Maria Antonescu
Encyclopedia
Maria Antonescu was a Romania
n socialite and philanthropist
, the wife of World War II
authoritarian
Prime Minister
and Conducător
Ion Antonescu
. A long-time resident of France
, she was twice married before her wedding to Antonescu, and became especially known for her leadership of charitable organization
grouped in the Social Works Patronage Council organization, having Veturia Goga for her main collaborator. The Council profited significantly from antisemitic policies targeting Romanian Jews
, and especially from the deportation of Bessarabian Jews
into Transnistria
, taking over several hundred million lei
resulting from arbitrary confiscations and extortion
.
Arrested soon after the August 1944 Coup
which overthrew her husband, Maria Antonescu was briefly a prisoner of war
in the Soviet Union
, and, after a period of uncertainty, tried and sentenced by the new communist regime
on charges of economic crimes (embezzlement
). Imprisoned for five years and afterward included in the Bărăgan deportations
, she spent the final years of her life under internal exile at Borduşani
.
, Maria was the daughter of Romanian Army captain Teodor Niculescu and his wife Angela (or Anghelina). According to researcher and journalist Lavinia Betea, her father may have squandered the family fortune, which, she argues, may explain why Maria did not have a dowry
. She married Gheorghe Cimbru, a Police
officer, with whom she had a son, also known as Gheorghe. The child was physically disabled by poliomyelitis
. Cimbru died before 1919, after which date Maria Niculescu is known to have moved to Paris
. In July 1919, she married a second time, to businessman Guillaume Auguste Joseph Pierre Fueller, a French Jew
.
Having divorced from Fueller in 1926 and married Antonescu, Romania's former military attaché
in France, she soon after moved to Bucharest
, where her new husband served as Secretary General of the Defense Ministry. The two reportedly met and fell in love before her divorce was final. Sources diverge on the marriage date, which is either indicated as August 29, 1927, or an unspecified day in 1928. Reputedly, their life as a couple was marked by Antonescu's rigidity and distaste for the public life. However, as Antonescu reached prominence and earned important political assignments, Maria too became the focus of public attention, which is said to have included negative reactions from the ranks of the upper class
, who reportedly viewed her as a parvenu
e. In 1938, when the relationship between Ion Antonescu and King
Carol II
degenerated into open conflict, the monarch engineered Ion Antonescu's trial for bigamy
, based on charges that she and Fueller had never actually divorced. Assisted by his lawyer Mihai Antonescu
, the future Conducător disproved the claim, and the perception that he was being persecuted by an authoritarian ruler reportedly earned him the public's respect. By then, although the officer spoke out against Carol II's extramarital affair with the commoner Elena Lupescu, his own marriage to a divorcée was being treated with contempt by some commentators of the time.
, the short-lived government established in tandem by Antonescu and the fascist
Iron Guard
as a result of the 1940 crises
. In this context, she took over the new state-run charity, which reputedly made her a contender in the conflict opposing her husband to the Guard, before the Legionary Rebellion
of early 1941 brought the Guard's downfall: according to Spanish
historian Francisco Veiga, her humanitarian effort was endorsed by the more conservative
pro-Antonescu factions in reaction to Guardist projects such as Ajutorul Legionar. Named Sprijinul ("The Support"), this body notably ensured participation from Veturia Goga, widow of antisemitic Premier
Octavian Goga
. They were also joined by the wife of World War I
hero, General Constantin Prezan
, and Sanda, the spouse of sociologist Sabin Manuilă.
Her promotion to head of the Social Works Patronage Council, merging the recognized charities, coincided with Romania's participation in Operation Barbarossa
, the recovery of Bessarabia
and Northern Bukovina, and the occupation of Transnistria. These events brought the generalization of antisemitic measures and the massive deportations of the Jews to areas east of the Dniester
, a process initiated by her husband, and marked by events in which she herself was implicated (see Holocaust in Romania). In October 1941, Wilhelm Filderman
, head of the Jewish Communities' Federation, sent her and her husband letters of protest, stressing that the deportations were tantamount to death—messages which went unanswered. In November, after the ghetto
in Chişinău
was sacked and its population deported to Transnistria, the authorities set aside confiscated property for the Patronage Council, for the Romanian Red Cross
, for Romanian hospitals and the Romanian Army.
In August 1942, the Jewish entrepreneurs Max Auschnitt
and Franz von Neumann donated 50 million Swiss franc
s to the same charity, a precautionary measure which may have played a part in the decision to indefinitely postpone transports from Romania to Nazi extermination camps. This event was notably recounted in a testimony by Ioan Mocsony-Stârcea, a member of King Michael I
's entourage. The same month, Jewish Affairs Commissioner Radu Lecca
, whose office implied the Jewish community's extortion
, collected 1.2 billion lei from the Jewish community through the government-controlled Central Jewish Office, of which 400 million were redirected toward Maria Antonescu's charities. The total sum passed by the Central Jewish Office toward the patronage Council exceeded 780 million lei. Lecca himself later stated: "The need for extra-budgetary money was continuously rising", arguing that, in addition to pressures from the part of Mihai Antonescu and German Ambassador Manfred Freiherr von Killinger
, "Mrs. Antonescu asked for money for her patronage". This type of abuse also touched other communities. Thus, among the special provisions ordered by Governor Gheorghe Alexianu and affecting Ukrainian
peasants in Transnistria, one required produce quotas, which were transferred directly to Maria Antonescu's project, and supposed to be used by hospitals treating Romanian soldiers wounded on the Eastern Front
.
Maria Antonescu occasionally intervened with her husband to alleviate some antisemitic measures. She is thus believed to have persuaded the Conducător not to create a special ghetto in Iaşi
(where the survivors of the 1941 pogrom
were supposed to be confined), in exchange for which local Jews provided the Patronage Council with 5 million lei. It was also as a result of her intercession that Romania's Chief Rabbi
, Alexandru Şafran
, obtained the reversal of an order to nationalize
and desecrate Bucharest's Sevastopol Jewish Cemetery. However, Şafran also left an account of her unwillingness to provide water and milk for children and infants confined in Cernăuţi en route to Transnistria. Reputedly, she and Veturia Goga also mediated between the Conducător and Petru Groza
, left-wing activist and leader of the clandestine Ploughmen's Front
, whose stance against the regime later made him the Antonescu regime's political prisoner
.
, arresting the Conducător and taking Romania out of its Axis
alliance. Her son Gheorghe Cimbru died soon afterward, on September 10. Reportedly, his death was suicide, caused by the distress he felt over his adoptive father's downfall. Having fled to Băile Herculane
, she was arrested in Căzăneşti
, where she had been offered refuge by a close friend of her personal secretary. According to one account, she had asked for protection from Queen Mother Helen, a noted adversary of her husband, who had promptly denied her request.
In March 1945, Maria Antonescu was taken into custody by the Soviet occupation forces
, and, like her husband before her, was transported into Soviet territory, where she was only interrogated once. They were not told of each other, even though they are believed that their cells at Moscow
's Lubyanka
shared a wall. Maria Antonescu returned in April 1946, at the same time as her husband. She was submitted to interrogations by Interior Ministry Secretary, Romanian Communist Party
member and public investigator Avram Bunaciu
, who recorded her views on Antonescu's political choices. Part of the inquiry focused on Maria Antonescu's own involvement. When asked about her support for a war of aggression
, which Bunaciu defined as "a war of plunder", she replied: "When I started [work with charities] there was no war. What was I to do? Not to keep going? I originally started because of all the misery in the Romanian land." She denied accusations of having participated in extortion, but admitted to having received funds from Lecca, and replied that she had never considered providing aid to Transnistrian deportees because Jews had "enough funds", and denied knowledge that Jews had been imprisoned in concentration camps.
According to conflicting accounts, she was simply allowed to go free, or detained at Malmaison prison before her declining health made the authorities commit her to Nicolae Gh. Lupu's clinic, ultimately assigning her house arrest
in a Bucharest lodging she shared with her mother. She lacked the means to support herself, and was cared for by her friends and family. After his People's Court
trial and just prior to his June 1946 execution for war crime
s, Ion Antonescu met his wife one final time, handing her his watch with the request that she imagine "it is my heart beating", and never let it stop. Again arrested in 1950, she was indicted by the communist regime
and found guilty of "bringing disaster to the country" and economic crimes in general, and of embezzlement
in particular. From 1950 to 1955, she was imprisoned at Mislea, a former convent
in Cobia
. She was kept under the provisions of "in secrecy" solitary confinement
, and, according to the account of one of her fellow inmates, allowed to step out of her cell only at night, when she would collect and smoke the cigarette butts discarded by the guards.
After her release from prison, Maria Antonescu was assigned "obligatory domicile" on the Bărăgan Plain
, within a wave of Bărăgan deportations
. While in Borduşani
, Ialomiţa County
, she met and befriended fellow women detainees from the Blue Squadron. Another witness to her deportation was engineer Eugen Ionescu, who later escaped to Australia
. Ionescu later retold his conversations with the Conducătors wife, specifically her complaint that Ion Antonescu had been refused trial by the International Military Tribunal
.
The area was characterized by weather extremes, and she complained of snowdrift
s preventing her from leaving her home in winter, and spent much of her time knitting
. According to one witness account, Maria Antonescu was also held in Giurgeni
, and worked for the local state farm
's cafeteria
. She was by then afflicted with a severe heart condition, and, after petitioning the authorities, was briefly allowed to return to Bucharest for treatment in 1958 or 1959. Maria Antonescu was again in Borduşani from 1959 to 1964, when a turn for the worse saw her internment to a specialist clinic, and then at the Colţea Hospital, where she was cared for by a friend doctor. She died there as the result of a third heart attack, and was buried at in Bellu cemetery, in a tomb owned by distant relatives.
s of three Romanian Orthodox
churches in separate Bucharest areas: Mărgeanului Church in Rahova
, one in Dămăroaia, and the Saints Constantine and Helena Church in Muncii, where they are depicted in a mural. In 1941, after floods took a toll on Argeş County
, the two founded Antoneşti, a model village
in Corbeni
(partly built by Ukrainian
prisoners of war
, and later passed into state property). Present on the front pages of newspapers and magazines for much of the 1930s and 1940s, Maria Antonescu was nevertheless perceived by her contemporaries as a withdrawn and secondary figure. Accounts of her life were provided by various public figures, including Princess Ileana
(who met her shortly before leaving the country in 1947) and anti-communist
members of the Romanian diaspora
. Some mentions of her were present in Bénie sois-tu, prison ("Bless You, Prison"), a best-selling book of memoir
s by Nicole Valéry-Grossu, a former Mislea inmate and defector
to France. According to writer Ion Caraion, the ridicule she was subjected to by sections of the public who opposed her husband's policies was unwittingly reflected by the press organ Timpul
, where unknown hands subverted the caption of a photograph showing her, Veturia Goga and Sanda Manuilă visiting a soldier's hospital, to read as if they were having intercourse with the wounded.
Before his death, Antonescu addressed his wife a final letter, in which he restated his claim to innocence and belief that posterity would exonerate him. He expressed a wish that Maria withdraw to an Orthodox monastery, adding: "There you will find the peace necessary for the soul and the piece of bread which today you cannot afford." The Cobia nunnery imprisonment, British
historian Dennis Deletant notes, was "an ironic twist" on this last wish. The original was not preserved and did not reach Maria Antonescu, but its text was copied by Titus Stoica, the Conducătors attorney, a version which he hid inside an armchair just prior to being himself arrested by communist authorities. Reportedly, Stoica forgot its location, and the document was only uncovered decades later by an upholsterer
.
In 2002, some 12 years after the Romanian Revolution
overthrew communism, actress Margareta Pogonat portrayed Maria Antonescu in Binecuvântată fii, închisoare, a film directed by Nicolae Mărgineanu (based on, and named after, Valéry-Grossu's book, and having Maria Ploae for its main protagonist). According to Mărgineanu, Pogonat accepted "the silent, almost figurative role" having as her motivation the fact that "she herself was imprisoned at the age of 16, because her parents were landowners."
The Antonescu estate was passed into state property, in accordance with provisions for war criminals. This included the watch handed by Ion Antonescu to his wife, which was confiscated from her minutes after she had received it. In 2008, Maria Antonescu's collateral inheritors stated a claim on the couple's villa in Predeal
. It was rejected by a Braşov
tribunal, which cited the original confiscation law.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n socialite and philanthropist
Philanthropy
Philanthropy etymologically means "the love of humanity"—love in the sense of caring for, nourishing, developing, or enhancing; humanity in the sense of "what it is to be human," or "human potential." In modern practical terms, it is "private initiatives for public good, focusing on quality of...
, the wife of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Romania
The Prime Minister of Romania is the head of the Government of Romania. Initially, the office was styled President of the Council of Ministers , when the term "Government" included more than the Cabinet, and the Cabinet was called The Council of Ministers...
and Conducător
Conducator
Conducător was the title used officially in two instances by Romanian politicians, and earlier by Carol II.-History:...
Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
. A long-time resident of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, she was twice married before her wedding to Antonescu, and became especially known for her leadership of charitable organization
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
grouped in the Social Works Patronage Council organization, having Veturia Goga for her main collaborator. The Council profited significantly from antisemitic policies targeting Romanian Jews
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
, and especially from the deportation of Bessarabian Jews
Bessarabian Jews
-Early history:Jews are mentioned from very early in the Principality of Moldavia, but they did not represent a significant number. Their main activity in Moldavia was commerce, but they could not compete with Greeks and Armenians, who had the knowledge of the Levantine commerce and relationships...
into Transnistria
Transnistria (World War II)
Transnistria Governorate was a Romanian administered territory, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, and occupied from 19 August 1941 to 29 January 1944...
, taking over several hundred million lei
Romanian leu
The leu is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 bani . The name of the currency means "lion". On 1 July 2005, Romania underwent a currency reform, switching from the previous leu to a new leu . 1 RON is equal to 10,000 ROL...
resulting from arbitrary confiscations and extortion
Extortion
Extortion is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime...
.
Arrested soon after the August 1944 Coup
King Michael's Coup
King Michael's Coup refers to the coup d'etat led by King Michael of Romania in 1944 against the pro-Nazi Romanian faction of Ion Antonescu, after the Axis front in Northeastern Romania collapsed under the Soviet offensive.-The coup:...
which overthrew her husband, Maria Antonescu was briefly a prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and, after a period of uncertainty, tried and sentenced by the new communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
on charges of economic crimes (embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
). Imprisoned for five years and afterward included in the Bărăgan deportations
Baragan deportations
The Bărăgan deportations were a large-scale action of penal transportation, undertaken during the 1950s by the Romanian Communist regime. Their aim was to forcibly relocate individuals who lived within approximately 25 km of the Yugoslav border to the Bărăgan Plain.-Reasons:After relations...
, she spent the final years of her life under internal exile at Borduşani
Bordusani
Borduşani is a commune located in Ialomiţa County, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Borduşani and Cegani.-References:...
.
Early life
Born in CalafatCalafat
Calafat is a city in Dolj County, Romania, on the river Danube, opposite the Bulgarian city of Vidin, to which it is linked by ferryboat. The construction of the Calafat-Vidin Bridge is planned between the two cities....
, Maria was the daughter of Romanian Army captain Teodor Niculescu and his wife Angela (or Anghelina). According to researcher and journalist Lavinia Betea, her father may have squandered the family fortune, which, she argues, may explain why Maria did not have a dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
. She married Gheorghe Cimbru, a Police
Romanian Police
The Romanian Police is the national police force and main civil law enforcement agency in Romania. It is subordinated to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform.-Duties:The Romanian Police are responsible for:...
officer, with whom she had a son, also known as Gheorghe. The child was physically disabled by poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route...
. Cimbru died before 1919, after which date Maria Niculescu is known to have moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In July 1919, she married a second time, to businessman Guillaume Auguste Joseph Pierre Fueller, a French Jew
History of the Jews in France
The history of the Jews of France dates back over 2,000 years. In the early Middle Ages, France was a center of Jewish learning, but persecution increased as the Middle Ages wore on...
.
Having divorced from Fueller in 1926 and married Antonescu, Romania's former military attaché
Military attaché
A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission . This post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer who retains the commission while serving in an embassy...
in France, she soon after moved to Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, where her new husband served as Secretary General of the Defense Ministry. The two reportedly met and fell in love before her divorce was final. Sources diverge on the marriage date, which is either indicated as August 29, 1927, or an unspecified day in 1928. Reputedly, their life as a couple was marked by Antonescu's rigidity and distaste for the public life. However, as Antonescu reached prominence and earned important political assignments, Maria too became the focus of public attention, which is said to have included negative reactions from the ranks of the upper class
Upper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
, who reportedly viewed her as a parvenu
Parvenu
A Parvenu is a person who is a relative newcomer to a socioeconomic class. The word is borrowed from the French language; it is the past participle of the verb parvenir...
e. In 1938, when the relationship between Ion Antonescu and King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
degenerated into open conflict, the monarch engineered Ion Antonescu's trial for bigamy
Bigamy
In cultures that practice marital monogamy, bigamy is the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another. Bigamy is a crime in most western countries, and when it occurs in this context often neither the first nor second spouse is aware of the other...
, based on charges that she and Fueller had never actually divorced. Assisted by his lawyer Mihai Antonescu
Mihai Antonescu
Mihai Antonescu was a Romanian politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister during World War II.-Early career:...
, the future Conducător disproved the claim, and the perception that he was being persecuted by an authoritarian ruler reportedly earned him the public's respect. By then, although the officer spoke out against Carol II's extramarital affair with the commoner Elena Lupescu, his own marriage to a divorcée was being treated with contempt by some commentators of the time.
Wartime
Maria Antonescu herself achieved political importance in late 1940, during the National Legionary StateNational Legionary State
The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...
, the short-lived government established in tandem by Antonescu and the fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
as a result of the 1940 crises
Romania during World War II
Following the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the Kingdom of Romania officially adopted a position of neutrality. However, the rapidly changing situation in Europe during 1940, as well as domestic political upheaval, undermined this stance. Fascist political forces such as the Iron...
. In this context, she took over the new state-run charity, which reputedly made her a contender in the conflict opposing her husband to the Guard, before the Legionary Rebellion
Legionnaires' Rebellion and Bucharest Pogrom
The Legionnaires' rebellion and the Bucharest pogrom occurred in Bucharest, Romania, between 21 and 23 January 1941.As the privileges of the Iron Guard were being cut off by Conducător Ion Antonescu, members of the Iron Guard, also known as the Legionnaires, revolted...
of early 1941 brought the Guard's downfall: according to Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
historian Francisco Veiga, her humanitarian effort was endorsed by the more conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
pro-Antonescu factions in reaction to Guardist projects such as Ajutorul Legionar. Named Sprijinul ("The Support"), this body notably ensured participation from Veturia Goga, widow of antisemitic Premier
Prime Minister of Romania
The Prime Minister of Romania is the head of the Government of Romania. Initially, the office was styled President of the Council of Ministers , when the term "Government" included more than the Cabinet, and the Cabinet was called The Council of Ministers...
Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga was a Romanian politician, poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.-Life:Born in Răşinari, nearby Sibiu, he was an active member in the Romanian nationalistic movement in Transylvania and of its leading group, the Romanian National Party in Austria-Hungary. Before World War I,...
. They were also joined by the wife of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
hero, General Constantin Prezan
Constantin Prezan
Constantin Prezan was a Romanian general during World War I and after the war a Marshal of Romania....
, and Sanda, the spouse of sociologist Sabin Manuilă.
Her promotion to head of the Social Works Patronage Council, merging the recognized charities, coincided with Romania's participation in Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, the recovery of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
and Northern Bukovina, and the occupation of Transnistria. These events brought the generalization of antisemitic measures and the massive deportations of the Jews to areas east of the Dniester
Dniester
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...
, a process initiated by her husband, and marked by events in which she herself was implicated (see Holocaust in Romania). In October 1941, Wilhelm Filderman
Wilhelm Filderman
Wilhelm Filderman was a leader of the Romanian-Jewish community between the two wars and a representative of the Jews in the Romanian parliament....
, head of the Jewish Communities' Federation, sent her and her husband letters of protest, stressing that the deportations were tantamount to death—messages which went unanswered. In November, after the ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
in Chişinău
Chisinau
Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...
was sacked and its population deported to Transnistria, the authorities set aside confiscated property for the Patronage Council, for the Romanian Red Cross
Romanian Red Cross
The Romanian Red Cross , also known as the Romanian National Red Cross , is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside Romania...
, for Romanian hospitals and the Romanian Army.
In August 1942, the Jewish entrepreneurs Max Auschnitt
Max Auschnitt
Max Auschnitt, also known as Auschnit or Auşnit , was a Romanian industrialist and rival of Nicolae Malaxa, who played an important role before World War II. Together with Aristide Blank and Malaxa, he was one of the major businessmen present in King Carol II's camarilla...
and Franz von Neumann donated 50 million Swiss franc
Swiss franc
The franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein; it is also legal tender in the Italian exclave Campione d'Italia. Although not formally legal tender in the German exclave Büsingen , it is in wide daily use there...
s to the same charity, a precautionary measure which may have played a part in the decision to indefinitely postpone transports from Romania to Nazi extermination camps. This event was notably recounted in a testimony by Ioan Mocsony-Stârcea, a member of King Michael I
Michael I of Romania
Michael was the last King of Romania. He reigned from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930, and again from 6 September 1940 until 30 December 1947 when he was forced, by the Communist Party of Romania , to abdicate to the Soviet armies of occupation...
's entourage. The same month, Jewish Affairs Commissioner Radu Lecca
Radu Lecca
Radu Lecca was a Romanian spy, journalist, civil servant and convicted war criminal. A World War I veteran who served a prison term for espionage in France during the early 1930s, he was a noted supporter of antisemitic concepts and, after 1933, an agent of influence for Nazi Germany...
, whose office implied the Jewish community's extortion
Extortion
Extortion is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime...
, collected 1.2 billion lei from the Jewish community through the government-controlled Central Jewish Office, of which 400 million were redirected toward Maria Antonescu's charities. The total sum passed by the Central Jewish Office toward the patronage Council exceeded 780 million lei. Lecca himself later stated: "The need for extra-budgetary money was continuously rising", arguing that, in addition to pressures from the part of Mihai Antonescu and German Ambassador Manfred Freiherr von Killinger
Manfred Freiherr von Killinger
Manfred Freiherr von Killinger was a German naval officer, Freikorps leader, military writer and Nazi politician. A veteran of World War I and member of the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt during the German Revolution, he took part in the violent intervention against the Bavarian Soviet Republic...
, "Mrs. Antonescu asked for money for her patronage". This type of abuse also touched other communities. Thus, among the special provisions ordered by Governor Gheorghe Alexianu and affecting Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
peasants in Transnistria, one required produce quotas, which were transferred directly to Maria Antonescu's project, and supposed to be used by hospitals treating Romanian soldiers wounded on the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
.
Maria Antonescu occasionally intervened with her husband to alleviate some antisemitic measures. She is thus believed to have persuaded the Conducător not to create a special ghetto in Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
(where the survivors of the 1941 pogrom
Iasi pogrom
The Iaşi pogrom or Jassy pogrom of June 27, 1941 was one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history, launched by governmental forces in the Romanian city of Iaşi against its Jewish population, resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews, according to Romanian authorities.-Background:]During...
were supposed to be confined), in exchange for which local Jews provided the Patronage Council with 5 million lei. It was also as a result of her intercession that Romania's Chief Rabbi
Chief Rabbi
Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...
, Alexandru Şafran
Alexandru Safran
Alexandru Şafran was a Romanian and, after 1948, Swiss rabbi. As chief rabbi of Romania , he intervened with authorities in the fascist government of Ion Antonescu in an unusually successful attempt to save Jews during the Holocaust.-Biography:Şafran was born in Bacău, and received his doctorate...
, obtained the reversal of an order to nationalize
Nationalization in Romania
The nationalization of the means of production was a measure taken by Romania’s new Communist authorities in order to lay the foundation of socialism. The act that allowed this measure to take place was Law 119, adopted by the Great National Assembly on June 11, 1948...
and desecrate Bucharest's Sevastopol Jewish Cemetery. However, Şafran also left an account of her unwillingness to provide water and milk for children and infants confined in Cernăuţi en route to Transnistria. Reputedly, she and Veturia Goga also mediated between the Conducător and Petru Groza
Petru Groza
Petru Groza was a Romanian politician, best known as the Prime Minister of the first Communist Party-dominated governments under Soviet occupation during the early stages of the Communist regime in Romania....
, left-wing activist and leader of the clandestine Ploughmen's Front
Ploughmen's Front
The Ploughmen's Front was a Romanian left-wing agrarian-inspired political organisation of ploughmen, founded at Deva in 1933 and led by Petru Groza. At its peak in 1946, the Front had over 1 million members.-History:...
, whose stance against the regime later made him the Antonescu regime's political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
.
Detention, sentencing and final years
The Antonescus' status changed dramatically after King Michael and opposition forces carried out the August 1944 CoupKing Michael's Coup
King Michael's Coup refers to the coup d'etat led by King Michael of Romania in 1944 against the pro-Nazi Romanian faction of Ion Antonescu, after the Axis front in Northeastern Romania collapsed under the Soviet offensive.-The coup:...
, arresting the Conducător and taking Romania out of its Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
alliance. Her son Gheorghe Cimbru died soon afterward, on September 10. Reportedly, his death was suicide, caused by the distress he felt over his adoptive father's downfall. Having fled to Băile Herculane
Baile Herculane
Băile Herculane is a town in Romanian Banat, in Caraş-Severin County, situated in the valley of the Cerna River, between the Mehedinţi Mountains to the east and the Cerna Mountains to the west, elevation 168 meters. Its current population is approximately 6,000...
, she was arrested in Căzăneşti
Cazanesti
Căzăneşti is a town in Ialomiţa County, Romania....
, where she had been offered refuge by a close friend of her personal secretary. According to one account, she had asked for protection from Queen Mother Helen, a noted adversary of her husband, who had promptly denied her request.
In March 1945, Maria Antonescu was taken into custody by the Soviet occupation forces
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
, and, like her husband before her, was transported into Soviet territory, where she was only interrogated once. They were not told of each other, even though they are believed that their cells at Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
's Lubyanka
Lubyanka
Lubyanka or Lubianka may refer to:*Lubyanka Square, Moscow*Bolshaya Lubyanka Street, Moscow*Lubyanka Building, former KGB headquarters and prison at Lubyanka Square, Moscow*Lubyanka , a metro station in MoscowPlaces in Poland called Lubianka...
shared a wall. Maria Antonescu returned in April 1946, at the same time as her husband. She was submitted to interrogations by Interior Ministry Secretary, Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
member and public investigator Avram Bunaciu
Avram Bunaciu
Avram Bunaciu was a Romanian communist politician who served as the Minister of Justice, Minister of Foreign Affairs and was the acting President of the State Council of Romania.-Early life:...
, who recorded her views on Antonescu's political choices. Part of the inquiry focused on Maria Antonescu's own involvement. When asked about her support for a war of aggression
War of aggression
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense usually for territorial gain and subjugation. The phrase is distinctly modern and diametrically opposed to the prior legal international standard of "might makes right", under...
, which Bunaciu defined as "a war of plunder", she replied: "When I started [work with charities] there was no war. What was I to do? Not to keep going? I originally started because of all the misery in the Romanian land." She denied accusations of having participated in extortion, but admitted to having received funds from Lecca, and replied that she had never considered providing aid to Transnistrian deportees because Jews had "enough funds", and denied knowledge that Jews had been imprisoned in concentration camps.
According to conflicting accounts, she was simply allowed to go free, or detained at Malmaison prison before her declining health made the authorities commit her to Nicolae Gh. Lupu's clinic, ultimately assigning her house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
in a Bucharest lodging she shared with her mother. She lacked the means to support herself, and was cared for by her friends and family. After his People's Court
Romanian People's Tribunals
The two Romanian People's Tribunals , the Bucharest People's Tribunal and the Northern Transylvania People's Tribunal were set up by the post-World War II government of Romania, overseen by the Allied Control Commission to try suspected war criminals, in line with Article 14 of the Armistice...
trial and just prior to his June 1946 execution for war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
s, Ion Antonescu met his wife one final time, handing her his watch with the request that she imagine "it is my heart beating", and never let it stop. Again arrested in 1950, she was indicted by the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
and found guilty of "bringing disaster to the country" and economic crimes in general, and of embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
in particular. From 1950 to 1955, she was imprisoned at Mislea, a former convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
in Cobia
Cobia, Dâmbovita
Cobia is a commune in Romania. It is located in Dâmboviţa County. It is composed of ten villages: Blidari, Călugăreni, Căpşuna, Cobiuţa, Crăciuneşti, Frasin-Deal, Frasin-Vale, Gherghiţeşti , Mănăstirea and Mislea....
. She was kept under the provisions of "in secrecy" solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
, and, according to the account of one of her fellow inmates, allowed to step out of her cell only at night, when she would collect and smoke the cigarette butts discarded by the guards.
After her release from prison, Maria Antonescu was assigned "obligatory domicile" on the Bărăgan Plain
Baragan Plain
The Bărăgan Plain is a steppe plain in south-eastern Romania. It makes up much of the eastern part of the Wallachian Plain. The region is known for its black soil and a rich humus, and is mostly a cereal-growing area....
, within a wave of Bărăgan deportations
Baragan deportations
The Bărăgan deportations were a large-scale action of penal transportation, undertaken during the 1950s by the Romanian Communist regime. Their aim was to forcibly relocate individuals who lived within approximately 25 km of the Yugoslav border to the Bărăgan Plain.-Reasons:After relations...
. While in Borduşani
Bordusani
Borduşani is a commune located in Ialomiţa County, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Borduşani and Cegani.-References:...
, Ialomiţa County
Ialomita County
Ialomița is a county of Romania, in Muntenia, with the capital city at Slobozia.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 296,572 and the population density was 67/km²....
, she met and befriended fellow women detainees from the Blue Squadron. Another witness to her deportation was engineer Eugen Ionescu, who later escaped to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Ionescu later retold his conversations with the Conducătors wife, specifically her complaint that Ion Antonescu had been refused trial by the International Military Tribunal
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
.
The area was characterized by weather extremes, and she complained of snowdrift
Snowdrift
A snowdrift is a deposit of snow sculpted by wind into a mound during a snowstorm. Snowdrifts resemble sand dunes and are formed in a similar manner, namely, by wind moving light snow and depositing it when the wind is slowed, usually against a stationary object. Snow normally crests and slopes...
s preventing her from leaving her home in winter, and spent much of her time knitting
Knitting
Knitting is a method by which thread or yarn may be turned into cloth or other fine crafts. Knitted fabric consists of consecutive rows of loops, called stitches. As each row progresses, a new loop is pulled through an existing loop. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can...
. According to one witness account, Maria Antonescu was also held in Giurgeni
Giurgeni
Giurgeni is a commune located in Ialomiţa County, Romania. It is composed of a single village, Giurgeni....
, and worked for the local state farm
Collectivization in Romania
The collectivization of agriculture in Romania took place in the early years of the Communist regime. The initiative sought to bring about a thorough transformation in the property regime and organisation of labour in agriculture...
's cafeteria
Cafeteria
A cafeteria is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school dining location is also referred to as a dining hall or canteen...
. She was by then afflicted with a severe heart condition, and, after petitioning the authorities, was briefly allowed to return to Bucharest for treatment in 1958 or 1959. Maria Antonescu was again in Borduşani from 1959 to 1964, when a turn for the worse saw her internment to a specialist clinic, and then at the Colţea Hospital, where she was cared for by a friend doctor. She died there as the result of a third heart attack, and was buried at in Bellu cemetery, in a tomb owned by distant relatives.
Legacy
The Antonescus were ktitorKtitor
A ktetor or ktitor is someone who provides the funds for construction or reconstruction of an Orthodox church or monastery, for the addition of icons, frescos, and other works of art. A Catholic equivalent of the term is a donator. The female form is ktetorissa or ktitorissa ....
s of three Romanian Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
churches in separate Bucharest areas: Mărgeanului Church in Rahova
Rahova
Rahova is a neighbourhood of southwest Bucharest, Romania, situated in Sector 5, west of Dâmboviţa River. It is named after the Bulgarian town Rahovo , site of a battle in the Romanian War of Independence....
, one in Dămăroaia, and the Saints Constantine and Helena Church in Muncii, where they are depicted in a mural. In 1941, after floods took a toll on Argeş County
Arges County
Argeș is a county of Romania, in Wallachia, with the capital city at Pitești.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 652,625 and the population density was 95/km².*Romanians – 96%*Roma , and other.-Geography:...
, the two founded Antoneşti, a model village
Model village
A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, in most cases built from the late eighteenth century onwards by industrialists to house their workers...
in Corbeni
Corbeni
Corbeni is a commune in Argeş County, south central Romania. It is composed of eight villages: Berindeşti, Bucşeneşti, Corbeni, Oeştii Pământeni, Oeştii Ungureni, Poienari, Rotunda and Tulburea....
(partly built by Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
prisoners of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
, and later passed into state property). Present on the front pages of newspapers and magazines for much of the 1930s and 1940s, Maria Antonescu was nevertheless perceived by her contemporaries as a withdrawn and secondary figure. Accounts of her life were provided by various public figures, including Princess Ileana
Princess Ileana of Romania
Princess Ileana of Romania was the youngest daughter of Ferdinand I of Romania, King of the Romanians, and his consort Queen Marie of Romania. She was born Her Royal Highness Ileana, Princess of Romania, Princess of Hohenzollern...
(who met her shortly before leaving the country in 1947) and anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
members of the Romanian diaspora
Romanian diaspora
The Romanian diaspora is the ethnically Romanian population outside Romania and Moldova. The concept does not usually include the ethnic Romanians who live as natives in the states surrounding Romania, chiefly those Romanians who live in Ukraine and Serbia. The diaspora does include the people of...
. Some mentions of her were present in Bénie sois-tu, prison ("Bless You, Prison"), a best-selling book of memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
s by Nicole Valéry-Grossu, a former Mislea inmate and defector
Eastern Bloc emigration and defection
Eastern Bloc emigration and defection was a point of controversy during the Cold War. After World War II, emigration restrictions were imposed by countries in the Eastern Bloc, which consisted of the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern and Central Europe...
to France. According to writer Ion Caraion, the ridicule she was subjected to by sections of the public who opposed her husband's policies was unwittingly reflected by the press organ Timpul
Timpul
Timpul is a newspaper published in Romania, originally published as the official platform of the defunct Conservative Party....
, where unknown hands subverted the caption of a photograph showing her, Veturia Goga and Sanda Manuilă visiting a soldier's hospital, to read as if they were having intercourse with the wounded.
Before his death, Antonescu addressed his wife a final letter, in which he restated his claim to innocence and belief that posterity would exonerate him. He expressed a wish that Maria withdraw to an Orthodox monastery, adding: "There you will find the peace necessary for the soul and the piece of bread which today you cannot afford." The Cobia nunnery imprisonment, British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
historian Dennis Deletant notes, was "an ironic twist" on this last wish. The original was not preserved and did not reach Maria Antonescu, but its text was copied by Titus Stoica, the Conducătors attorney, a version which he hid inside an armchair just prior to being himself arrested by communist authorities. Reportedly, Stoica forgot its location, and the document was only uncovered decades later by an upholsterer
Upholstery
Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word upholstery comes from the Middle English word upholder, which referred to a tradesman who held up his goods. The term is equally applicable to domestic,...
.
In 2002, some 12 years after the Romanian Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
overthrew communism, actress Margareta Pogonat portrayed Maria Antonescu in Binecuvântată fii, închisoare, a film directed by Nicolae Mărgineanu (based on, and named after, Valéry-Grossu's book, and having Maria Ploae for its main protagonist). According to Mărgineanu, Pogonat accepted "the silent, almost figurative role" having as her motivation the fact that "she herself was imprisoned at the age of 16, because her parents were landowners."
The Antonescu estate was passed into state property, in accordance with provisions for war criminals. This included the watch handed by Ion Antonescu to his wife, which was confiscated from her minutes after she had received it. In 2008, Maria Antonescu's collateral inheritors stated a claim on the couple's villa in Predeal
Predeal
Predeal is a town in Braşov County, Romania. It is the highest town and one of the most important mountain resorts in Romania, being located on the Prahova Valley at over...
. It was rejected by a Braşov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
tribunal, which cited the original confiscation law.