Pogrom Commemoration/Citu: The abominable events a black page in our history; we must protect victims' memory

Prime Minister Florin Citu on Wednesday told the joint plenary sitting of Parliament that the June 1941 Iasi Pogrom represents a "black page" in the history of Romania, and also that Romania needs to take responsibility for its past. He stated that the Pogrom of Iasi was the largest anti-Semitic massacre in Romania in the modern era. "Today we remember what humanity called the darkest era of its existence. At the same time, we, as a nation, must openly take responsibility for the fact that our past has now always been glorious. Like so many other countries in Europe, in Romania too the decisions of those who held the political and military power at the time transformed the state, making it a machine of barbarism, annihilation of rights, unimaginable persecution and physical elimination of Jewish, Roma and other vulnerable communities. (...) Today's solemn meeting is proof that Romania changes when there is will, solidarity for the truth, responsibility, commitment and especially a desire to defend the democracy and the society," said Citu. He paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust. "What happened in Iasi eight decades ago reminds us of suffering beyond imagination, reminds us of cruelty, savagery and murder. The death trains, the individual murders, the persecutions, the tortures, the humiliations, the mass graves, were all there. The image of the victims, of the atrocities, of the more than 13,000 male and female victims, of the hundreds of children, the elderly and of the broken destinies eight decades ago in Iasi, must remain an unshakable testimony about the need for truth, justice and memory. The abominable events ordered by the authorities in the 1940s under the coordination of the Antonescu regime represent a black page in our history today. We have the duty to talk about it, to protect the memory of the victims, to condemn the perpetrators and to pass on our struggle to all future generations, to show them that such tragedies should never be repeated," the PM said. Florin Citu emphasized that PNL (National Liberal Party) has always had a vocation for freedom, tolerance and respect for memory. "Our duty is to remain vigilant, responsible, to make courageous decisions to protect the vulnerable ones and our democracy. I reaffirm the full support of the current Executive for promoting memory policies, combating anti-Semitism, extremism, xenophobia, all forms of homophobia and "intolerance and political or symbolic violence," he said. Citu also mantained that in the six months since taking office, he promoted and adopted measures to promote the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, to support education and to prevent and combat anti-Semitism. He recalled that the PNRR [National Recovery and Resilience Plan - editor's note] includes funding for the future National Museum of Jewish History and the Holocaust. The joint plenary sitting of Parliament commemorates, for the first time in its history, in a solemn meeting, the victims of the Pogrom of Iasi, from June 1941. AGERPRES (RO - author: Florentina Peia, editor: Mihai Simionescu, EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)