Romanian media reports that the U.S. Justice Department has apprehended an alleged former Nazi concentration camp guard born in Romania are again raising uncomfortable questions about Romania’s actions in World War II.
The reports come just weeks after an embarrassing scandal in which the Romanian government was forced to retract statements about the country’s wartime role in the Holocaust.
Johann Leprich, now 77, is alleged to have served as an SS Death’s Head guard at various concentration camps around Europe during World War II. Leprich, a U.S. passport holder, could face deportation from the United States to Romania, the country where he was born.
It was only one year ago that the United States stripped the U.S. nationals–Nikolaus Schiffer, 84, and Michael Negele, 82–of their citizenship and deported them to Romania. Like Leprich, the two were alleged to be former Nazi guards and were accused of lying to U.S. immigration authorities about their past when applying for citizenship.
The U.S. actions last year set off a storm of controversy, ending ultimately in the December 2002 enactment of amendments to the law on foreigners in Romania in December 2002. The changes state that Romania will not accept on its territory anyone who has been proven under international law to have committed crimes against humanity. Moreover, the government has the right to forbid them entry into Romania and to annul any right of stay that they might previously have been given. Anyone proven to have committed such crimes can be sent back to their country of citizenship.
Romanian President Ion Iliescu charged that it was no solution for the United States to deport people who “for the past 50 years had been American citizens” back to Romania.
The amendments to the law would seem to protect Romania from having to accept the U.S. deportation of Leprich, should that be pursued, but tension remains high over the issue. Analysts say the unease stems from the lack of discussion about Romania’s role during World War II and its treatment of its Jewish citizens.
The failure to come to terms with the past has led to arguments over the years, but critics say that the elite, mainstream pundits, and ordinary citizens still tend to subscribe to the idea that any atrocities committed during Romania’s collaboration with Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1944 did not involve Romanians or take place on territory belonging to Romania.
The cases of the three men most recently accused of serving as guards only bolster that argument, some Romanians say. The three U.S. citizens were ethnic Germans born in Romania who were serving in the German army during the war.
CONFLICTING VIEWS
The latest media reports come on the heels of last month’s scandal in which the Romanian government, in an annex to a press release, denied that any part of the Holocaust had taken place within its borders.
The press release was ostensibly to announce the establishment of cooperative relationships between the Holocaust Museum in the United States and the Romanian National Archives. But Culture Minister Razvan Teodorescu, who also heads the Romanian-Israeli Friendship Association, added an annex stating that “within the borders of Romania between 1940 and 1945, there was no Holocaust.”
After the statement was publicized, the Israeli Foreign Ministry asked for an official explanation of the comment.
Teodorescu indicated that he had meant that atrocities committed against Jews and Roma were not perpetrated on territories that were legally and historically Romania’s, not that Romanians had not taken part in them.
The Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem, which is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust, responded by saying that the Romanian government’s statements were false and that Romania’s role in the Holocaust had been confirmed by recent research conducted under its aegis by historian Jean Ancel.
Ancel published 7,000 pages of mainly Romanian-language documents that Yad Vashem says proves that some 420,000 Jews originating from what was then Greater Romania died during the war as a consequence of the state’s anti-Jewish policies. The Romanian government on 17 June retracted Teodorescu’s comments, issuing a statement saying that the Romanian pro-Nazi government between 1940 and 1944 “was guilty of grave war crimes, pogroms, and mass deportations of Romanian Jews to territories occupied or controlled by the Romanian army.”
Greater Romania included territory that is now part of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine that Romania lost during the war. According to experts, most victims were killed following deportations to the Soviet Union, where Romania’s pro-Nazi dictator, Ion Antonescu, who is held up in some circles as a national hero, ran concentration camps.
According to Romanian historian Dinu Giurescu–who is known for promoting Antonescu’s “tolerant” policies ahead of his collaborative role with the Nazis–Wilhelm Filderman, the leader of the Jewish communities in Romania during World War II, remains the person most qualified to give an account of the number of Jews who “went missing” during the war. Filderman released his findings in Rome in 1957, indicating that before World War II, Greater Romania was home to 728,115 Jews. By 1945, only 355,972 remained.
Antonescu is a controversial figure even today, with authorities last year banning official commemorations such as statues of and streets named for the wartime leader.
There are now 5,870 Jews living in Romania, according to the 2002 census, down by almost half as compared with 1992 figures. Of the Romanian Jews surviving the Holocaust, most later left for Israel.
“This article was first published by Transitions Online (TOL) in July 2003 at www.tol.cz. TOL is a nonprofit Internet magazine and media development organization based in Prague and with branch offices in Moscow, Sarajevo, and London. TOL produces timely, original news and analysis, covering all 28 countries in the post-communist region through its network of local journalists and editors.”
