Between the end of the Second World War and the late 1970s, artists in Romania responded to the trauma of the Holocaust through theatre and literature, navigating censorship, ideology, and the disappearance of witnesses. In 1945, orphaned survivors of the Transnistrian camps performed their memories at the Barasheum Theatre, assisted by theatre practitioners. That same year, under Iacob Mansdorf’s direction, the IKUF Theatre developed a new model that combined socialist realism with collective mourning. Holocaust themes remained central
in postwar Jewish theatre, including productions such as Night Shift (1949) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1957), which introduced more personal and psychological dimensions. These artistic forms gradually reflected the shifting ideological and social climate of socialist Romania. The article incorporates an autotheoretical approach that combines personal narrative with critical theory, drawing on memoir, philosophy and political reflection. Through this hybrid method, the text engages with key issues in Holocaust studies, including post-witness memory, archival research and the politics of imagination. It argues that Romanian representations of the Holocaust contribute to a broader understanding of the functions and challenges of historical representation today.