Gheorghe Buzatu

{{Short description|Romanian far-right historian and politician}}

File:Profesorul Gheorghe Buzatu la CICE - Iasi.jpg

Gheorghe Buzatu (6 June 1939 – 20 May 2013)[http://www.gandul.info/stiri/istoricul-gheorghe-buzatu-fost-senator-prm-a-incetat-din-viata-10889887 "Istoricul Gheorghe Buzatu, fost senator PRM, a încetat din viață"]. Gandul.info. was a Romanian historian, politician, and professor of history at the University of Iași.{{cite book|author1=Stephen Roth|author2=Stephen Roth Institute|title=Antisemitism Worldwide, 2000/1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Db7i1y806WUC&pg=PA209|date=1 September 2002|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=0-8032-5945-X|pages=209–}} Elected to the Romanian Senate for Iași County in 2000 on the lists of the nationalist party Greater Romania Party, he served as a vice president of that body over the next four years.{{in lang|ro}} [http://www.cdep.ro/pls/parlam/structura.mp?idm=108&leg=2000&cam=1 Profile] at the Romanian Chamber of Deputies site He is best known for his controversial publications about the Jews and the Holocaust in Romania during World War II.{{cite book|author1=Dr Tovi Fenster|author2=Dr Haim Yacobi|title=Remembering, Forgetting and City Builders|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3KiWS_BWLakC&pg=PA153|date=28 November 2012|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=978-1-4094-8874-3|pages=153–}}

Biography

Born in Sihlea, Vrancea County, Buzatu finished elementary and

high school{{cite web|url=http://colegiulvlahuta.ro|title=Absolvenți de prestigiu ai CNAV|lang=ro|publisher=Alexandru Vlahuță National College|website=colegiulvlahuta.ro|access-date=August 7, 2024}} in the city of Râmnicu Sărat and later studied history and linguistics at the University of Iași. In 1971, he received his PhD in history.[http://www.gds.ro/Bani-afaceri/2009-04-16/Profesorul+Gheorghe+Buzatu%2C++la+70+de+ani/ "Profesorul Gheorghe Buzatu, la 70 de ani"]. Gazeta de Sud. Between 1961 and 1992, he worked as a researcher at the Iași institute for archeology and history and was the chief researcher in the Center for History and European studies of the Romanian Academy. In 1992, he became the director of this center.{{cite book|author=Radu Cinpoes|title=Nationalism and Identity in Romania: A History of Extreme Politics from the Birth of the State to EU Accession|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cQQCAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT124|date=21 September 2010|publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=978-0-85772-030-6|pages=124–}}

= Publications =

Buzatu published 25 books and was involved in the writing of several others. One of his best-known works is the book Românii în arhivele Kremlinului (Romanians in the Kremlin's archives),{{cite book|author=Maria Bucur|title=Heroes and Victims: Remembering War in Twentieth-century Romania|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EsjKklCzmN0C&pg=PA289|year=2009|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-22134-6|pages=289–}} published in 1996. The book's chief thesis is that the Jews were responsible for the mass suffering and massacre of Romanians by the communist regime.{{cite book|author=Roni Stauber|title=Collaboration with the Nazis: Public Discourse after the Holocaust|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fYPFBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT407|date=13 September 2010|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-97135-8|pages=407–}} A chapter in the book, " Aşa a început Holocaustul împotriva poporului român" (Thus began the Holocaust against the Romanian people) was published in 1995 as a brochure by the extreme right group "The Legionnaires". In this chapter, Buzatu claimed that the Jews have the main responsibility for the Holocaust of the Romanian people which began in 1940 with the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=BfQoxsH9bbwC&q=gheorghe+buzatu+holocaust+denial&pg=PA54 | title = Holocaust Denial: The Politics of Perfidy | isbn = 9783110288216 | last1 = Wistrich | first1 = Robert S | date = 2012-10-01| publisher = Walter de Gruyter }}

In July 2001, Buzatu organized a Symposium on the subject of the Holocaust of the Jews in Romania. This symposium, titled "Holocaust în România?", mainly questioned the existence of the Holocaust of the Jewish people in Romania and the responsibility of the Romanian government for the mass murders committed on Romanian-controlled territories taken from the Soviet Union in 1941.[https://www.ushmm.org/research/center/presentations/features/details/2005-03-10/pdf/romanian/chapter_13.pdf] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130616054929/https://www.ushmm.org/research/center/presentations/features/details/2005-03-10/pdf/romanian/chapter_13.pdf |date=June 16, 2013 }} After the symposium, Buzatu established "Liga pentru Combaterea Antiromânismului" (the league against anti-Romanianism) with himself as president.{{cite book|author=Cas Mudde|title=Racist Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=azJ-AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT278|date=9 October 2005|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-25252-7|pages=278–}}

Holocaust historian Randolph Braham described Buzatu as a "Holocaust denier historian and an expert in manipulating public opinion".[Braham, Randolph L.: Romanian Nationalists and the Holocaust: Attempts to Whitewash the Past, 2002]{{cite book|author=Henry F. Carey|title=Romania Since 1989: Politics, Economics, and Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QjqxzR0xTvoC&pg=PA86|year=2004|publisher=Lexington Books|isbn=978-0-7391-0592-4|pages=86–}}

= Political career =

Between 2000 and 2004, Buzatu represented Iași County in the Romanian Senate.{{cite book|author=Michael Minkenberg|title=Historical Legacies and the Radical Right in Post-Cold War Central and Eastern Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-eA3BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA173|date=15 April 2014|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-3-8382-6124-9|pages=173–}}{{cite book|author=Zoltan Barany|title=The Future of NATO Expansion: Four Case Studies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=txlteD2HG9EC&pg=PA131|date=21 July 2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-44044-8|pages=131–}} In 2002, after parliament passed a law forbidding Holocaust denial, Buzatu offered to change the definition of "Holocaust". According to the proposal, the definition should be "a mass organized annihilation of Jewish population in Europe, committed by the Nazi authorities". Thus, Buzatu's proposal would have had the effect of saying there was no Holocaust in Romania because Nazi Germany did not directly rule Romania during the war.

In 2004, Buzatu was awarded the Order of the Star of Romania by president Ion Iliescu.[https://web.archive.org/web/20160204163031/http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=a9754d2a-5412-4ee2-958c-5c875c781e2b "Romanian anti-Semitism continues"]. National Post via o.canada.com{{cite book|author1=Jeanine Teodorescu|author2=Valentina Glajar|title=Local History, Transnational Memory in the Romanian Holocaust|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JcJeAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT46|date=15 March 2011|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-0-230-32077-2|pages=46–}}{{cite book|author1=Fernando Guirao|author2=Frances M. B. Lynch|author3=Sigfrido M. Ramirez Perez|title=Alan S. Milward and a Century of European Change|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PGJXLIFqeMsC&pg=PA540|year=2012|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-87853-1|pages=540–}}

{{cite book|author=Robert S. Wistrich|title=A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lzs48d3tudsC&pg=PT243|date=5 January 2010|publisher=Random House Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-58836-899-7|pages=243–}}

Buzatu died in 2013.