Antifascist demonstrators shouting slogans during a protest in Bucharest. — Photos: ©2025 The New York Times Company
IT seemed like a straightforward proposal: renaming a Bucharest avenue that honoured a convicted World War II war criminal.
Diana Mardarovici, a city councillor, believed her motion to remove Mircea Vulcanescu’s name would be uncontroversial. Vulcanescu, a philosopher and economist, was part of Romania’s Nazi-aligned government, implicated in confiscating Jewish property and other wartime crimes.
