Well made film, When you have gun control....

Agarici, I am a Romanian citizen of mixed ethnicity, fully dedicated to Romania. My father is Romanian, my mother is of Jewish, German, Greek and Aromanian ancestry. In the day when the Iasi pogrom started, my Jewish grandfather and his father were arrested only after the sunset and just beaten, so they escaped the shootings, but the next day they had to bury half of my grandfather's former highschool colleagues (no joking!!!). The pretext was that the Jews signaled by lights to the Soviet planes. No need to tell you that few of the dead really did any politics, the less other things. As I dislike the double measure which Magyar propaganda uses (Horthy was good, just a nostalgic of former Austria-Hungary, as he writes in his Memories, it was the Nyilaskeresztes Párt who were bad, but those didn't appertain to Hungarian spirit, whilst we, the true Hungarians, always suffered atrocities and are wronged by others - by the way, Denes, one of the most stupid things I found in that Magyar propaganda is that Hungarians from Romania - I quote almost literally - had to Romanianize their names during the Ceausescu's times), so I dislike the double measure when used by any others. Measure all the things with the same measure.

This post has been edited by Amicus_Plato on February 10, 2011 07:20 pm

The discussion has wandered wildly of topic. There is already a thread about Gun control. Take the discussion there.

http://www.maftei.ro/revista/2005/cronica-...rdealului.shtml
Cornelia Marusca about the territorial cession of Northern Transylvania
The questions that haunt me are : Why nobody (military or civilian) set up an armed resistance movement in Northern Transylvania? Why was our army so disciplined and fully withdrawn as agreed with the occupants? Why no Romanian general had made a gesture of honor (resignation from the Army) after such a national catastrophe?

Where was this city, Odorhei, located?

Gen. Dénes

The answer was already given by Dragos two pages earlier: had some civilians resisted the entrance of Hungarian troops in Northern Transylvania, there would have been bloodbath in many Rumanian-inhabited villages, just like in Ip (discussed earlier). It made no sense at all, and would have brought only grief and sorrow to many families.

This question is pointless. The army simply followed orders and made no politics. Otherwise, it would not have been an army, but a bunch of armed persons, wearing the same uniform, but acting as civilians.

By the way, the Hungarian soldiers were "occupants" only for a part of the population of Northern Transylvania, for the other part they were "liberators". This fact should not be overviewed by anyone wanting to have a balanced picture of those events.

That's why I believe the best is to call them what they were, Hungarian soldiers, or Honvéds, without any negative or positive connotation. If one wants to stay neutral, or course.

Gen. Dénes

P.S. These questions do not fit this thread. Admin., can you move it to the proper location?

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 12, 2011 08:35 am

The part of population who saw honveds as ocupants was almost 50%-50% as the one who see them as liberators. And those who see honveds as liberators were not only hungarians from Transylvania, but also jews, and who knows, maybe other minor ethnicities from Transylvania.

Difficult questions, but I have to point out that many soldiers and officers commited acts of "indiscipline" during the retreat; on the whole, the Army did not want to withdraw and one of the reasons Antonescu was entrusted with the power was that he could be listened when commanding the retreat; btw, almst everybody regarded this retreat as temporary...
My source is Mr. Otu's book, Petre Otu.

21inf, since there was no census done in August 1940 in the disputed territory, there are no hard figures on the exact and true ethnic division of the area.

Rumanian calculations (based on a census done almost ten years earlier) show a slim Rumanian majority, while the Hungarian census of 1941 (following a shuffle in population after the Vienna Resolution) shows a slim Hungarian majority.

Therefore, there is no hard proof of who were the majority ethnic population in the area. Moreover, not all Rumanians regarded the Hungarian administration as "occupation", and the behaviour of other ethnic minorities (and not minor ethnicities, as you said) was often ambivalent, making the actual and true picture more diffuse. That's why I avoided referring to this uncertain issue, and used a general term: "part of population".

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 12, 2011 08:48 am

Gen. Antonescu rose to power and became the Conducator on 6 Sept., while the retreat of Rumanian troops and administration from the ceded territory started earlier, on 1 Sept. 1940.

BTW, ironically, the Hungarians also regarded this move as temporary [so you were right in your statement ], only a step forward, and were preparing for the recovery of the entire Transylvania when the time was right...

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 12, 2011 08:56 am

And maybe some Transylvanian saxons regarded all this movements as temporary and were thinking about Sudetenland...

Since the topic was mixed 50%-50% with gun control and the massacre, I decided to move all the gun control posts in their proper topic in General Discussion:

http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?sh...=90&#entry79754

21inf, since there was no census done in August 1940 in the disputed territory, there are no hard figures on the exact and true ethnic division of the area.

Rumanian calculations (based on a census done almost ten years earlier) show a slim Rumanian majority, while the Hungarian census of 1941 (following a shuffle in population after the Vienna Resolution) shows a slim Hungarian majority.

Therefore, there is no hard proof of who were the majority ethnic population in the area. Moreover, not all Rumanians regarded the Hungarian administration as "occupation", and the behaviour of other ethnic minorities (and not minor ethnicities, as you said) was often ambivalent, making the actual and true picture more diffuse. That's why I avoided referring to this uncertain issue, and used a general term: "part of population".

Gen. Dénes

Yes, Denes, you are right. That's why I didnt said that the majority of population was romanian in ceded teritory. I know both romanian and hungarian evaluation of population in ceded teritory in 1940, that's why I gave 50-50 percent. My expresion of minor ethinicities was due to the fact that I am not a native english speaker. I meant what you corected, ethnic minorities.

To be honest, I doubt that the percent of romanians who didnt see hungarian take-over as an ocupation was significant, as was surely not significant the percent of hungarian seeing the romanian take-over in 1944 in the same manner. Most of the urban romanian population in Transylvania was frightened by the hungarians, while most of the rural romanian population regarded the 1940 take-over with fear mixed with the atitude "it will pass" (o să treacă şi asta).

The father of my father-in-law was working as employee (kisbiro, chişbirău) of the local mayor in a village from Transylvania in 1940. He spoke excellent hungarian (he was romanian) and also hebrew, as there were a significant number of hebrews in their village. When hungarian administration come in his village, hungarian gendarmes in charged with the census of the population entered their house either. They asked the head of the family to declare their nationality and as the father of my father-in-law spoke so good hungarian, he declared himself hungarian. My father-in-law, a teenager at that time, was able only to understand hungarian language, not to speak it, and when asked, he declared himslef also hungarian, with his name Togyer instead of romanian Toader, being the few words he spoke in hungarian. Interesting is that their family name was not asked to be declared magyarised, it was left pure romanian! He was given so to hungarian school in the village and after 4 years he was still in the 4th grade, even if he had more years as he normaly used to had in the 4th grade. I asked him why he didnt passed the first classes and he said to me that he was not interested to learn hungarian and in hungarian language. He knew that he was romanian and he declared himself hungarian only because at the hungarian school the food was better. When romanian troops liberated his village, he instantly forget about hungarians and openly helped the romanian troops.

The answer was already given by Dragos two pages earlier: had some civilians resisted the entrance of Hungarian troops in Northern Transylvania, there would have been bloodbath in many Rumanian-inhabited villages, just like in Ip (discussed earlier). It made no sense at all, and would have brought only grief and sorrow to many families.

This question is pointless. The army simply followed orders and made no politics. Otherwise, it would not have been an army, but a bunch of armed persons, wearing the same uniform, but acting as civilians.

By the way, the Hungarian soldiers were "occupants" only for a part of the population of Northern Transylvania, for the other part they were "liberators". This fact should not be overviewed by anyone wanting to have a balanced picture of those events.

That's why I believe the best is to call them what they were, Hungarian soldiers, or Honvéds, without any negative or positive connotation. If one wants to stay neutral, or course.

Gen. Dénes

P.S. These questions do not fit this thread. Admin., can you move it to the proper location?

I agree with Denes on all the accounts mentioned, with two observations:

1. There are consistent and convergent indications that the Ip massacre was a civilian mass killing, full stop. From what I red until now (including references to the Hungarian "official" version), the "justification" with a (as in "one person") Romanian sniper opening fire on the Hungarian columns from the church tower seem at least as illogical as the Natzi set-up with the Polish attacking the German Gleiwitz radio in 1939. Secondlly, a oficial justifications presented by the perpetrators which nevertheless killed inocent women and children, and whose superiors pardoned the officer found responsible, worth nothing to me. It's first of all a matter of principle, something like asking the guards and the executioners from a extermination camp about their justifications, after they exterminated the people. Honestlly, I'm not interested in Ip killers post-factum justifications, and I will not go as far with my tollerance as considering them reasons for action. From what I remember, there must had been a German-Italian comision charged with supervising the "adminstrative transition" and the first stages of the installment of a Hungarian administration in the NV Transylvania after its cession. That comission was bombarded with complains made by the Romanian authorities (and the civilian population?). Did it make any official inquiry in the Ip and Trasnea cases?

2. I find the ideea, presented by Denes in a subseqvent post, that some of the ethnic Romanians did not regarded the Hungarian Honvedseg as occupants (implying that they were perhaps seen as liberators) as completelly irrelavant and void of any sense. If there were such isolated individuals, what was their representativity for the mass of the Romanian population? Do you know of any Romanian socially or politically articulated group which subscribed to the Wienna diktate? What I can assure you, as a person with direct (and collateral) ancestors in that area (some of them married in mixed Hungarian-Romanian families), and form multiple oral history sources, is that the collective recollection of the Hungarian field gendarmes "jandarmii cu pana de cocos" from 1940-1944 was not at all a positive one, since they were rather fearfully associated with a brutal and sometimes abussive force, and not at all with the law and order of a state.

This post has been edited by Agarici on February 12, 2011 12:46 pm

I agree with you.

That's a normal behaviour, fully understandable.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 12, 2011 12:42 pm

Agarici, I am a Romanian citizen of mixed ethnicity, fully dedicated to Romania. My father is Romanian, my mother is of Jewish, German, Greek and Aromanian ancestry. In the day when the Iasi pogrom started, my Jewish grandfather and his father were arrested only after the sunset and just beaten, so they escaped the shootings, but the next day they had to bury half of my grandfather's former highschool colleagues (no joking!!!). The pretext was that the Jews signaled by lights to the Soviet planes. No need to tell you that few of the dead really did any politics, the less other things. As I dislike the double measure which Magyar propaganda uses (Horthy was good, just a nostalgic of former Austria-Hungary, as he writes in his Memories, it was the Nyilaskeresztes Párt who were bad, but those didn't appertain to Hungarian spirit, whilst we, the true Hungarians, always suffered atrocities and are wronged by others - by the way, Denes, one of the most stupid things I found in that Magyar propaganda is that Hungarians from Romania - I quote almost literally - had to Romanianize their names during the Ceausescu's times), so I dislike the double measure when used by any others. Measure all the things with the same measure.

Amicus_Plato, I'm taking the liberty to quote myself, from an older post (2005) in a quite heated topic ( http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?sh...l=crimes&st=120 )

"[It is possible that] you didn’t understand... what I was trying to say. I was implying any such reality, not only the abuses of the Hungarians in North-Western Transylvania. I had in mind the deportation of Gypsies by the Romanians during WW2, and the executions which occurred during the reinstauration of Romanian administration in Bassarabia, in 1941."

I hope my point is clearer now. My stance on this issue is unchanged.