Marcel Ciolacu: The wound left by the Holocaust in the Romanian collective mental state can be treated only by sincere assumption and promoting the historical truth

 ”The wound left by the Holocaust in the Romanian collective mental state can only be treated by sincere assumption and by promoting the historical truth”, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has said in a message sent on Saturday, on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

In this context, he has emphasized the importance of countering any form of Holocaust denial, deeming that education is ”an essential means of progress and cultivating tolerance”.

„The International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust, marked on 27 January, has a strong historical resonance, being the date on which the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated, and is also a reminder to all of us that the most terrible form of manifestation of antisemitism must not be repeated.

In Romania, the legionnaires’ repeated attempts to intimidate and exclude the Jewish communities from society materialized as violent, destructive and murderous actions. Also in this period, we remember the Bucharest Pogrom, a tragic episode of our history, in which hatred and antisemitism poisoned an entire system and generated torture, seizures, murders, arson and attacks on properties and synagogues. All these reprehensible actions, which took place between 21-23 January, 1941, were not isolated, but took place in a wider context of persecution of the Jewish communities in our country, in which their fundamental freedoms and rights were flagrantly violated”, the head of the Executive stated on Saturday (READ IN ROMANIAN!).

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”The Romanian Government’s commitment to prevent and counter antisemitism, xenophobia, radicalization and speech that incites to hatred remains firm”

According to the quoted source, ”the wound left by the Holocaust in the Romanian collective mental state can only be treated by sincere assumption and by promoting the historical truth, necessary remedies for a democratic and European country”.

„We have the obligation, to all innocent victims who were subjected to unimaginable atrocities, to counter any form of denial or distortion of the Holocaust and to promote education as an essential means of progress and of cultivating tolerance. Starting to teach the course «History of the Jews. The Holocaust», compulsory for high school students, represented an important step for Romania in order to stimulate education about what the Holocaust meant and to strengthen civic consciousness among youth.

Visiting the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, late last year, reinforced my conviction that we must never forget our moral duty to permanently fight the forces of evil.

The Romanian Government’s commitment to prevent and counter antisemitism, xenophobia, radicalization and speech that incites hatred remains firm and assumed, so that atrocities of history, such as the Holocaust, will never repeat”, concluded Marcel Ciolacu.