The University of Bucharest Withdraws the Title of Doctor Honoris Causa to Marshal Ion Antonescu

The University of Bucharest decided to withdraw the title of Doctor Honoris Causa granted to Marshal Ion Antonescu. The decision was taken by the Senate of the University of Bucharest in the meeting on Wednesday, February 15, 2023.

The decision on the withdrawal of the honorary title was based on the fact that Ion Antonescu was found guilty of war crimes, being sentenced to death on May 17, 1946, by the People’s Court in Bucharest, a court that functioned under the coordination of the Allied Control Commission, being assimilated to the system of tribunals that judged the war crimes of the leaders of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Moreover, throughout his authoritarian rule, he displayed a strong anti-Semitic attitude, a fact expressed publicly on numerous occasions. As such, even if the number of Romanian Jews and those from the territories under Romanian administration killed during the Holocaust could not be precisely established, the conclusion of the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania is that during that period in Romania and in the territories under control, between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were killed or died as a result of the repression. To them is added a large part of the 25,000 ethnic Roma sent to Transnistria.

Given that Ion Antonescu’s responsibility for killing the Jews of Bessarabia, Bucovina and Transnistria is indisputable, the facts and actions of Ion Antonescu can be classified under art. 7.1.4 on the withdrawal of the title from the Regulation on the granting of honorary titles of the University of Bucharest, according to which “the nominated person was definitively and irrevocably convicted of crimes against humanity”.At the same time, the Senate of the University of Bucharest took into account the fact that the granting of this honorary distinction to Ion Antonescu in 1941 occurred in the conditions of altering the principle of university autonomy and in the spirit of promoting the cult of personality for the head of the state.In connection to the decision to withdraw the title of Doctor Honoris Causa, prof. Marian Preda, PhD, rector of the University of Bucharest, stated that “today, the Senate of the University of Bucharest decided that it can no longer associate the institution with Ion Antonescu and withdrew his title of DHC, as it did immediately after the Revolution by withdrawing the title to Nicolae Ceausescu. It was also decided to establish a commission to verify all DHC titles awarded in the past by the University. The role of each historical figure, good and bad, is documented by historians and cannot be changed by administrative decisions. Antonescu’s place in history has not changed in recent years, but the ethical criteria of the University of Bucharest are different today from those of 1941. After 1989, UB did not grant the title of DHC to any minister in office, or to any head of state in office, as it did in the past in the cases of dictators Ion Antonescu and Nicolae Ceaușescu. We cannot criticize the current political obedience of others by maintaining, by inaction, the past of our own institution. All the more we had to dissociate ourselves from Marshal Antonescu as the evidence regarding his direct contribution to the Holocaust is obvious. I met Mr. Fulop twice, an ethnic Jew with Romanian citizenship who was 13 years old when he was arrested together with his entire family, along with tens of thousands of other Jews from Romania and was taken to the Nazi camps. Out of dozens of members of his extended family he was the only survivor. I visited the Auschwitz camp and the Holocaust memorial in Washington DC. The dimensions of the Holocaust, the evidence of the atrocities and the testimonies of the survivors are shocking. Whoever ordered and contributed to all this is accountable to history. And Ion Antonescu, as historical evidence shows us, is one of those responsible for what happened on Romanian territory and what the Romanian army went through under his command”.

It should be noted that this approach is not unique in the history of the University of Bucharest, immediately after the Revolution of 1989 the UB Senate adopted the decision to withdraw the title of President Nicolae Ceaușescu as a result of the negative role he had in the evolution of Romania.

In addition to this decision, the Senate of the University of Bucharest decided to set up a commission to analyze the honorary titles of Doctor Honoris Causa granted throughout the period of the dictatorial regimes in Romania, the decision coming to reconfirm the firm commitment of the University of Bucharest to the essential values ​​of humanity, freedom, dignity and respect for democracy and the rule of law.