Recently uncovered minutes of the Romanian government's plot to steal Titan-Nadrag-Calan from Jewish industrialist Max Ausnit in 1941 are disturbingly similar to the recent efforts of a former Romanian government to confiscate 85% of his descendants' property rights in the same steel plant (as described in the May 2012 issue of The Romanian Digest). Caught by the apparent misfeasance of Romanian bureaucrats intent on depriving the family of what has long ago been adjudicated as rightfully belonging to them, and abetted by an illegal and immoral effort of the most recent former government to again confiscate the family's interest in Titan-Nadrag-Calan, the Ausnits have been blocked at every turn in the restitution process by venal motives calculated to deprive the heirs of Romania's great Jewish industrialist and philanthropist of their hard won property rights. The April and May 2012 issues of The Romanian Digest describe how the Romanian governments has trampled on the family's human rights over the past decade. This article demonstrates how cavalierly the Romanian government did it in 1941.

Read the first part of the article here

Background

Max Ausnit was one of Romania's greatest industrialists in the inter-war period. The jewel in the crown of his holdings was Uzinele Metalurgice Titan Nadrag Calan which included a steel mill at Ferdinand, now known as the Otelu Rosu which, along with numerous subsidiaries such as Magazinele Unite, and Socomet, employed about 10,000 people. It was coveted by King Carol II for his personal wealth and, on trumped up charges - as Marshal Antonescu admits below - Max Ausnit was unjustly imprisoned by the King for his refusal to transfer ownership of the company to the King's personal holdings. After the forced abdication of Carol II, Antonescu sought to coerce the still wrongly imprisoned Ausnit to transfer owne