IOANID, Radu

PERSONAL: Born in Bucharest, Romania.

ADDRESSES: Office—U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl. SW, Washington, DC 20024-2126.

CAREER: Museum director and writer. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, associate director of international programs.

WRITINGS:

Urbanizarea n Romania: Implicatii Social-Economice, Editura Stiintifica si Enciclopedica (Bucharest, Romania), 1978.

The Word of the Archangel: Fascist Ideology in Romania, translated by Peter Heinegg, East European Monographs (Boulder, CO), 1990.

The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies under the Antonescu Regime, 1940–1944, Ivan R. Dee (Chicago, IL), 2000.

(Author of introduction and notes) Mihail Sebastian, Journal, 1935–1944, translated by Patrick Camiller, Ivan R. Dee (Chicago, IL), 2000.

The Ransom of the Jews: The Story of the Extraordinary Secret Bargain between Romania and Israel, Ivan R. Dee (Chicago, IL), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Radu Ioanid has written or edited several books about his native land of Romania. In The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies under the Antonescu Regime, 1940–1944 Ioanid explores anti-Semitism in Romania during World War II and describes the role of Romanian leaders, including Ion Antonescu, in passing legislation that led to the deportation of Jews as well as their resettlement in Romanian ghettos. Ioanid gathered much of the material from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum where he works and from the National Archives, both located in Washington, D.C. He also uses testimonies from survivors and material from Jerusalem's Yad Vashem. Writing in Booklist, George Cohen called the book the "definitive account of the Holocaust in Romania."

The Ransom of the Jews: The Story of the Extraordinary Secret Bargain between Romania and Israel recounts a little-known episode in Romanian history in which Romanian leaders Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and then Nicolae Ceausescu demanded money from Israel to allow Romanian Jews to immigrate there during the 1950s and 1960s. Ioanid draws much of the story from secret Romanian documents and interviews to detail this uneasy relationship between the two countries. Writing in the Library Journal, Maria C. Bagshaw called the author's work "carefully documented" and "essential for academic collections." A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that "Ioanid does a service in reporting on this sordid tale of exploitation and the trade in human beings."

Ioanid also wrote the introduction and notes for Journal, 1935–1944, written by Romanian writer Mihail Sebastian and focusing on the problems encountered by the Romanian Jewish population during World War II. Writing in the New Criterion, Anne Apple-baum called the book "a small reminder of how thin is the veneer of Western civilization, how close to the surface are brutality and hatred."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 1, 1999, George Cohen, review of The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies under the Antonescu Regime, 1940–1944, p. 506.

Library Journal, January 1, 2005, Maria C. Bagshaw, review of The Ransom of the Jews: The Story of the Extraordinary Secret Bargain between Romania and Israel, p. 128.

New Criterion, March, 2001, Anne Applebaum, review of Journal, 1935–1944, p. 66.

Publishers Weekly, November 15, 2004, review of The Ransom of the Jews, p. 52.