Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Romania Bans Holocaust Denial

The World Jewish Congress praised Romanian President Klaus Iohannis for enacting a law that makes it illegal to deny the Holocaust.

“We congratulate President Iohannis for his strong stand against fascism, anti-Semitism and racism,” WJC President Ronald Lauder said in a statement Thursday, after Iohannis signed into law legislation passed recently by Romania’s parliament. “Only by fighting Holocaust denial and fascism at the highest levels can a nation effectively counter the troubling spread of anti-Semitism across Europe,” said Lauder.

The law, which is now part of Romania’s penal code, punishes Holocaust denial and the promotion of the fascist Legionnaires’ Movement with prison sentences of up to three years.

“We urge other European leaders to show the same kind of bold leadership and send a clear message: that fascists and Holocaust deniers are not only committing morally reprehensible acts, but also crimes punishable by law,” Lauder said.

The failures to restitute Jewish property and persistent Holocaust denial, even in academia and the government, have tarnished the country’s reputation. In 2012, a politician who denied that Jews had suffered in Romania during the Holocaust was appointed to a ministerial post despite protests by Jewish groups. The politician, Dan Sova, later apologized and said his statement was the result of ignorance.

A few months later, a Romanian member of the European Parliament denied the Holocaust on television. The following year, a prominent historian said it was a “huge lie” that large numbers of Jews were killed in areas under Romanian control during the Holocaust, leading to his firing from a teaching post at a German university.

“Most Romanians believe the Holocaust happened, but many still think Romanians did not perpetrate it” in Romania, Liviu Rotman, a historian at the University of Bucharest, told JTA. “To them it was the Hungarians or the Germans, but never Romanians, despite a wealth of evidence.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.