THEODORE ZEV WEISS ANNUAL LECTURE IN HOLOCAUST STUDIES

Each May, HEFNU invites a distinguished scholar in the field of Holocaust studies to deliver the annual Theodore “Zev” Weiss Lecture in Holocaust Studies. This lecture is named for HEF founder, Zev Weiss, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and several other Nazi camps. It honors his legacy of supporting innovative research and teaching in the field. The lecture also honors Zev’s family, many of whom were murdered in the Holocaust. The lecture takes place near the anniversary of the family’s deportation.

"Justice and Restitution: Reversing the Aryanization/Romanianization of Jewish Property in Post-Nazi Romania, 1944-1950" 

Featuring Ştefan Cristian Ionescu (Theodore Zev and Alice R. Weiss-Holocaust Educational Foundation Visiting Associate Professor, Northwestern University)

Tuesday, May 7
5:00 - 7:00 PM Central
Harris Hall, Room 108

Please join us!
In-Person Only
Open to the Public
Reception to Follow

While Holocaust litigation and restitution campaigns in US courts achieved global attention in the 1990s, a significant, though less spectacular litigation process took place in European courts in the early postwar years. Almost nothing is known about the massive effort Jews undertook in the courts of Romania – the country that was home to second largest Jewish community in postwar Europe (430 000 people in 1946) – which resulted in significant restitution of Jewish properties that had been transferred to gentiles during the pro-Nazi Antonescu dictatorship. This extensive property transfer was known as Aryanization or Romanianization. Ionescu will examine the reversal of that property transfer through court litigation and other methods in early post-Holocaust Romania (1944--1950).