Book Discussion: Justice and Restitution in Post-Nazi Romania: Rebuilding Jewish Lives and Communities, 1944-1950, by Stefan Cristian Ionescu

Session Submission Type: Book Discussion Roundtable

Brief Description

This book roundtable discusses Justice and Restitution in Post Nazi Romania: Rebuilding Jewish Lives and Communities, 1944-1950, authored by Stefan Cristian Ionescu. Focusing on the efforts of Jewish survivors to recuperate rights and property in post-Nazi Romania, the book shows how the early transitional government enabled short term restitution (around 66% by 1948). However, from 1948 on, the consolidated communist regime implemented nationalizations which dispossessed many citizens. Jewish communities were disproportionality affected, and many real estate and businesses were lost once again. Drawing on archival sources from government documentation to diaries and newspaper reports, this study explores both the early success and later reversal of restitution policies. In doing so, it sheds light on the postwar treatment of Romanian Jewish survivors, and the reasons so many Jews emigrated from Romania. Reputed scholars of Romanian Jewish history, the Holocaust, and early communism in Romania will discuss the book and its main findings focusing on several major themes of Eastern European history: postwar reparatory justice, Jewish survivors, antisemitism, communist nationalizations, and Jewish emigration.

Sub Unit

• History: 1945-1990

Chair

• Natalya Lazar, US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Roundtable Speakers

• Emanuela Grama, Carnegie Mellon U

• Grant Thomas Harward, U.S. Army Center for Military History

• Irina Livezeanu, U of Pittsburgh

• Mihaela Serban, Ramapo College of New Jersey