Laszlo Alexandru
HISTORY TAKEN TO COURT
english version by Axel H. Lenn
Among
the diverse history-writing techniques that specialists have been preoccupied
with, acting as the centerfold of their debates, the Romanian model, currently
a few short steps away from receiving an official patent, has once again proven
amazingly preposterous. The gap between factual history and interpretative history
is resolved briefly by this autochthonous experiment: the past is taken to
court.
To
exemplify, I chose Şerban Alexianu’s original attempt to officially
rehabilitate his father, Gheorghe Alexianu, who served as Transnistria’s civil
governor, position he had been appointed to under marshal Ion Antonescu’s
regime. It is a well-known fact that this cursed eastern province constituted
the torture camp for hundreds of thousands of Jews and Roma deported there by
Romanian officials during 1940-1944 and subjected to the most inhumane living
conditions imaginable, with the undeclared aim of their rapid extermination. At
the end of the second World War, the
political figures responsible for Romania’s disaster were arrested, trialed and
sentenced to either death or to long hard years in prison (where many
eventually met their death). The former chief of occupied Transnistria, Gh.
Alexianu, was among the people executed following the 1946 sentence, together
with marshal Antonescu. Well, so it happens that these days, the son of the man
who coordinated the well functioning of the Eastern Inferno operations
considers himself entitled to claim damages.
What
initially appeared a hilarious whim, with time turned into a real nightmare,
just like a snowball rolling down a slope. On April 28, 1998 a request to
revise the criminal sentence issued by the People’s Tribunal was put forward;
it took almost 10 years for the magistrates’ area of competences to be
established, before the Appeal Court in Bucharest (A.C.B.), judging the facts,
reached a mesmerizing verdict. The December 5, 2006 sentence acquitted marshal
Ion Antonescu, Horia Sima (Iron Guard chief), as well as other high officials
and statesmen, on the ground that their decisions were taken under extreme,
warfare conditions. Even Romania’s military aggression towards the East was
considered rightfully justified by the state of necessity the country was
experiencing at that time. However, the culprits were held partially
responsible for having allowed and sustained Hitlerist troops’ intrusion in
Romania.
The
A.C.B. sentence was criticized by the Romanian and foreign press, it issued
official protest notes from Moldavia’s and Russia’s governments. This sentence
was challenged in a higher court by both parties, namely the public
prosecutor’s office and Şerban Alexianu. In May 2008, the facts were
restored to their initial course by Romania’s High Court of Cassation and
Justice: the sentence issued by the People’s Tribunal at the end of the second
World War was confirmed as final, the verdict on the culprits’ guilt pronounced
valid and their punishment lawful.
This
is not yet another story about Romania’s judicial system, nor about the
original attempts to impose distorted historical facts. There is also a series
of graphic details worth mentioning. Among the arguments to reopen the debate
was the lack of legitimacy of the so called People’s Tribunal in the years
following the war. This institution was created by the occupying soviet regime,
it simply enacted the winning forces’ will and it had a primarily political
function. Many rather innocent personalities fell victims to this Tribunal for
the guilt of having not rushed to embrace the new dictatorial regime. Still,
such obvious aspects can’t possibly invalidate from a moral point of view
absolutely all the sentences issued by this Tribunal. By the end of the second
World War, the whole Europe was eager to punish all the collaborationists
responsible for the disaster. Why should we assume that the fascists punished
in the West were monsters but those in the East should remain – morally
speaking - angelically innocent?
Another
pretext used to relaunch the debate referred to the fact that during the time
since postwar sentences had been issued, new historical facts were brought
forth: to render one such example, the public disclosure of the
Ribbentrop-Molotov pact stipulations. Such a detail regarding a confidential
political agreement in which two superpowers divide their spheres of
geographical influence does not excuse the fact that some Romanian politicians
took an active role on the side of the Hitlerist invader. In the same manner,
the insistently underlined status Gheorghe Alexianu had, namely as civil and
not military governor of Transnistria, can under no circumstances change the
real, historical facts. Holocaust is still Holocaust no matter that it was
coordinated under a hat or under a cap.
The
hypothesis launched by Gh. Alexianu’s lawyer, claiming the political context of
that time would have determined Romania to act in self-defense and invade USSR
is so preposterous that it could actually justify any military aggression, no
matter the historical moment, based on the self-defense imperative. What were
Romanians so legitimately defending at Stalingrad or at the Don Bend?
Şerban
Alexianu’s final lament, according to whom the judges (who put an end to his
attempts of rewriting history) have given an erroneous sentence because “they are communist products, the type of
prosecutors and jurists who lived under communism, feared communism and used to
act on orders from up high”, is pretty arguable. If the Romanian justice is
completely dependent upon communism, why did the fascist dignitary’s son go to
court in the first place? If things are not as such, why does the man insult
Romania’s judicial system so spitefully?
The
real background of this “affair” is unveiled in the press (see the May
7, 2008, issue of Adevărul).
Next to the rehabilitation request, Gheorghe Alexainu’s heirs might have well
annexed an action for the recovery of a 124,750.12 square meters property in
Colentina, one of Bucharest’s residential districts. The litigious rights have
already been sold, before the end of the trial, to Gigi Becali, the
controversial businessman, for 750,000 Euros.
Under
one million Euros. Is this the current market value of the historical truth
regarding Romania’s part in the second World War?
(July 2008)