Of course alot of people in that period hated Jews, accused them of every concievable social and moral ill imaginable. But even then, more intelligent people saw such things as nonsense. Whenever there are problems, people turn on and point the blame on those who are different, and blame them. Mob mentality. Which is what a sane state is supposed to do. Rule rationally, and not give in to mob mentality, which is based on instinct and childishness.
Funny enough, it almost reminds me of the idocy of Meredith in DA2. Exterminate the mages to appease the mob for Ander's actions, was basically the whole of her arguement. Other arguements I've seen was to prevent the Chantry calling an exalted march on Kirkwall. I don't fault Antonescu for having to look at the external sh*t. Romania was pretty much a small country sandwiched between two very large, powerful, and aggressive countries. Trying to plead neutrality would have been futile, and the Germans and Soviets had shown quite clearly what how much they respected such declarations, and Romania's oil fields made it an unavoidable target for either. Still, though, killing off the Jews was pretty excessive, to put it mildly. But if he was that paranoid that they might be spies for the commies (which everyone believed back then), then moderate measures would have been lost on him. Like, forcible relocation or expulsion, if he was that big on it. To sign the death warrants of an entire race of people, men, women, children, just takes a mentality that goes too far on the cold-blooded, or too easily bent to pressure, scale.
One of the most stupid cases of genocide was the govornment sanction annhilation of the Native Americans . It too was fueled by the retarded mentality of "Manifest Destiny", one of those philosophies that helped inspire the N@zi idocy. There were so few of them, so many of us, yet there was a great abundance of space, land, and natural resources, that settlers could have settled, and the Natives could go about their business, and seldom would the two meet, if they so desired. Yet the chosen path was kill on sight, expel, or send smallpox ridden blankets. All because of retarded beliefs and ideologies, coupled by tunnel visioned eat or be eaten mentalities. Eventually, the Indians would have been assimilated naturally, as is always the case when dominant, wealtheir cultures collide with less advanced, technologically inferior ones. People naturally gravitate toward advancement.
The situation with the Jews was obviously different in Romania, as was the situation outside it's borders. I still can't get my head around how one could possibly justify exterminating an entire ethnic group for any reason, especially when there are other ways to deal with it, if it is somehow a major problem. The kind of person capable of coming to such a descision would be the last person I'd want in power, personally. The systematic, targeted, and methodical extermination of an entire peopulation, because of the race/ethnicity they were born into, is a whole different ballgame to the normal cruelties and massive body counts of war. In the sense that declaring a war is done either for the sake of defense, or to conquor and occupy/subjugate. The end result might be the same, alot of dead people, but it's the mentality that differs. Conquest and expansion, or defense, I can understand. But genocide? I can't see the logic. And paranoid dictators are like mad dogs in that sense, once they have tasted blood, they want more. How long would it be before they turn their teeth and jaws on other groups that are considered "real citizens"? I do not trust such people to rule with sanity or competnce.