Alexander Florian, the president of the National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania “Elie Wiesel”, declared, on Monday, for G4Media and Info Sud-Est, that the extreme right has become a reality in Romania, and the gap between public anti-extremist institutional statements and the reality of public policies deepened Florian made the statements in the context in which the pro-Russian legionnaire candidate Călin Georgescu entered the second round of the presidential elections from the first position, although two months ago he did not even appear in the polls.
Alexandru Florian also reviews the main explanations, from his point of view, for the growth of legionary propaganda and the anti-Semitic phenomenon in Romania: the lack of reaction of prosecutors, the non-punishment of extremist speeches in Parliament, the weakness of mainstream political parties in the face of the extremist danger, the space given to sympathizers legionnaires or anti-Semites in the media, local administrations that name war criminals or legionnaires on the streets, in squares, schools or other buildings.
- “The extreme right in Romania does not represent a vulnerability, but has become a reality! It represents over 35% of the electorate's options. The extreme right means denial of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, racism, denial of rights and freedoms for any minority, sovereignty, foreign orientation pro Russia, anti Europe and NATO. To point the finger at Tik tok or other communication networks is to see only the evil from the outside. It is time to become rational, to abandon easy explanations and group interests. The national interest compels us to draw attention to several internal factors that contributed to this “black or green Sunday (…)”, Alexandru Florian said.
He also mentions the weakness of the mainstream parties in combating the far-right discourse in Parliament, but also the unexpected support of the Israeli embassy to the AUR party:
- There is a gap between the pluralist, anti-extremist, even philo-Semitic discourse of the Romanian government and political elite and the reality of public policies practiced at the central and local level. The weakness of the mainstream parties in combating the discourse of the extreme right in parliament. An aggressive speech, with an eye on the totalitarian past and no future perspective. The unexpected support of the embassy of the State of Israel granted to the AUR party”, says Florian.
Last but not least, the president of the “Elie Wiesel” Institute also emphasizes the lack of reaction in the judiciary, especially through the non-involvement of the prosecutor's offices in sanctioning anti-Semitic and legionary slips:
Alexandru Florian emphasized the growth of the legionary phenomenon and anti-Semitism and the “support” given by the Orthodox Church through the canonization of some legionnaires:
- “For the first time since the revolution of December 1989, BOR “nailed” the canonization of some prelates who were involved in the Legionary Movement! Would the BOR today want a Romania like the “holy sun in the sky”? The political or civic voices of democracy are silent. The Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania is silent. Despite the external reactions, BOR remained stuck in the project”.
Florian also mentions the local administrations that still preserve the legionary memory through the names of streets, public buildings, schools or other institutions that bear the names of legionnaires or war criminals definitively convicted for their deeds:
- “The local administration is pleased to promote the memory of people convicted of war crimes and/or anti-Semitism. For years, the mayors of Bucharest or Cluj have been holding on to streets named after war criminals and local institutions have hosted events in their premises that promote anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers (…) The presidential administration confers honors by decorating a person with repeated antisemitic and pro Antonescu messages. The National Museum of the History of Jews and the Holocaust in Romania, a project launched in 2016, is an increasingly distant dream. Bucharest City Hall holds the sad record of delaying this project. From 2019 until today there have been attempts to brake the project. There were different pretexts for postponing or rejecting the architectural project: the location is too central, the building is too important and it changes too much, etc.”
The President of the National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania “Elie Wiesel” also emphasized the influence of a part of the media that gives space to denialists, anti-Semites or sympathizers of the Legionary Movement:
- “TV channels, including public television, give space to negationists, anti-Semites and members of the Legionary Movement (…) All this happened recently. Many of them can be found in the Institute's Annual Monitoring Report on Denialism and Antisemitism. We believe that a moment is coming when many practices and mentalities must be reset”, Alexandru Florian also conveyed.
Alexandru Florian sounded the alarm as early as 2022 and said in a statement to G4Media and ISE in 2022 that “anti-Semitism and legionnaires are on the rise”, and “through the rankings of the prosecutor's offices they realize that they have free time for propaganda and action”: “We have to -to do it with a carelessness, a lack of interest in building a society that we have been talking about for 30 years”, Alexandru Florian also said.
G4Media and Info Sud-Est showed exclusively, on Monday, how prosecutors ignored anti-Semitism and legionary propaganda: There was no self-report to the General Prosecutor's Office in the last two years, nor was there any referral to court, in the context in which Călin Georgescu, the candidate pro-Russian with legionary speech, he became the big winner in the first presidential round on November 24. Legionary propaganda and anti-Semitism are prohibited by law in Romania and are punishable by law.
A 2022 G4Media and ISE review exclusively showed how prosecutors closed 96% of resolved cases in 2022 regarding the promotion of anti-Semitism, legionnaires and war criminals, moreover, one of the judges who received such cases justified one of the prosecutors' classification orders. Read the full analysis here.
A 2023 RFI analysis it also shows that of the 82 cases that the prosecutors had to resolve, 25% were classified and the rest remained unresolved.
The lack of files opened by prosecutors regarding legionary propaganda and anti-Semitism is noted in the context in which the phenomenon of anti-Semitism and legionary propaganda grew exponentially in the public space, especially on social networks, and are rolled out even by the political leaders of the extremist currents/parties in Romania.
Below are just three of cthe most recent examples of violation of GEO 31/2002 recorded in just nine months, with a major impact on social media, but for which the prosecutors did not report themselves:
Another case of notoriety is his Calin Georgescu, the en fanfare winner of the presidential first round:
- In 2022, Georgescu apologized to the war criminals, calling the legionary chief Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and the author of the Holocaust from Romania, Ion Antonescu, “heroes”. He also said about the assassination of Nicolae Iorga by the legionnaires that “history is mystified”. Prosecutors have opened a criminal case against him for eulogizing those guilty of genocide and war crimes, but it is not clear at what stage the investigation is.
G4Media and Info Sud-Est have written extensively about how the authorities break the lawminimizing the role of war criminals in Romania in the 1940s and indicated 16 situations in which the law is flagrantly violated.
Following the actions of G4Media and ISE, the names of the streets Ion Antonescu in Constanța, Gheorghe Alexianu in Costinești and the name of the “Mircea Vulcănescu” High School in Sector 4 Bucharest were changed.
However, there are still many streets, busts, other monuments or public spaces that retain the names of war criminals. A few examples, in large urban centers: In Sector 1 of the Capital there is a street named after Vulcănescu, in Sector 2 a memorial bust, and in Cluj Napoca, in 2017, the mayor Emil Boc himself withdrew a project from the agenda by that the name of the Radu Gyr street was to be changed, invoking the “civil society” that requested this.
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