Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project: "Forget You Not"™
preserving the past to protect the future ...
Marcu
The Holocaust in Romania Under the Antonescu Government

by Marcu Rozen
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From the Editor:
Marcu Rozen of Blessed Memory, a Pillar of Conscience
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In December of 2004, while in Bucharest, Romania, I was privileged to be invited by Marcu Rozen, at his home, to visit him. That initial visit followed, in quick succession, by another two visits to him, as we quickly became friends. He was extremely ill and frail, with a severe stomach pain suffering from an advanced form of Colitis that he contracted long time ago from the food that he had to eat while imprisoned in Transnistria when he was a little boy.

After the fall of Communism in Romania on Christmas Day 1989, Marcu Rozen had been embarked into a one-man crusade of letting his countrymen know of the terrible things that the Jews had to endure and suffer during the Holocaust years under the Antonescu Government. He was sicken to the core to see in today's free and democratic Romania, the efforts that were being made to rehabilitate Marshal Antonescu --as a "national hero" of Romania. As such, at any available occasion, when health permitting, he countered and challenged those "nationalistic" claims.

In 2003, the Government of Romania stunned the world with its claim that in Romania, within its territories, the Holocaust never even existed. That preposterous claim advanced by Romania did not go without being noticed and rebuked by the international community. See, for instance, from the many rebukes, the strong condemnation coming from Yad Vashem in:

Reversing course, due to the growing international outrage, Romania subsequently appointed a Presidential Commission chaired by Elie Wiesel to make an official Report on the Commission’s findings with respect to the Holocaust in Romania and that Report can be accessed from a number of websites including ours, as well. Marcu Rozen's printed book that went through three editions and titled "The Holocaust Under the Antonescu Government" is being published in here from its 3rd English edition under the title "The Holocaust in Romania Under the Antonescu Government." (In this Internet edition, additional photo-documents that were given to me by Marcu Rozaen for publication were placed at the bottom of page 1B, marked in gray.) Thankfully, Marcu Rozen's book was available to the stated Presidential Commission that used the data provided there for its Final Report. Now, with this online posting, that data is being made available worldwide to a far greater audience and, we are proud and honored to have this publishing opportunity.

This little book posted now online in here is extraordinary because the writer was first and foremost an eyewitness to the events described in there, and because, he was a Statistician and, as such, he was extremely meticulous and careful with the numbers used in the data presented. This rare combination of the author's background and qualifications, makes this book an important, first-hand, contribution to the study and the documentation of the Holocaust in Romania.

Marcu Rozen passed away on January 26, 2005, only a few weeks after my last visiting him. May his blessed memory and tireless pursuit in letting the world know what has happened to the Romanian Jews in Bessarabia (Basarabia), Bukovina (Bucovina), Transnistria and elsewhere during the Antonescu regime stay with us, in our conscience, and be transmitted --in perpetuity-- to all future generation.

We cannot protect the future if we are ignorant about the past.

Goodbye dear friend.

I bow my head to you Marcu Rozen, with all my humility and respect.

K. K. Brattman
Managing Editor

Dated: February 16, 2006

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