President’s message on International Day for the Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust
President Traian Basescu sent a message on the International Day for the Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust yesterday, where he reminds that cherishing the memory of the drama of the Holocaust was a necessary gesture of respect and compassion we owe to both victims and survivors. The president points out ‘the expression of the truth in the public space, together with the commitment of the civil society and authorities, is the safest way to rebuild the spirit of a community, of a nation’, and that it is only within such permanent dialogue that ‘we can speak about the future as the result of shared responsibility.’ The head of state ends his message by saying that the message of January 27 is ‘Remember!’ – the only way we can understand the mission we have.
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Very nice, Mr. President. But is it nice enough? Or did you only pen a few words and forget to inflate them with meaning? You can’t just remember, that’s not good enough. Your population might just remember, but as a head of state you have to go a lot further than just remembering. Your country was slow to acknowledge. The atrocities in your country were in addition to the atrocities of the rest of Europe. Your Iron Guard created quite a name for themselves. Once, your country boasted a population of 750,000 Jews. Maybe half left. The other half perished. There’s 12,000 Jews in Romania, now. Your country has strategic ties to Israel and ought to maintain those ties and be her ally, that’s just one way of remembering.
Another way to remember is to do a lot better job of teaching what happened in your schools. Teach the history of Jews in Romania, starting in the year 100 CE. In 1900+ years there’s been a lot of intense persecution which only culminated in the difficult years of slaughter during the 1940s. That’s the other way of remembering, making sure that you teach to your students all the context of the long history of Jews in your country. We have a rich tradition and you have a beautiful country. Build on it and do more than offer a few words of dubious sincerity.