Where Are the Jews in Post-Holocaust Cluj (Kolozsvar

The Jews of Romania and Hungary who returned home from the Holocaust faced a series of difficulties among which we single out: to resume property of their houses and goods; a poor state of health after the deportation; the vast majority of them were in no shape to make a living. They oscillated between integration in the societies created by the communists, and immigration to Israel whenever the communist regimes from these two countries were more permissive. They were rather victims of the communist regimes, their expectations were not met in the communist states and the ones who managed to get out had lost all their assets, apartments, and jobs when they applied for emigration.

The present paper brings new information about the situation of Jews of Romania in the time of Holocaust and its aftermath (the years of transition to communism and the first years after the setting of communism). It appears that the Jews from Transnistria were deprived by their fundamental rights under the leadership of Ion Antonescu and many of them were killed in their interaction with Romanian military forces. After the war, the surviving Jews have the right to adjust to the communist regime, and to integrate in the communist state, but they have to close their organizations and the ties with Israel were considered as dangerous, although they continued to dream and search ways for emigration.

2012

Holocaust. Studii şi cercetări / Holocaust. Study and Research, 2015

A long list of laws, decisions, and decrees with impact on the Jewish population of Romania has been enacted between 1940 and 1944. Moreover, brutal actions towards the Jews, violent pogroms, and significant isolations, ghettoizations, and deportations took place throughout that period. Their impact made the subject of a considerable number of researches and studies. In this study, I am particularly interested in presenting the results of a research that investigated the impact on the Jewish life in Bucharest and on how the Jewish community responded to all that. I am particularly interested in seeing how that is reflected in the diaries that focused on the period in question. Through their personal and informal approaches, those diaries bring to the public a complementary understanding of the topic. From bringing charity under the form of food or medical assistance to making use of their official positions and approaching the state leaders, the Jewish leaders tried to cover as much as possible from the personal to the professional life of the community members.

2012

Jewish population of Romania represents one of the most interesting and complex ethnic group that inhabited Romanian land from centuries ago. Their history is linked to the Romanian history, with a period of almost 2,000 years of cohabitation in this part of Europe. The evolution of this ethnic group was heavily influenced by the migratory movement. Having a low birth rate, the immigration represented in almost every historical period the base of population evolution for Jews. More than any other ethnic group, the Jewish population of Romania travelled in or out our country starting with the beginning of our millennium until today. From this very large period of time, the 19th and 20th century represented “the tip of the ice”, the period that influenced the numeric evolution for good. This article tries to present just this important and complex period in the life of Romanian Jews and mostly, the changes that took place during the 19th and 20th century. Also, the motives and general...

Nationalities Papers

In 1941, thousands of Jews from the regions of Bukovina and Bessarabia were deported to ghettos and camps in Romanian-occupied Transnistria to join local Ukranian Jews and other deportees. This article is a case study of the Shargorod ghetto, one of the largest ghettos in Transnistria, that reveals how individuals interned there, and in similar ghettos, survived despite their different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds. An examination based on regions allows for a better understanding of the diverse Jewish communities in Romania and how these differences influenced the lives of local Jews and deportees during the formidable years in Shargorod. Their major successes, as well as their failures, present a picture of entangled community identity in the face of disease, starvation, and forced labor. The survival of the Jewish population of Shargorod from 1941 to 1944 is analyzed through the selection of leadership by the ghetto inhabitants (specifically, Meier Teich’s role as gh...

The study presents a foray into the historical writing concerning the history of the Jews from Romania and Hungary during the years 1945- 1953. Attempting to draw a picture of the historical writings of this field, the analysis reveals a framework of living conditions of the Jews from Romania and Hungary in early postwar years. The research constitutes itself in an ongoing theory- driven evaluation of the publications existent in this field, the author formulating also a few policy recommendations