Romania’s Communist Past Reminds Us That The Left Uses History As A Tool

For them—as for Democrats in America—history is not a record of our past; it is, instead, one more way to control the present and the future.

Arnold Cusmariu | October 25, 2026

As we all know, traditional last names sometimes indicate the occupation of the pater familias, e.g., Carpenter, Mason, Gardner, Taylor, and Smith.

“So, Arnold, does your last name indicate your father’s occupation?”

My dad was a CPA. “Cusmariu” refers to my paternal grandfather’s occupation. In Romanian, a cuşmar is a furrier; specifically, someone who makes (or sells) a cuşmă (see image below), which is a heavy fur hat needed to stay warm in climates where winter temperatures drop well below zero, and there’s a wind chill factor. Global warming hadn’t been invented yet.

I bring up the matter to note that my father could have used a cuşmă in the winter of 1941. Likewise, the eleven thousand Romanian Jews from Dorohoi (my hometown) deported to Transnistria by the Ion Antonescu regime could have used one, too. Other family members were deported at the same time.

Two Russian winters later, the Conducător (Romanian for Führer) said the deportation had been “unauthorized” (oops!)—the 1940 Dorohoi pogrom, in fact, was authorized—and allowed the five thousand or so survivors to return home.

My relatives made it back safely. At my urging, my dad started writing about his experiences in Transnistria but, alas, never finished. There is a photo of him on page 49 of Shlomo David’s Dorohoi: Generations of Judaism and Zionism (Kiriat Bialik, Israel: 1993). It shows him and other Dorohoi Jews behind a pile of anti-tank mines they had dismantled. German soldiers stand guard.

Considering this painful microcosm of Jewish history during WWII, you might think that the Holocaust would have permanently discredited jokes about ovens and political enemies. Apparently, some people missed that lesson. A Democrat politician went to Dachau last month and said Trump supporters belonged in the ovens (a charge she denies, but one consistent with her past statements). The left acknowledges the Holocaust after all!

I did have a........

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