Deciphering the Traumatic Past: Recent Scholarly Approaches to Antisemitism and the Holocaust in Romania
Deciphering the Traumatic Past: Recent Scholarly Approaches to Antisemitism and the Holocaust in Romania

Summary/Abstract: This thematic dossier reviews four publications on antisemitism and the Holocaust in Romania published between 2022 and 2025: Mihail Sebastian, Jurnal francez. 17 ianuarie 1930 – 14 ianuarie 1931 (edited by Alexandra Oprescu and Teodora Dumitru, Editura Universității “Lucian Blaga” din Sibiu, 2024), 80 de ani de la Pogromul de la Iași și Holocaustul (Șoahul) din România / 80 ans depuis le Pogrom de Iași et la Shoah en Roumanie (edited by Carol Iancu and Alexandru-Florin Platon, Editura Universității “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași, 2022), Marta Caraion’s Géographie des ténèbres. Bucarest–Transnistrie–Odessa 1941–1981. Récit (Paris, Librarie Arthème Fayard, 2024, translated into Romanian as Transnistria: Istoria unei familii între Est și Vest, 1941–1981, Polirom, 2025) and Rîbnița însângerată. Mărturii din acele zile, cu o corespondență între supraviețuitori (edited by Mihaela Gligor and Ofelia Thirer, Ratio et Revelatio, 2024). The authors of the reviews, both senior and junior researchers (Dumitru Tucan, Mihaela Legg and Arleen Ionescu, Florina Andercău and Svetlana Suveica), focus on various angles through which these texts bear witness to tragic events that took place in Romania in the 1930’s–1940’s, insisting on issues of ethics and memory that are crucial in our age. The thematic dossier proposes a necessary renewed way of reflecting critically on the way in which Holocaust memory should be transmitted to future generations.

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