Simon Geissbühler

From summer 1941 onwards, Romania actively pursued at its own initiative the mass killing of Jews in the territories it controlled. 1941 saw 13,000 Jewish residents of the Romanian city of Iai killed, the extermination of thousands of Jews in Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia by Romanian armed forces and local people, large-scale deportations of Jews to the camps and ghettos of Transnistria, and massacres in and around Odessa. Overall, more than 300,000 Jews of Romanian and Soviet or Ukrainian origin were murdered in Romanian- controlled territories during the Second World War. In this volume, a number of renowned experts shed light on the events, the contexts, and the aftermath of this under-researched and lesser-known dimension of the Holocaust. 75 years on, this book gives much-needed impetus to research on the Holocaust in Romania and Romanian-controlled territories.

Simon Geissbühler is a Swiss historian, political scientist, and diplomat. He has published extensively on Romania and the Holocaust, Eastern European Jewish history, and Jewish heritage.

“We desperately need to know more about the Holocaust in Romania and the territories occupied and administered by Romanians during World War II. For too long this subject has not gotten the prominence it deserves. This volume gathers together many of the best scholars on the subject and promises to yield important new knowledge and insights.”
–Jeffrey Kopstein, University of California, Irvine

“Other than Germany, Romania was directly responsible for the murder of more Jews than any country during World War II. This transnational collection brings together the findings of leading specialists on this little-known but very important part of the Holocaust.”
–Karel C. Berkhoff, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam

“This much-needed collection brings together major experts on the Romanian Holocaust to contribute to ongoing debates over local actors, regional differences, change over time, and collective memory, as well as discussing the theory and method of Holocaust studies and opening new research agendas on several fronts. A valuable addition to a burgeoning literature.”
–Roland D. Clark, University of Liverpool

"This is a very valuable contribution to the literature. It functions well as both an introduction and a tool to deepen experts' knowledge of specific aspects of the Holocaust. In particular, it offers an unprecedentedly broad, transnational and methodologically innovative perspective on the case of Romania."–Gaelle Fisher, sehepunkte.de

„In Rumänien sind sie noch immer einflussreich, wenngleich nicht alles bestimmend: die Leugner des rumänischen Holocaustgeschehens, die bewussten Tatsachenverdreher, die Verniedlicher, diejenigen, die den Juden den Opferstatus abstreiten, weil ‚die Rumänen‘ im Kommunismus selbst viel mehr gelitten hätten. […] Eine Meinungsumfrage 2015 brachte zutage, dass nicht einmal ein Drittel der Rumänen den Holocaust als Teil der ‚eigenen‘, der rumänischen Geschichte wahrnehmen. Und die internationale Debatte ist da kaum weiter. Bei der Diskussion um die europäischen Holocaustereignisse kommt der rumänische Fall vielfach nur am Rande vor. Zum Glück ändert sich das alles gerade. Der vorliegende Band offeriert eine Zwischenbilanz zu drei zentralen Themenfeldern.“–Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. jgo.e-reviews 8 (2018), 3