so virulent but more domestic, due to the regime’s attitude regarding The Legion and its anti-Semitism, and the mechanisms behind the speech transmit the same message, the same fears.

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