How is WWII seen in Romania?

I was just thinking, I live in the UK and we have a certain view of the Second World War, which is something like, in very simple terms:

Germany was mainly responsible for starting it, because Hitler was very evil, and then the Germans were defeated by the Allies and the resistance, which represented a big victory for democracy over tyranny.

The Nazis were very evil and brutal, and also killed 6,000,000 jews, that is why fighting them was a just thing to do.

This is obviously very simplified, but probably covers a lot of the main points. How is the war generally seen among Romanians?

I noticed in some of the other threads that people from the West seem to argue about these things from a different point of view, there seems to be more sympathy for the Germans...any ideas?

The simpathy for the germans might be reflected by the hatred for the soviet neighbor and the subsequent communist. people have wondered: what if...if you know what i mean.

also, the level of idiocy in the education here is so vast that you will hardly find a person under 20 to even KNOW about it. this forum has 1000 members let's say. three quarters of them are either from outside, or just ask a quastion or two and then leave....so you get a few hundreds of people that have a clue about the whole event. and do not be mistaken by old people knowing about it. all old soldiers i have spoken with are so spitefull about the whole leadership back then and about the way they are forced to survive nowadays, meaning : nobody caring about them, nobody listening to their stories, the romanian state actually ignoring them completly...that i do not even think they have a opinion about it anymore. jsut glad they survived it, i guess.

i do not knwo how it is there, here it is all comsumerist mediocre tabloid infotainment. nobody cares, the history books are reducing the subject each year, nodoby is interested except about $, so the whole WW2 thing is something that happened soooo long ago that is not important anymore.

the only reason that some people are angry about the fact that we sided with the germans is because we lost. that is it. many say that we should have stayed alllied with the germans, other say the opposite...do not expect strong opinions about the whole thing. if you have noticed, not even in tjis forum people are not interested about the bigger picture. mostly is it about hardware, what if's and stories about this or that. there are no morality threads since they would inevitably turn red hot and they would be closed down.

you will more likely find a foreigner to say things like : hitler was evil! i do not know why? maybe your media system was more insistent on that so the west needed not think about it since the stereotype was already laid out for them. i do not know about the press here saying that, since most of the time we sided with him and afterwards we were too disorganised to care anymore. britain never had a invasion on her territory in the war. we had 2, from both directions...so people were more eager to get their lives back in order rather that sipp their tea and read the nespaper and mutter: oh Hitler, that chap was soo bloody evil!! i do not say this in a bad way, do not take it as an insult, i am just trying to picture how it was. plus, Hitler here was evil by default, since that was the official view from the soviet part. think about it: if a bully comes to you, punches you in the stomach on a daily basis and tells you that orange juice is bad for you, i tell you, even if you hate the damn drink, you will start to wonder. it is a natural reaction.

but about the bigger picture, have no illusions. i do not think there are 1000 people in romania actually knowing a lot about the subject. the rest is all personal opinion, and one knows how that fickle that can be....

Saudades...

I don't think it was as clear an issue even in the UK. If I remember correctly, even after the invasion of Poland, it took some serious arm-twisting and loud-mouthing from Churchill's "posse" to get the UK to declare war.

A good portion of the British population itself was against war, and a part of them had pro-German feelings.

I was thinking of the view of the war in the UK nowadays.

It is true that at the time many people were against the war, there were a fair few British Fascist even, and many aristocrats and wealthy people were pro-Hitler or pro-Mussolini. Churchill used to call Mussolini 'the Roman genius', for example.

Thanks for giving such a comprehensive reply.

I thought there might be more sympathy in Romania for Germany because of the Soviet occupation.

Our education system here is not so bad about the war, but mainly it is things about air raid shelters and rationing/growing cabbages in your garden that you learn at school. Hitler and the Nazis is also a favourite with school children.

Other wider stuff lacks, often, I am always worried that many of my friends, who all went to university with me, don't really have any idea that communism existed, or what it, or socialism is, so, when they talk about Eastern European countries they don't see any reason for them not being as developed as Western European countries. One girl I talked to a while ago told me that Ceaucescu was a fascist, which I found interesting.

Lots of British people are however very interested in the world wars, the stories veterans tell, etc. and the government has been trying to collect as many as possible. There are also lots of television programs related to the war and history. Sometimes the quality isn't really high but the interest still is there. It is a shame Romanian soldiers were neglected, it might make a big hole in your nations history in the future.

There seems to be more interest here, but you do get lots of tabloid stuff too.
Thinking about the bigger picture, and history, I started thinking about a book I have, which says about this:

''Tis time to observe occurences, and let nothing remarkable escape us; the supinity of elder dayes hath left so much in silence, or time hath so martyred the records, that the most industrious heads do finde no easie work to erect a new britannia.

'Tis opportune to look back upon old times, and contemplate our forefathers. Great examples grow thin, and to be fetched from the passed world. Simplicity flies away, and inquity comes at long strides upon us. We have enough to do to make up ourselves from present and passed times, and the whole stage of things scarce serveth for our instruction. A compleat peece of vertue must be made up from the centos of all ages, as all the beauties of Greece could but make one handsome venus.'

This I think is well put, it is by a man called Thomas Browne, in his book 'Hydriotaphia or Urne Buriall', London 1658.

Perhaps you would also like the books by a German author called W.G. Sebald, he writes well about the links between history and the present, the Rings of Saturn, or Austerlitz, they are both good books.

Here is a relevant excerpt from the final chapter of Romania in World War II 1941-1945, ISOSIM, 1997:


"Romania’s drama

Romania’s drama consisted of the necessity of fighting successively beside two totalitarian states, in order to take back the lost territories as a result of isolation in which Romania was thrown by the previous agreements concluded between them (Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact). Yet, the Romanian sacrifices didn’t get the deserved recognition. At the Peace Conference the status of cobelligerent was refused to Romania by USSR, USA and Great Britain, although the analysts and commentators considered that Romanian’s joining the antihitlerite coalition side shortened the end of the war with about 6 months. The only positive thing for Romania in the Peace Treaty of February 10, 1947 was the recognition of the Romanian-Hungarian frontier as it was prior to the Dictate of Vienna.

In the final stage of the Second World War, Romania was included within the Soviet influence area and was abandoned by Great Britain and USA; known as a proof of the progressive harmfulness of Soviet influence was the fact that on 7th of March 1945 Moscow’s emissaries transmitted to the representatives of the Romanian Communist Party the plan of Romania’s communization during the next three years.

A new historical perception

In the light of post-war decades, the victory on the 9th of May 1945 over Hitler’s Germany seems to be less bright that it was viewed that time. All people now recognize that fascism was one of the most abominable ideologies within humanity’s history. The contempt to the individual and the “inferior races” generated a monstrous system of extermination of those considered to be enemies or “not able” to integrate themselves to the new order imposed by Hitler. The system of labor camps, the “death factories” which worked inside them, the Holocaust, which made millions of innocent victims showed the deep ill-fated character of fascism, especially its Nazi variant. The fight against Nazi Germany mobilized hundreds of millions people from free or occupied countries or controlled by Wehrmacht. Within the sphere of hegemony of the Third Reich, the resistance movement knew unprecedented proportions by that time within the effort of liberation from under the foreign occupant. A negative corpse inside the world organism – the fascism – provoked a repulsive reaction which had the character of an unprecedented coalition in the history.

Unfortunately, this coalition was too late constituted in order to hinder the break out of the war by Hitler’s Germany. In the historiography of the big conflict of 1939 – 1945, the Swedish researcher Walther Hoffer insisted to focus the attention to the correct definition used for the beginning of the Second World War, that is not to be – in his opinion – “break out”, but “unleashment”, in order to underline the deliberate character of the great conflagration’s origin: Hitler wanted, prepared and unleashed the war. By that time, however before the Poland’s aggression (the 1st of September 1939), Hitler committed several violations of the Treaty of Versailles and of the European status-quo, without being punished with the deserved sanctions: the introduction of compulsory military service (the 16th of March 1935), the remilitarization of Rhenania (the 7th of March 1936), the annexation of Austria (the 12th of March 1938).

Those powers designed to guarantee the Versailles Treaty – France and Great Britain – not only didn’t react to the defense of international legality, but engaged themselves (especially Great Britain) into a diplomacy of appeasement as related to Germany, which started with the German-British Naval Agreement (the 29th of September 1938). The Anglo-French “appeasement” encouraged aggressive Reich’s politics and led in the end to the failure of the attempts of creating some viable structures of collective security in Europe.

In the same period, the Soviet Union’s politics proved duplicity: on one hand, it declared that want to take part in the settlement of a collective security system, on the other, it tried to establish an agreement with Nazi Germany and prepared the Red Army for a future great war.

Convinced that anticommunist rhetoric is more profitable to the Reich, because this was good to ensure the goodwill of the West, Hitler didn’t answer to Moscow’s appeals until 1939, when once the international situation get worsened, the two totalitarian regimes engaged themselves into negotiations which lead to Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact. The political-military events after the end of the Second World War proved that only a common effort of all states – being on real equality balance (not only declared) would hinder a military conflict, launched by a country whose leaders wanted to impose their domination upon other nations.

Finally, it must be mentioned that the Second World War, although it made something really good to humanity through the annihilation of fascism, created the pre-requisites for the extension, in Europe and Asia, of an ill-fated totalitarianism – the communism. That’s why the 9th of May 1945, the Victory Day, as it is celebrated nowadays, must be evaluated in the light of this double aspect, of victory and defeat of liberty and democracy."

I remember reading that to some right wingers in Romania, they still see Antonescu well, but the modern Romanian government has banned glorifcation of him. Well, if Romania sees the Soviets as still the aggressor and the 'bad guys', I have no problem with that. After all, didn't the Soviets aggress Europe after the Ribbentrop Molotv pact, andcommit a steady stream of atrocities across Eastern Europe as they marched? The so called "great patriotic war" was just a step in Bolshevism's war against the West and Christianity. If it wasn't for the Wehrmacht, etc holding the line so hard in 1944 and 1945, more of Europe would fall into the hands of the Soviets before the Western Allies could liberate more territories from German occupation, and the Cold war would have been very different.

While Nazism killed in their millions and glorification of it is wrong, the Soviets (Communism) killed in their tens of millions, which makes glorification of them just as wrong.

This post is not meant to excuse Axis crimes in any way.

K

Well, you can still find this in Romania:

Hallo Gentlemen,


So whats the answer, with regards the monuments destroy every Soviet memorial, erase all trace of their exsistence, when you start denying your own countrys involvment with history, then you are living a lie.

The Soviets were helpful in helping get rid of the NAZI menece, that is a fact.

The countries who had the most to lose were the ones who were occupied by the Soviets during and after WW2 and some countries who had been on both sides, and were never fully trusted by the Soviets.

History has shown that there was people who had strong beliefs in Faschism and Communisum, (starting with the Civil War in Spain) in many European countries.

And we know there are still believers out there today, who adore the old ways still, its human nature, despite the rights or wrongs of their beliefs.

Last year at a Expo in Targu Mures, I observed a young Romanian guy of about 25, dressed in American "Choclate Chip" Desert Camo uniform (with red boots!!), on one arm he displayed a tattoo of Adolf Hitler's head, and on the other arm a tatto of an Nazi Iron Cross complete with Swastika, both were very proffesionaly done.

One can only hope that the world is learning from past mistakes.

Kevin in Deva

The bottom line is, if monuments adorned with the Sickle & Hammer are allowed, then similar war monuments sporting the Swastika should be allowed, too.

Since this is impossible, due to the current law, then all the Communists symbols on Soviet monuments should also be erased, just as the Nazi symbols were, because both represent totalitarian regimes.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on August 27, 2006 08:09 pm

Dear Denes,

as much as I respect your reply, the subject is a double edged sword, the monuments were erected to honour the deeds of the men who died freeing Europe from the Nazi's.

Of course the right course of action would be to remove all the Communist logos and signs, without totaly destroying the monument to the memory of the soldiers who died in WW2.

Maybe at some stage in the near future the Romanian Government might allow funds for this to take place, but I fear it will be a sledge-hammer job, I think the men who died fighting at least deserve to have the memory of their names retained, so as their ultimate sacrifices are not forgotton.

We are all now wiser of the fact that Joseph Stalin was the cause of more Russian and Soviet States citizens deaths, than the Germans, but at the time of the end of WW2 this was not so.

Kevin in Deva

This post has been edited by New Connaught Ranger on August 27, 2006 08:58 pm

My thoughts, exactly. Same treatment for the fallen soldiers of both sides.

Gen. Dénes

I think "eternal glory to the soviet soldiers" is a bit too much almost 18 years after the revolution. While Antonescu's statues are dismantled or covered, "eternal glory to the soviet soldiers" stands so proud and so calm.

The eternal glory is there as a comment on the sacrifice made by the common soldier in the War, it (Glory) is a commmon word found on military monuments all over the globe and not just on Russian Communist Monuments, it expresses the sentiment of the time.

Well besides Antonescu's statue & Monuments, it seems that some burial places of other Romanian Heros are not sacred as well, if you read the posts in another section with regards Burial places in graveyards.

These real Heros have had their eternal rest disturbed, their bones and headstones removed to make way for the "New (ex-Communist) Heros".

Is there such a great following for Antonescu ?? I though the majority of Romanians hated him?? after all he gets the blame for selling out to the Third Reich

Kevin in Deva.

This post has been edited by New Connaught Ranger on August 28, 2006 07:18 am