Episode 3: Minorities in Interwar Romania and the Rise of Fascism

In this episode, Raul Cârstocea, Lecturer in European History at Maynooth University and Honorary Fellow at the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Leicester, talks to Roland Clark (University of Liverpool), about historical antisemitisim and the rise of fascism in interwar Romania. He discusses the dramatic expansion of Romania’s borders following the First World War and the appearance of greater diversity in what had previously been a relatively homogeneous population. The newly-incorporated territories included many Jews, who became a scapegoat for many of Romania’s postwar socioeconomic problems. Raul considers the role antisemitic narratives played in the emergence of the native fascist movement, and what distinguished it from other far-right groups in Europe before the Second World War.