Talk:Romania in World War II

message: I am very uncomfortable with MihaiC's recent addition of hte sentence, "Jews in Bukovina and Bessarabia were accused that they supported in an active way the soviet takeover of that teritories." Normally, if a sentence with poor English grammar and usage were added to this article, I'd just fix the grammar, etc., but in this case my problem goes way beyond that:
#The statement is devoid of agency: "were accused" by whom?
#The statement is relatively ambiguous in the phrase "supported in an active way": does this mean "had an active presence" or "provided material support"? If the latter, it still begs for more concreteness.
#The statement makes no indication whether the accusations were accurate.
#Even on the unlikely assumption that they were accused of actions that really took place by unbiassed observers holding good evidence, it would seem to merit some discussion why Jews might reasonably have favored Soviet rule over that of a Romanian government allied with the Nazis.
I don't want an edit war. I'm leaving three days for Mihai or someone else to come in and deal with this. If this doesn't happen, I'll feel free to edit it myself, which will probably just consist of removing the sentence.
-- Jmabel 21:45, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I apreciate this Joe. It is my fault that I didn't provided details. I'll edit it out and put it back when I have enough info to make an uncontroversial pharse. From the books in romanian that I read I understood that in some localities romanian solders were harassed while retreating in 1940 after soviet ultimatum (they were under strict orders not to fire against soviet troops and had to retreat very quick). For some reasons (antisemitism could be one of them) jews' role in that was keep in mind more that others. I said "they were accused of" and not "they did that" because there weren't trials about that, but the general feeling was that jews from Bukovina and Bessarabia had helped soviets. A little truth (some jews did that, as well as some romanians etc), the desire of romanian to put blame on someone else for retreating without fight in 1940 and the posibility to action in a somehow anonymity on the front line, all that made that jews in the east were much more badly treated that the jews in the rest of the country.
-- MihaiC 15:00, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC+2)
----
Eight days later, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Romania officially remained neutral, but leaned heavily toward the Axis Powers, allowing the Nazi German troops to pass through on their way into Poland.
That would imply either that Romania is located in the no man's land on the German-Polish border, or that I'm missing something related to where the German Nazi troops came from (maybe from Russia?). :) --Gutza 11:19, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: I'm frustrated now that I wasn't keeping better track of my sources when I wrote that, so I can't even say where it came from; it was one of my first entries in Wikipedia, and I hadn't yet realized the importance of noting sources. It could be wrong, but was not intended as disinformation. Looks like someone should give this article a thorough going over. Jmabel 22:23, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: I believe that Mihai's version is on the mark. I'm going to replace the relevant passage with content from the (public domain) U.S. Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress Country Studies/Area Handbook Series, sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army. The relevant passage is at http://countrystudies.us/romania/22.htm. I am also going to take the liberty of removing the "accuracy dispute" notation. Jmabel 07:08, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: January 2004

message: Carol II did NOT serve as regent for his son Michael from 1927 - 1930.  He was in exile, having renounced the throne before Ferdinand's death.  A three-man regency was created.  Carol was allowed by the government to return in 1930 to serve as regent for Michael, but within days claimed the title of king for himself.  This can be double-checked against any number of sources... like an encyclopedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.191.101.171 (talk • contribs) 18:18, 22 January 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This anonymous remark sounds right to me from my understanding of the period. Could someone who knows the history well rewrite to get it right? -- Jmabel 22:23, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: Since no one else has weighed in, and I haven't found any reliable sources to sustain the version in the article, I'm going to make the change in question and take the liberty of removing the "accuracy dispute" with respect to this issue. For one of the many sites that says that Mihai's uncle, rather than Carol, served as regent, and that Carol was in exile with Magda Lupescu, see http://www.dsp.pub.ro/info/romania/romania.htm. -- Jmabel 06:55, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error 

message: I've added an "accuracy dispute" notice to the article. If no one else soon addresses the issues raised above, I'll try to fix this myself. In any case, whoever fixes this should probably be explicit about references for the new version of the facts and if we can track down where the false statements came from it would probably be good to cite them as things we are specifically saying are wrong. -- Jmabel 22:31, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: As discussed above, I believe I have now fully addressed the issues raised above in the article. I believe that the objections raised were both correct, and no one has refuted them in the three weeks they have been posted here. Accordingly, I have edited the article and removed the "accuracy dispute" notice. -- Jmabel 07:48, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Accuracy

message: After a brief period of nominal neutrality, Romania joined the Axis Powers in June 1941
Romania stayed neutral until Carol II ratified the treaties that yielded Half of the country to foreign states. it looks like someone wants to suggest Romania was a hench state of the Axis.  i'll edit it BIG, cuz i care for Wikipedia --criztu —The preceding comment was added by  17:30, 24 October 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  a lot of editing required 

message: I do not see the quote passage that begins "Of all the allies of Nazi Germany…" on the page that is given as a citation. What is going on? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:37, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I cited the website with the whole report, rather than the specific chapter and page.  It is from the "Executive Summary: Findings and Recommendations," page 7 (the very last link).  Here is the link in English and Romanian.  I will add the specific cite to the blockquote. --Goodoldpolonius2 06:57, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation? 

message: :Of all the allies of Nazi Germany, Romania bears responsibility for the deaths of more Jews than any country other than Germany itself.
:According to a report released by the Romanian government in 2004, Romania killed at least 280,000 to 380,000 Jews in Romania and the territories it occupied
:from Miklós_Horthy: After he was forced to abdicate, Hungarian cooperation resumed, and, ultimately, of the original 825,000 Jews before the war, 565,000 perished.
There's a contradiction between the first affirmation and the figures in the following two. bogdan | Talk 07:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There isn't really a contradiction here, as even the two sentences indicate: Romania killed Jews, Hungary, primarily after it was German-occupied in 1944, deported them where they were killed in the death camps in Poland.  Romanian forces carried out massacres, ran their own concentration camps, and directly carried out their own extermination program.  Most of the deaths in Hungary came after 1944, when Germany had taken over the country, and Eichmann took control of the anti-Jewish program.  Then, in cooperation with the Germans, Hungarian forces worked with the Germans to deport Jews, but did not engage in the same sclare of direct massacres and killings.  This does nothing to excuse Hungary's massive collaboration, but the report is accurate, it was written by a large panel of experts, and was accepted by the Romanian government. --Goodoldpolonius2 13:54, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  As far as I know most of the Jews that Romanian forces killed were from Bessarabia and Ukraine. Usually the controvercy comes when Romania is held responsable for the deaths of Jews from Hungarian occupied part of Transylvania.MihaiC 04:46, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The numbers given above (280,000 to 380,000) do not include the Hungarian deportations. They include the actions of Romanian forces and groups against Jews, primarily in Odessa, Bessarabia, Bukovina, Moldavia, and Dorohoi. --Goodoldpolonius2 06:40, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

text: The report was accepted by romanian politicians who are enslaved by the "political correct" west. Your sources, that you cite are the same. The are many other non-official sources that speak of a very different situation. You might wish to consider this before beeing so sure on official reports. 46.97.177.216 (talk) 09:50, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Responsibility 

message: Vasile recently cut* the bulk of this article, saying "pre war at pre war article". I don't necessarily agree—I think it is very hard to get any comprehension of Romania during World War II unless one looks at most of the reign of Carol II—but I won't argue. I've moved the material to Kingdom of Romania and added a  tag there; the material needs to be integrated. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:34, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * My link on "cut" above. (Didn't want Jmabel to think I went mad and started editing his comments, so I added this note as well.) --Gutza T T+ 20:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent large cut 

message: This is a very nice article and the maps are excellent, however there is at least one map that is missing. From the 1930s or 1940 to 1945 Romania had lost northern Transylvania to Hungary in addition to the losses to the Soviet Union from the Nazi-Soviet Pact. A map showing this would be good. Also in the article there is no mention of the areas annexed by Romania between the Dnepr and Dnister (Nistria) rivers, which on some maps of the period are referred to as "Transnistria". A map (plus at least a mention of this) would make the article more complete. Also shouldn't "Transnistria" become a disambiguation page since there are two entities that share the name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.131.163.111 (talk • contribs) 1 Jan 2006
: On your last question: the overwhelming number of references to "Transnistria" will be to the present-day entity, so it should stay where it is, but if you are correct on this, we could create a Transnistria (disambiguation) and a Transnistria (WWII) to flesh out the other matter. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Again: I agree that both topics should exist. But when one meaning is considerably more common, it gets the unqualified name, and the disambiguation page gets "(disambiguation)" as part of its name. That's what we are faced with here. See, for example United States and United States (disambiguation). -- Jmabel | Talk 20:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Territorial changes 

message: Vasile recently cut the following:
Historians disagree as to whether the continued pleas of Antonescu's Jewish former classmate Wilhelm Filderman had a major role in this, whether Antonescu calculated that western Romania was not sufficiently anti-Semitic to make deportation practical, whether he was unwilling to sacrifice the Jewish contribution to the Romanian economy, or whether he was simply hedging his bets.
Sounds absolutely correct to me though I don't have citations offhand; does someone else? In general, the article could use more explicit citation; I strongly recommend the new <ref> system, very easy to maintain. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:21, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More cuts by Vasile 

message: From the article: "In 1944 Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, had reached an agreement with the dictator of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin on how to split up Europe between them after the war. Stalin was given a 90% share of influence in Romania." Techically true, but given that the Red Army was there in any case, not of much significance. Yalta may have mattered significantly for the fate of several countries, but it's hard to construct a scenario in which the Soviet Union would not have dominated Romania after occupying it. Also, if this stays: why single out Churchill and not mention Roosevelt? And, while we are on it, the Soviet Union, not Stalin personally, was assigned a 90% share of influence in Romania. - Jmabel | Talk 04:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The document is logged as "The dividing up of Europe, according to Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin (1944)", and placed under the Teheran conference section, not the Yalta section. This probably places the agrement in December of 1943 or January of 1944. Lacking further information on the consequences of this agreement I suggest we just let it stand as is in the text, as an isolated fact regarding the future of Romania, and make no judgement on it for now. It would of course be intresting to know what kind of leverage the West had on the USSR, and if it was, or could have been, used to influence the USSR on the fate of Eastern Europe. I recall reading somewhere that the Soviets could not have made the final offensive through Poland in 1944 without the massive amounts of U.S. supplied trucks. The Soviet logistics chain would not have coped without the Western aid. --Stor stark7 05:38, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Read the linked document, don't just look at the title. It (lightly) covers both the Tehran and Yalta conferences (both of which also included Roosevelt) and doesn't mention Romania at all (it is a pretty lightweight article, hardly worth waiting through all of the multimedia loading it takes to reach it). It was at Yalta, well after D-Day, that Europe was, arguable "carved up". (See our own articles Tehran Conference and Yalta Conference articles.) I stand by what I wrote. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So, the scrap of paper was written on October 9, 1944.  (Yalta was not for another 4 months) I still think it is notable enough to be included in the text.--Stor stark7 Talk 21:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yalta 

message: The Romanian jews and the jews from the territories occupied by Romania during WW II were deported not in the republic of Transnistria (or what is known today as Transnistria) but in a region between Dniester and Bug which was occupied by Romania in 1941.
Transnistria means the place "beyond Dniester". From this point of view both places named "Transnistria" are beyond of the Dniester. The place were the jews were deported was much larger then the actual Transnistria and did include for ex. Odessa.
In the map included in the article showing the Romanian territories during WW II the Transnistria in the period 1941-1944 is correctly represented between Dniester and Bug.
In the Report of the Commission leaded by E.Wiesel you can read:
" Tighina Agreement
On August 30, Transnistria’s status was finally resolved: The province was transferred to Romania, in keeping with Hitler’s promise to Antonescu. General Nicolae Tataranu of Romanian War Headquarters and General Arthur Hauffe of the Wehrmacht signed the “Agreement for the Security, Administration, and Economic Exploitation of the Territory between the Dniester and the Bug and the Bug-Dnieper.” " —Preceding unsigned comment added by Monicad (talk • contribs) 08:40, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Transnistria (World War II), the link points now to this article. Mentatus 09:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deportation of jews in Transnistria 

message: I have a question about how to break-up the material into sections, and how to add pointers to related articles.  About a week ago, I split what I viewed as being too big a section ("Antonescu comes to power"), into 3 sections (that one, plus "The war on the Eastern Front" and "The bombing of Romania").  Each of the new sections was pointing to several pages, where the respective subjects are treated in more detail.  Now, user 71.179.18.130 has made a whole new batch of additions and/or re-organizations, of which I am not quite sure what to say (I only corrected a factual error, regarding what the capital of Romania really is).  For one, a new section has been added ("The war comes to Romania"), whose title sounds rather odd, coming as it does two sections after "The bombing of Romania" (didn't the war come to Romania already, when it was bombed?).  For another, some of the references to other articles have now been moved to the bottom, in a separate "See also" section, while other references have been left in the previous sections.  I'd prefer the pointers be where they were (right there, in the narrower context), making navigation easier and more intuitive -- but, at the very least, things should be consistent.  Any other opinions?  Turgidson 14:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Re-organization

message: Fixed abbrevations, like turning RIP into KIA and the others since "Killed in Action" sounds more better (and is official) than "Rest in Peace".
Statistics are always useful, but gotta tell that I can't get a bit of this. What does it show? Romanian achievements 1944-5? Soviet-romanian cooperation? What?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kuhlfürst (talk • contribs) 20:02, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Romanian achievements. --Alex:Dan (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statistics

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thread_title: File:Romanian soldiers in Transilvania 1944.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: "unaware that the currently dominant European power had already granted its consent to Soviet territorial claims in a secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed back in 1939." 
This sentence cannot be more than a guess. Romania had secret services at that time, the story I grew up with was quite different around this subject. They tried to stay neutral, but the evolution of the territorial attacks from both directions did not allow for that. The impression the text leaves is different, it almost suggests they were dissociated from the Allies _anyhow_. This is more than interpretation, it is close to difamation, and sometimes used to this purpose.
"In summer 1940, a series of territorial disputes were resolved unfavorably to Romania, resulting in the loss of most of the territory gained in the wake of World War I."
This phrase is even more confusing. The series consists of two: The Viena dictate (which should be correctly called like this, since Jmabel rightfully notices that the term of award appears to be a Wiki neologism, that contrasts the very fact that these "awards" are clearly declared in the text as unlawful. This way the title suggests a rightfull, positve decision - and only at the end of the text a small section explains that the Allies regarded these decisions as unlawful since the very begining - this is very problematic!), and the "peace of Craiova, concerning the Cadrilater. Together these covered hald of Transilvania and a bit. The occupation of Bessarabia and Bucovina was not even a "dispute" - it was an occupation on base of the Hitler - Stalin treaty. More transparency would be welcome in this context. The impression left by the presentation, that Romania inclined towards Germany anyhow is tendencious and should not be encouraged by Wikipedia. Facts are sufficient to make clear the background of the country's decision. Maybe it helps to recall that the Iron Guard was put outside the law by Antonescu - while mentioning that this decision was not enforced from the beginning. But these are facts, and facts which help understand the fragility of Romania's politics during the war and its alience with the axis. PredaMi (talk) 19:41, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Quesitonable!!

message: The recent IP edits are likely to belong to the banned user Romanian-and-proud. Pls see: Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Romanian-and-proud.3F. K.e.coffman (talk) 19:21, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  IP edits 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 
The result of the move request was: Consensus not to move as Romania was involved in the war.  Only applying to the requested move and not to the expansive interpretation for all countries.  User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:41, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Romania in World War II →  – Consistency with Romania during World War I. "during" appears to be more used than "in", per Croatia during World War I, France during World War II, Japan during World War II... However, "in" is also widespread so if people oppose moving this article, we should then move "Romania during World War I" to "Romania in World War I". I think we all agree that there should be consistency between both pages. Super Ψ Dro 11:25, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with that. Super Ψ Dro 07:55, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 2 May 2021 

message: I seem to recall reading an article in a history mag many years ago stating some Romanian military units were in Africa under Rommel's overall command - true? false? Any RS's supporting this? 50.111.41.243 (talk) 20:33, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Romanian units in Africa? 

message: > However, Fascist political forces, especially the Iron Guard, rose in popularity and power, urging an alliance with Nazi Germany and its allies.
This misses the point that the fascists rose in power because of the inaction of the government. As Antonescu himself said, he would never have take power if the leaders did their job and protected the country.
The Soviets and the Germans are responsible for the rise of fascism in Romania.
This needs to be mentioned before that statement otherwise it creates the wrong impression. 46.33.152.203 (talk) 02:42, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad intro