Introduction: World War II Bucharest and Its Jews

Abstract

One of the main beneficiaries of the Paris Peace Treaties at the end of World War I and a major French and British ally in Eastern Europe, Romania found itself increasingly isolated two decades later in the context of the growing power of Nazi Germany Fascist Italy and the new communist state of the Soviet Union. Sensing that the spirit of the era favored nondemocratic regimes and wanting greater personal power, King Carol II transformed the country into a dictatorship in 1938. Fearing Romania’s neighbors, especially the Soviet Union, and hoping to gain German support and marginalize his main domestic competitor, the Iron-Guard fascist party, the dictator made economic concessions and adopted Nazi-influenced policies, including antisemitic legislation.1 Despite these measures, Carol II did not convince Hitler or Mussolini to lend support, and in the summer of 1940, Romania suffered several territorial losses (Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, Northern Transylvania, and Southern Dobrogea) to the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Bulgaria, who had secured Germany’s approval and cooperation.