Jewish Resistance to ‘Romanianization’, 1940-44

Ionescu examines the process of economic Romanianization of Bucharest during the Antonescu regime that targeted the property, jobs, and businesses of local Jews and Roma/Gypsies and their legal resistance strategies to such an unjust policy.

“Stefan Cristian Ionescu’s book deals precisely with one of these developments in which intellectual, social, and material history became primarily enmeshed with the history of law. … Ionescu’s work offers an important exploratory inquiry into the daily life of Romanians, Jews, and Roma under the shadow of Holocaust. Through a well-documented and attentive analysis of the institutional, political, and sociological aspects of Romanianization, he enables us to clarify the limits of this project and its ultimate failure.” (Cosmin Sebastian Cercel, H-Nationalism, networks.h-net.org, April, 2016)

"?tefan Ionescu's work is a major and original contribution to our understanding of Fascist persecution in Romania during the Second World War and to the surprising, and sometimes successful, non-violent Jewish resistance to the Holocaust." - Robert Melson, Purdue University, USA

"A riveting study of ideology and antisemitism; opportunism and greed; accommodation and resistance. Fresh and compelling, this volume examines the Holocaust in Romania through many lenses: the architects of the regime's antisemitic Romanianization policies; those who stood to profit; and the Jews who inevitably lost. Wholly original, probing, and thoughtful, this book is an utterly new and very welcome contribution to a little known area of Holocaust history." - Debórah Dwork, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, USA

"?tefan Ionescu's work treats an important and mostly ignored topic: the Romanian state organized robbery of Jewish properties. Between 1940 and 1944 the government of General later Marshal Ion Antonescu fulfilled with and without the support of the Iron Guards the old dream of the Romanian antisemites, namely the elimination of the Jews from the economic life of the country. A much needed book." - Radu Ioanid, author of The Holocaust in Romania

"This book in an important journey into an unexplored area in the history of Holocaust in Romania. The reader is stunned while following the detailed legislation that enabled the economic plunder of Jewish assets. The success and failure of the exploitation are a manifestation of greediness, corruption, opportunism, anti-Semitism and ethno-centered policy. Jewish resistance by taking advantage of the pretension of the regime to be a legal and honest system demonstrated their resilience which contributed greatly to the failure of the regime." - Dalia Ofer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

"This work by ?tefan Ionescu fills a large gap in the area of genocide studies. The acts perpetrated againstthe Jews in Romania between 1940-44 are analyzed not only domestically, but primarily in a multidimensional manner involving regional powers and mutliple actors. Thanks to Ionescu's book, we will be able to obtain a much more open and clear understanding of the nationalization and the establishment processes of nation-states in the Balkans, including Turkey. This is a work that must be read." - Taner Akçam, Clark University, USA

Stefan Ionescu is currently an Associate Research Fellow at the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education at Chapman University, USA. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Clark University in Worcester, MA, USA and is the author of articles in such journals as Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History and Culture and Psychology.