Library of Congress Cancels Project of Notorious Romanian

The Library of Congress has canceled a CD-ROM presentation on the history of Romania put together by a historian accused of holding anti-Semitic views.

Kurt Treptow, an American who lives in Romania, was scheduled to present the digital history project along with his book, “A History of Romania,” at the National Digital Library of the Library of Congress.

But the presentation was scrapped when B’nai B’rith and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum raised objections about Treptow with the Library of Congress and the Romanian Embassy, which co-sponsored the event.

George Spectre, associate director of the B’nai B’rith Center for Public Policy, called Treptow a revisionist historian whose main goal is the vindication and rehabilitation of the World War II-era Iron Guard in Romania.

Treptow’s writings, Spectre added, attempt to exonerate the Iron Guard leaders who were responsible for pogroms and anti-Jewish legislation, similar to the Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany.

Other scholars said Treptow had also collaborated with Gheorghe Buzatu, a notorious Romanian anti-Semite, who wrote a brochure blaming Jews for being accomplices of the Soviets in what he called “the Holocaust against the Romanian people.”

Grant Harris, a reference librarian in the European Division of the Library of Congress, said he reached a joint decision with the Romanian Embassy to cancel the presentation.

“Nobody needed the controversy,” he said.

Both B’nai B’rith and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said they were pleased with the decision.

“Apparently, they didn’t really do their homework,” Spectre said of those responsible at the Library of Congress.