Nicușor Dan warns of rising hate speech and extremism at Iași Pogrom commemoration

Ceremony at the Jewish Cemetery

The message of Romanian President Nicușor Dan was read by state adviser Vlad Ionescu on Sunday at the Jewish Cemetery in Iași. Israeli President Isaac Herzog attended the ceremony, which marked 85 years since the Iași Pogrom of June 1941. Dan described the pogrom as one of the darkest chapters in Romania's history and a deep scar on the national conscience.

A systematic massacre

During three days of violence, authorities orchestrated the murder of about 13,000 Jews. Victims were shot in the streets, tortured, or packed into death trains. The writer Mihail Sebastian recorded the horror in his diary.

“The massacre in Iași is an obsession from which we cannot escape.”

Hate speech returning to public space

The president pointed to a renewed rise of inciting rhetoric.

“Evil does not begin with acts of extreme violence, but with the tolerance of discrimination, stereotypes and exclusion.”

He said the commemoration is no longer only a symbolic gesture of remembrance but also a warning. Extremism and historical revisionism, often masked in seemingly legitimate public discourse, remain real temptations, and the danger has not disappeared, either in Romania or across Europe.

Education as prevention

Dan praised Romania's progress in consolidating human rights safeguards and anti-Semitism legislation, aligning with European standards. He insisted that these achievements do not close the memory process but continue it. He stressed that education is the strongest form of prevention and that young people must know the truth about the Holocaust.

“Together, today in Iași, we commit not to fall into the trap of the 'banality of evil', a concept formulated by Hannah Arendt, and to remain vigilant in the face of intolerance, discrimination and hatred.”