Did Romania participate in WWII?
Hungary–Romania relations
During World War II, Hungary and Romania became allies and participated in the war against the Soviet Union. But after the coup on 23 August 1944 Romania switched sides and fought against Hungary. Consequently, Soviet and Romanian troops invaded Hungary, occupied Northern Transylvania by October 1944 and re-established the Romanian administration in the region in March 1945. The 1947 Treaty of Paris reaffirmed the borders between Romania and Hungary as originally defined in Treaty of Trianon 27 years earlier, thus confirming the return of Northern Transylvania to Romania.
Rehabilitation of war criminals in post-Communist Romania
After the fall of Communism in Romania, between 1995 and 2004, a number of war criminals were rehabilitated by the Romanian Supreme Court. The rehabilitation process was part of the general efforts made by Romania to distance itself from its Communist past, as those convicted were sentenced after the country fell under Soviet influence in the wake of World War II. However, as a former Axis country during the Second World War, these rehabilitation initiatives put Romania at odds with the West (the United States in particular), as the former was seeking to join NATO and EU. Thus, the number of acquittals was relatively small, and rehabilitation initiatives ceased altogether in 2004, after Romania joined NATO.