[B.
Destruction of the Jewish existence in Romania
1929-1939]
[5.16. Nationalism - anti-Semitism -
discrimination - Goga laws 1938]
[Nationalism in Romania
presses against the minorities]
However, it was mainly the Romanian middle class and
landowners who benefited, while the rising tide of
nationalism prevented most minority group members from
participating in this economic improvement. These
minorities, about 4.5 mio. people in a nation of 18 mio.
[Germans, Hungarians, Russians, Jews, Ukrainians etc.],
were not treated equally by the government. Hungarians and
Germans, who were a majority among the 4.5 mio. were
treated better than the rest - Ukrainians, Bulgarians,
Greeks, Russians, Gypsies, and Jews. The usual reasons for
anti-Semitism were aggravated in Romania. Small trade was,
in crucial areas, in Jewish hands - 48.3 % of Romanian
Jews engaged in trade -
(End note 76: R50: Situation of the Jews in Eastern
Europe; report for June 1938; 32.8 % of the Jews were
engaged in industry, 4.1 % in agriculture, and 2.7 % in
the professions).
and the economic competition grew by leaps and bounds. The
Jews were the least protected of the ethnic minorities and
could be dealt with impunity by economic competitors.
[Since 1935: Anti-Semitic
laws and laws against minorities in Romania - Jewish
small businesses are going down]
It is therefore not surprising that openly anti-Semitic
measures (p.213)
were taken even by the Liberal regime. By late 1935
decrees had already been published limiting the employment
of non-Romanians in industry. In late 1936 and early 1937
a series of government decrees said that at least 50 % of
the employees in all industrial or trade establishments
must be ethnically Romanian. As the Jews were the only
minority among whom trade and industry formed a major part
of the occupational structure, the decrees were clearly
aimed at them.
Worse, the Romanian National Bank instructed all its
branches not to rediscount bills of businesses belonging
to members of ethnic minorities. Merchants, artisans, and
mercantile employees had to pass examinations like the
Polish ones or be deprived of their occupations.
Apprentices - in a country where the majority of artisans
were Jewish - would have to have seven years of Romanian
elementary schooling in the future.
(End note 77:
-- R48, report from Romania, 1/19/37 [19 January 1937];
-- R16, Kahn report, 11/19/35 [19 November 1935])
[The Romanians and the
minorities have to help each other to fulfill the new
laws]
The results were a swift deterioration in the Jewish
economic position. One after another, Jewish banks outside
the JDC kassa system were failing. Jewish masters had to
accept non-Jewish apprentices for training, both to
satisfy the quota for Romanian employees and also because
there simply were not enough Jewish apprentices to qualify
under the new regulations.
[Since 1935:
Discrimination in professions against Jews in Romania]
Unofficial but effective ostracism operated in the
professions too. In 1935 and 1936 no Jewish lawyers were
accepted by the Romanian bar; the number of newly accepted
Jewish medical students dropped from 66 in 1934 to five in
1935 and to none in 1936. In 1937 four Jewish students
were accepted by the medical school, but were prevented by
force from attending classes.
(End note 78: Ibid.
[-- R48, report from Romania, 1/19/37 [19 January 1937];
-- R16, Kahn report, 11/19/35 [19 November 1935])
[18th Dec 1937: Romania:
The right extreme Goga government - "Christian" maids'
law etc.]
It was against this background that the extreme rightist
government of Octavian Goga came to power on December 18,
1937. The rumors that began to spread among the Jewish
population were only too well-founded. The
New York Times
reported on January 20, 1938, that Goga wanted to expel
500,000 Jews, that another luminary of the government,
Cuza, had said that there would be no expropriation of
Jewish property "at present", and that no Christian maids
under 45 would be allowed to work in Jewish homes - this
latter statement had been taken straight out of the Nazi
Nuremberg laws. (p.214)
[22th Jan 1938: Romania:
Law about citizenship brings Jewish communities in big
trouble]
On January 22 [1938] a law was passed forcing Jews to
submit to a "revision" of citizenship. This was to
completed by February 12 in so-called Old Romania (that
is, Moldavia and Walachia) and in the rest of the country
50 days later.
Jews had never bothered to establish their residence by
documentation. The peace treaty [of 1919] had laid down
that people habitually residing in the territories
acquired by Romania after World War I would automatically
become Romanian citizens.
Owing to their lack of documentation to establish habitual
residence, the anti-Semitism rampant in courts of justice,
their limited knowledge of Romanian culture and language,
and the ridiculously short time in which to correct all
this, there was pessimism and even panic in Jewish
circles. Dr. Wilhelm Filderman, a lawyer and the head of
the Romanian Jewish community, who also was JDC's most
trusted contact in Romania, estimated that 80 % of the
Jews in "New" Romania would be deprived of their
citizenship.
At a meeting in France between Filderman and
representatives of JDC, ICA, and the Reconstruction
Foundation, the conclusion was reached that the coming
Romanian elections on March 2, 1938, would be of "vastly
greater importance than the hopeless task of mitigating
the effects of an anti-Semitic victory." The situation of
the Jews in Romania was judged to be a "disaster, even
worse than (that) which befell the Jews in Germany."
(End note 79: R48, Nathan Katz to Hyman, 2/2/38 [2
February 1938])
[10th Feb 1938: Dismissal
of the Goga government - king's government follows]
However, the new decrees were too much even for many of
Romania's rightist politicians, including the king. Early
in February a juridical committee of the Romanian
parliament found the anti-Jewish decrees unconstitutional,
and the Goga government resigned on February 10. It had
been in power for less than six weeks, but the damage it
did was incalculable. In its stead the king established a
coalition of Right and Center, with the patriarch Miron
Cristea as prime minister. It was in a real sense the
king's government that now took over.
[More anti-Semitic laws
from Goga government]
The openly anti-Semitic course gave way to a more subtle
approach. New decrees were enacted regulating such things
as the renovation of shops, requiring state examinations
for previously qualified doctors and druggists, forbidding
the transfer abroad of (p.215)
funds for the support students who were not of Romanian
descent, requiring proof of Romanian citizenship for any
foreign transaction, and the like.
(End note 80:
-- 48-Gen. & Emerg. Romania, general, 1938-39, 4/28/38
[28 April 1938];
-- report of Kahn and Schweitzer on meetings in Bucharest)
This was followed by the mass cancellation of the licenses
of Jewish petty traders. All big industrial companies were
told to name Christian directors. Worst of all, although
the summary procedure of depriving Jews of their Romanian
national status was abolished, the principle of a revision
of citizenship was maintained and the threat of
denationalization remained.
Kahn fully expected that 150,000 Jews would lose their
Romanian citizenship. Most of them would then have no way
of earning a living, and there would be a tendency for
them to emigrate under government pressure. Yet there
seemed to be no alternative to supporting the king,
because the most vocal opposition to his rule came from
the pro-Nazi Iron Guard.
