In mid-2002, statements by Romanian President Ion Iliescu and other government officials reignited the issue of revisionist history by claiming that there had been no Holocaust in Romania, by suggesting that political opponents of the Nazis had been treated similarly to Jews, and by suggesting that Antonescu could not be viewed only in negative terms. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum led the international outcry and played a leading role in discussions that led Iliescu to appoint an independent commission, chaired by Nobel Laureate and Founding Museum Chairman Elie Wiesel, to produce a definitive history of Romania’s role during the Holocaust.

Changing long-held, deeply engrained prejudices is a long and complicated process. But the Wiesel Commission report has laid out the historical facts in an authoritative way for the Romanian public for the very first time.