Ion Antonescu

{{Infobox Prime Minister
| name          = Ion Victor Antonescu
| nationality   = Romanian
| smallimage    =
| image         = Ion Antonescu portrait.jpg
| imagesize     = 180px
| caption       = Ion Antonescu
| order         = Prime Minister of Romania
| term_start    = September 4, 1940
| term_end      = August 23, 1944
| vicepresident =
| deputy        =
| predecessor   = Ion Gigurtu
| successor     = Constantin Sănătescu
| order2        = Conducător of Romania
| term_start2   = September 6, 1940
| term_end2     = August 23, 1944
| predecessor2  = Carol II (as King of Romania)
| successor2    = None
| birth_name    = Ion Victor Antonescu 
| birth_date    = June 15, 1882 
| birth_place   = Piteşti, Romania
| death_date    =  |
| death_place   = Jilava, Romania
| constituency  =
| party         = None, formally allied with the Iron Guard
| spouse        = Raşela Mendel (div.)Maria Antonescu
| profession    = Soldier
| rank          = Field Marshal

| signature     =
| footnotes     =
|}}
Ion Victor Antonescu (15 June 1882 – 1 June 1946) was a Nazi-allied Prime Minister of Romania, who called himself Conducător'' and ruled from 4 September 1940 


  until 23 August 1944, 

  when he was toppled in a coup. He was executed for war crimes in 1946. International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. Final Report. President of the commission: Elie Wiesel. Edited by Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, and Mihail E. Ionescu. Iași: Polirom, 2004.
 Ioanid, Radu. The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Roma under the Antonescu Regime, 1940–1944. Second edition. Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022.
 Kruglov, Aleksander, and Kiril Feferman. “Bloody Snow: The Mass Slaughter of Odessa Jews in Berezovka Uezd in the First Half of 1941.” Yad Vashem Studies 47, no. 2 (2019): 15.
 Solonari, Vladimir. A Satellite Empire: Romanian Rule in Southwestern Ukraine, 1941–1944. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019.
 Zipperstein, Steven J. The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History, 1794–1881. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.

Role in the Holocaust

When he was in charge of Romania and southern Ukraine, he actively facilitated the Holocaust for Nazi Germany. 



  At his order, as many as 400,000 Jewish people were killed. 

The 1941 Odessa massacre killed as many as 100,000 Jews and reduced Odessa's Jews by 98.7%. Some consider the Odessa massacre as the worst massacre of Jews in the Romanian-occupied zone during WWII.*

The Holocaust in Romanian-occupied zone only stopped after he was toppled in a coup led by King Michael I of Romania on 23 August 1944.*

Related pages
 Genocide
 Iron Guard
 Iași pogrom
 Antisemitism
 Kingdom of Romania

References

Category:Racism
Category:Fascism
Category:Romania
Category:Christianity
Category:1882 births
Category:World War II
Category:1946 deaths
Category:Antisemitism
Category:20th century
Category:The Holocaust
Category:Anti-communists
Category:Former dictators
Category:Romanian generals
Category:Holocaust perpetrators
Category:Prime ministers of Romania
Category:People executed by firearm
Category:Eastern Orthodox Christians
Category:Recipients of the Knight's Cross
Category:Military personnel of World War I