Romania is commemorating 84 years since the Iasi Pogrom, “one of the most painful acts of violence in the country’s modern history”, which claimed more than 13 thousand victims, IPN reports.

“In those tragic days of June 1941, Romanian Jews were murdered with unimaginable cruelty, under the authority of a regime that flagrantly violated every principle of humanity. It was an act of systematic violence, carried out with the support of certain state structures, which tore not only a community, but the very moral fiber of the state, leaving deep wounds in the conscience of the Romanian nation,” said Romanian Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, quoted by Mediafax.

On behalf of the Romanian Government, the Prime Minister paid tribute to the memory of the victims of the Iasi Pogrom. He said that this tragic event does not belong only to the past, but is a warning about the dangers of hatred, intolerance and extremist ideologies, a painful lesson about what can happen when the state becomes an instrument of hatred and the citizen is deprived of the protection of the law.

According to Bolojan, Romania has taken important steps in coming to terms with its past. Legislative mechanisms have been put in place to combat hate speech, Holocaust denial and distortion and anti-Semitic manifestations, and Holocaust education has been strengthened, most recently by the introduction of the subject “History of the Jews. Holocaust” as a compulsory subject.

Romania’s Prime Minister reiterated the firm commitment to continue efforts to combat anti-Semitism, xenophobia, radicalization and hate speech, to preserve the memory of the past and to condemn Holocaust denial and distortion, as well as to protect survivors.