Erasing Memory. The Destruction of Old Jewish Cemeteries in Bucharest and Iași during Ion Antonescu’s Regime
Erasing Memory. The Destruction of Old Jewish Cemeteries in Bucharest and Iași during Ion Antonescu’s Regime

Summary/Abstract: This study explores one of the facets of the Holocaust in Romania which was meant as a follow-up to the physical extermination of the Jews: the destruction of the Jewish communal heritage. In 1942-1944, the regime of Ion Antonescu planned the obliteration of two of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Romania, the Sevastopol Street cemetery of Bucharest and the Ciurchi cemetery of Iași. In both cases, there is documentary evidence that the order for decommissioning the cemeteries was issued by the head of state. The regime made it look as if this brutal measure had the appearance of legality, forcing Jewish communities in Bucharest and in Iași to give their formal consent. The decommissioning of the cemeteries entailed the destruction of gravestones that testified to the old age of Jewish communities in the Romanian territory. These were an important source for studying the early history of the Jews in Romania. Community leaders organized themselves in order to limit the scale of the disaster and to comply with religious tenets during the transport and reburial of the human remains.

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