Istoriografie şi memorii concurente. Perspective asupra pogromului de la Iaşi (28-30 iunie 1941)
Historiography and Competing Memories. Perspectives on the Pogrom in Iaşi (June 28-30, 1941)

Summary/Abstract: In this paper we have in view the historiography and competing memories regarding the pogrom of Iaşi (28th-30th June 1941). In the first part we deal with the historical writings, with their phases, types and authors. This event, with tragic outcomes for the Jewish community of Iaşi, has been, since the 1940s, the topic of different writings that could be included in the category of investigational journalism (the ones signed by Marius Mircu, I. Ludo – pseudonym for Isac Iacovicz –, D. Pop) or of volumes of documents (Matatias Carp with his Cartea Neagră – Suferinţele evreilor din România, 1940-1944 [The Black Book – Romanian Jews’ Sufferance], in three volumes). During the national-communist regime, one single work about what had happened to Iaşi was published; the Germans were here the only responsible part for what had happened. They would have also benefited by the support of some Romanian civil servants and, above all, by that of the legionaries and of the declassed in Iaşi (Aurel Kareţki and Maria Covaci, Zile însângerate la Iaşi (28-30 iunie 1941) [Blooded Days in Iaşi (28th-30th June 1941)]). After 1989, several volumes of documents including information about the pogrom of Iaşi have also been published (edited by J. Alexandru, Lya Benjamin, Carol Iancu, etc.). The pogrom was the subject of several analytic writings, either single author volumes, chapters of synthesizing works or collective volumes (Jean Ancel, Radu Ioanid, Henri Eaton, Dinu Giurescu, the Final Report of the International Committee for the Study of Holocaust in Romania). There have also been several studies on the edge between research and memory (Radu Florian and Leon Eşanu). The historical manipulating writings did not miss either, more particularly those to be included in the category of deflective negationism (Larry Watts, Alex. Mihai Stoenescu). After 1989, even western writers showed some interest for what happened in Iaşi in June 1941 (P. Pachet), and so did some local popularizers of history (Teşu Solomovici). The memoir literature is also quite diverse, reflecting the ethnical and ideological cleavages. There are, first, the volumes signed by the Jews born in Iaşi (Adrian Radu-Cernea, Solomon C. Cristian and Lilly Marcou), by officials of the Jewish community in Romania (Alexandru Şafran, Romania’s chief rabbi and Moses Rosen, the next chief rabbi) or by Jewish writers (Peasant Party political men Gheorghe Zane and Ioan Hudiţă), while others denied the responsibility of the Romanian authorities (Radu Lecca, the former chief of the Jewish Centre Centrala Evreilor created by Antonescu’s regime). There are also foreign accounts, offering both interesting and controversial data about the pogrom (the novelist Curzio Malaparte, a war correspondent from the Eastern front in 1941).

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