 Complete the following phrase:  The family was in Bucharest in 1940, when the loss of Northern Transylvania plunged Romania into a political crisis. Smochină deeply admired Conducător Ion Antonescu, who was Romanias dictatorial ruler from 1941 to 1944. The Transnistrian ethnographer preserved Antonescus image as a great lover of the nation and an honest man, particularly since Antonescu promised to revisit the Bessarabian-Transnistrian issue with an axe. According to his memoirs, Smochină accompanied the Conducător on all of his visits to Nazi Germany, where Antonescu reportedly imposed respect on German dictator Adolf Hitler. At that time, Romania formalized its alliance with the Axis Powers and, in summer 1941, joined Germanys 