More than a half a year has elapsed since Romania joined the European Union. Throughout the country, from the shabbiest village in Oltenia, to the lovingly restored streets of medieval towns in Tranyslvania, the EU flag proudly flutters. Other changes are plain to see as Romanians embrace the idea that they are now "a part of Europe."

All around are the trappings of a burgeoning consumer society. Hordes of foreign tourists and investors (including not a few Israelis) are everywhere, having discovered one of Europe's best kept secrets: Romania's breathtaking natural beauty and seemingly limitless, and very lucrative business opportunities. All this stands in stark contrast to the nightmarish misery that was Ceaucescu's Romania.

But, in at least one area of Romania's development, there is cause for dismay. The brilliant Romanian-born scholar Michael Shafir once characterized the long-standing Romanian approach to the Holocaust as "selective negationism" - something far more pernicious than mere Holocaust denial. The Romanian argument ran something like this: There was no Holocaust in Romania; if Jews were killed, then it was very few and Romanians were certainly not to blame; and if Romanians had taken Jewish lives, then it was only in reaction to Jewish misdeeds.