The Dynamics of Mass Murder. Grasping the Twisted Decision-Making Process behind the Romanian Holocaust

• Main Author: Mihai Chioveanu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Facultatea de Stiinte Politice, SNSPA 2012-04-01
• Series: Sfera Politicii
• Subjects: Holocaust; ethnic cleansing; anti-Semitism; deportation; mass-murder
• Online Access: http://www.sferapoliticii.ro/sfera/168/art03-Chioveanu.php

During the Second World War, the Romanian government turned ethnic cleansing into a top priority. Mass killing, ghettoization, and brutal deportations were accepted as effective means to achieve ultra-nationalistic and redemptive ends. My paper aims to delineate the reasons and motivations that might facilitate the understanding of the twisted decision-making process, and the strategic logic of the perpetrators. Describing how as to understand what and why it happened, I will focus on the goals centered process and it’s dynamic, aiming to pinpoint whose role is pivotal in the process that generated the Romanian Holocaust, and what is deliberate in the anti-Jewish policy of the Antonescu government.