Vadim Krasnoselsky, the PMR President:
I want to justify this law-in-draft and explain why it is relevant. It is clear that life is not an easy thing. The life of a person. The life of a state is many times more difficult, naturally. The development of states is always associated with victories, with defeats, somewhere with shame, with tragedies. We, the entire Pridnestrovian people, honor our history. We honor the memory of our ancestors. We do not forget our history and clearly place accents, such as they actually were in our historical development. I think this is right. People's lives are behind any event. One of the most tragic pages in the history of Pridnestrovie is the German-Romanian-fascist-Nazi occupation of our region, of course. I would like to clarify some points. Any events are associated with certain people, with those who generate certain tragic or victorious events and, of course, the symbolism, the symbolism of these events. It is clear that the German-fascist occupation is associated with the swastika, with fascist banners, flags, chants, greetings, the Nazi salutes and so on - everything that was prohibited by the Nuremberg Tribunal. This is a fact. Although the swastika itself is a more ancient symbol, meaning virtue, greeting, by and large, but the Nazis discredited it, and the swastika no longer became a symbol of virtue, but a symbol of fascism, Nazism, murders, the Holocaust and everything else that is associated with the killing of people. There is another term that jars on my perception of the historical tragedy of the entire nation – the term “transnistria”. This is a Romanian term. It appeared here at the time of the occupation of our region by German-Romanian troops from August 1941 to 1944. The time of “transnistria” was over here after the Iasi-Kishinev operation, even after the Odessa offensive operation, let’s say. The only territory of the Soviet Union that was given over to non-German occupation was the so-called “transnistria”. But it was not Pridnestrovie even geographically. The territory of “transnistria” was limited by the Dniester River, the Southern Bug and the Black Sea. The distance from Zhmerynka to Odessa was 350 kilometers. The territory of the so-called “transnistria” was more than 40000 square kilometers in total. The capital was the city of Odessa. Even territorially, geographically, whatever, calling Pridnestrovie "transnistria" is wrong. It is wrong at the very least. What was here during "transnistria"? Modern historians (I do not want to call them pseudo-historians, because they will say that "everyone has their own history") call that period the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and the liberation of Romania, the territory of Bessarabia from Soviet occupation.
I advise everyone who wants to understand the term "occupation" to refer to Ozhegov's dictionary or other sources. Naturally, we mean certain actions of occupation forces by “occupation”. The Romanian occupation forces created about 150-180 death camps and ghettos during the period from August 1941 to April 1944, on the territory of the so-called "transnistria", which I designated. "Other people" were sent there, as "Marshal Antonescu himself" said. The following example: 25 thousand residents of Odessa were shot in just one day on October 22, 1941 by order of the Romanian occupation authorities. This was an act of intimidation. In total, 300-350 thousand people of Jewish and other nationalities were killed, burned, murdered, shot, torn to pieces during the occupation regime on the territory of the so-called "transnistria". You know very well about Dubossary, where 20 thousand Jews were shot in September 1941. Literally a week later, on February 4 Antonescu issues an order, decree, instruction, it doesn't matter, called "1111" on the removal of all material assets from the territory of "transnistria", occupied Bukovina, respectively, Bessarabia when the German-Romanian troops of the Axis powers suffered a complete defeat at Stalingrad. Everything was removed, even door handles, rails, machinery, all equipment were removed in a short period of time. The territory was simply plundered. All this was taken to neighboring Romania. The peasants were deprived of the means of cultivating the land so that there would be no sowing in the spring. They had no doubt that the Soviet troops would liberate this territory, as eventually happened, and did everything so that the harvest would not go to the Red Army. The people were placed in conditions of terrible hunger and lack of basic means of subsistence, of course. For me personally, the term "transnistria" has transformed from the concept of "territory beyond the Dniester" into a term that stands for hunger, devastation, murder, blood, killing of people, the Holocaust. If we look at how Israel specifically relates to this, where there is a Holocaust museum, then "transnistria" is equated with the Holocaust. They do not separate the concept of the Holocaust from "transnistria" by and large. When we are called "transnistria", this is deeply offensive for me personally as a citizen of Pridnestrovie, an internationalist. Do you understand? It is quite conceivable that they call us specifically, intentionally, an occupation term or out of ignorance. Although geographically we have an extremely distant relationship to "transnistria", I repeat. The term "transnistria" has discredited itself with blood and murder, the bloody dictator Antonescu, who is up to his ears in the blood of innocent people, children, women, the elderly, this is a fact. It is time to put an end to this and equate the term “transnistria” with the symbols of fascism and Nazism, with the legal consequences.