October 11, 2005
Romania opens Shoah institute, vows to expand education
BUCHAREST - Romanian authorities vowed yesterday to expand education about the Holocaust, as the country commemorated the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews and Gypsies during World War II.
Marking Holocaust Memorial Day in Romania , the country's first Holocaust institute was inaugurated in a recently renovated building in downtown Bucharest .
Officials said they hoped The Elie Wiesel Institute -named after the Romanian-born Nobel prize winner and Holocaust survivor - would help raise awareness about Romania 's role in the Holocaust, when the country was an ally of Nazi Germany during 1941-1944.
"It is time the truth was known and Romanian society became aware of this event," Deputy Culture Minister Virgil Nitulescu said. "The truth isn't enough to be unveiled. It must be spread to make it known."
President Traian Basescu , Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu and other officials placed flowers at a monument for Holocaust victims in the courtyard of Bucharest 's Coral Temple , the city's main synagogue.
An international panel of historians set up last year said the wartime regime of Marshal Ion Antonescu was responsible for the deaths of 280,000 to 380,000 Jews and more than 11,000 Gypsies.
The government officially took responsibility last year for the actions of Romanian authorities during World War II, and has introduced Holocaust studies in schools' curricula.
Israeli Ambassador Rodica Radian-Gordon said the institute would work to "keep the memory" of the victims alive.
"Jews in Romania consider this opening a historic event," said Aurel Vainer, who heads the Romanian Jewish Community. "I regret that it happened only today, but it's very important to assume the historic past."
Romania was home to 760,000 Jews before 1940. About 6,000 Jews live there now.
During communist times, official history taught that Germans were the sole perpetrators of the Holocaust, ignoring the involvement of Romania 's wartime leaders.
After the 1989 collapse of communism, Antonescu was hailed as a hero by some Romanians for having gone to war against the Soviet Union in 1941 after it invaded parts of Romania .