“On the night of January 22, 1941, the legionaries of Archangel Michael – after singing Orthodox hymns, putting the Roman soil on their shoulders and anointing each other with holy water – kidnapped 200 men , women and children from their homes”.
“The legionnaires collected the victims in trucks and took them to the municipal slaughterhouse, a group of brick buildings in the south of Bucharest, near the river Dâmbovița. The victims, all Jews, were forced to undress in the freezing darkness and sitting on all fours on the conveyor belt.
Screaming in horror, the Jews passed through all the production stages of the slaughterhouse. The legionnaires hung each decapitated body without limbs, from which the blood flowed, on the hooks of the slaughterhouse, affixing a label: “good for human consumption”.
The torso of a five-year-old girl, who hung upside down, was bleeding, like a calf’s leg, an eyewitness said the next morning.
The page is quoted from the book by historian Robert D. Kaplan, “Ghosts of the Balkans”. The author writes, in the same tab, that the massacre of the legionnaires was the revenge of another massacre, that of 1938, when 14 legionary leaders “were strangled by the police of King Charles II and buried in a common pit”.
Communism and legionaries, the common elements
Why don’t we have these pages in the history books? Among other things, as explained by historians asked by Magda Grădinarubecause Ceausescu’s national-communism had elements in common with that of the Iron Guard: “Many ideas that, in fact, were legionary, were integrated into the cultural and ideological discourse of communist Romania.”
We are in a time where people are cursed and chased on TV, flaming icons are systematically posted on Facebook and threats are uttered. And the violence of language has also become physical violence. Although they don’t want to say it publicly, a number of public figures in Romania have already been assaulted on the street.
The elections scheduled for May are too late and too few. Those who govern the state continue to remain silent, without providing clear explanations for the cancellation of the elections. People have a right to be angry and upset. But what is unacceptable is violence, of any kind, in any dose and form.
The moment between the president POT and the gendarme
Before all the institutions that apply the law, the State, but also society, we all have the responsibility of what follows. One of the most hopeful moments of the beginning of the year came from Friday’s interaction and conversation. between a gendarme and the president POTAnamaria Gavrila.
The politician said: “The wheel will turn”, and the gendarme replied that, even if he changed the wheel, “we are here, in turn”.
The attitude of the two, politicians and gendarmes, was good because each respected their work and thus motivated the other to respect theirs. There are hundreds of thousands of public service professionals who will probably feel encouraged, seeing that the gendarme is calm and neutral, attentive but firm. By the way: the gendarmerie was one of the first law enforcement institutions to be modernized, adapted and financed in line with EU standards and aid.
Do we have an ideal gendarmerie, judiciary or police? No, not at all, but Anamaria Gavrilă, or any protestor today, would not have wanted to meet at the beginning of the 90s with the gendarmerie that came out of communism. Ask George Simion, he took several times at the stadium, although he did not get to face the “scutiers” from the first years of the change of Romania.
As security in the streets of our big cities is a good earned and worth defending.
Violence does not suit any legitimate candidate
We live in a country where protests are free and legitimate. You don’t have to explain to the government why you criticize them. He must explain to you how he rules you. And no one wants to deal with it Today’s militia in Russiathat takes people off the road, because it shows a simple white sheet of paper.
In theory, neither the party nor the candidate should be comfortable with normalizing and expanding the violence that has already occurred. That’s because, no matter who wins the spring elections, a country in aggression is much more difficult to govern, and the specter of anarchy drives away hope and investment more than anything.
Couldn’t get Kaplan’s page in the history book. Therefore, we risk reliving it.
