[B.
Destruction of the Jewish existence in Romania
1929-1939]
[5.17. Nationalization laws - emigration terror
without organized emigration 1938]
[1938: Nationalization of
all cooperative institutions - Reconstruction Foundation
and Free Loan kassas have to go - fight about the kassa
system - the normal kassas can stay]
The situation continued to deteriorate during 1938. In the
spring of that year the Romanian government decreed that
all cooperative institutions would be incorporated into
government cooperatives. This meant the end of the
Reconstruction Foundation and Free Loan
kassas. JDC and its
ICA partner tried to prevent this liquidation, and ICA
obtained the British government's agreement to intervene
with the Romanian government. As a result, the
liquidation, which was to have taken place on June 1,
1938, was postponed. In the meantime, Alexander A.
Landesco, a prominent member of JDC's Executive Committee,
who was of Romanian Jewish origin, went to Bucharest to
try to influence the government. At the same time, Hyman
intervened with the Romanian minister in Washington.
On June 16, 1938, Landesco cabled from Bucharest:
"Liquidation cooperatives Romania suspended one year." But
on June 23 the minister with whom Landesco had negotiated,
Militia Constantinescu, went back on his word and declared
that the liquidations would soon begin. Liquidators were
in fact appointed on June 28.
ICA and JDC again tried in every possible way to influence
the Romanians. The State Department was asked to
intervene. On July 21 James C. Dunn of the State
Department wrote to Hyman that (p.216)
the Romanians had told the American representative in
Bucharest that Landesco had "misunderstood" the Romanian
minister: what Constantinescu had meant was not
postponement for one year, but one year's time for the
cooperatives to liquidate. Since the Romanian government
had not received a prompt answer to this generous offer,
it was now withdrawing it and would liquidate the
cooperatives as required by its laws. The exchange of
letters with the State Department continued into August,
but the State Department was inclined to blame JDC for not
having promptly accepted the Romanian offer and declined
to take any further steps in the matter. Fortunately, the
remnant of the Romanian
kassas
was saved by a ruling of the Romanian Court of Cassation
in March 1939.
(End note 81: Ibid.
[-- 48-Gen. & Emerg. Romania, general, 1938-39,
4/28/38 [28 April 1938];
-- report of Kahn and Schweitzer on meetings in Bucharest]
-- for correspondence with the State Department in June
and August 1938. See especially 5/27/38 [27 May 1938],
memorandum by Paul Baerwald. Executive Committee,
5/19/39 [19 May 1939], Hyman's report).
[1938: Romania: All
denationalized Jews become foreigners: about 150,000]
In the meantime, denationalization proceeded. Two decrees,
on September 15 and December 2, 1938, provided explicitly
that
all denationalized
Jews would henceforth be treated as foreigners
and required to obtain certificates of identity that would
authorize them to reside in Romania for one year at a
time. No licenses for trade, industry, or the professions
would normally be issued to such persons. The number of
persons affected by these decrees was in the neighborhood
of 150,000.
(End note 82: Ibid.; memorandum re legalization of social
welfare activity in Romania, 3/1/39 [1 March 1939])
[Jewish organizations
have to close]
In the wake of these draconian laws, all Jewish
organizations of a political nature were ordered closed
down. This affected the Union of Romanian Jews led by
Filderman and the Jewish political party (Volkspartei).
[Language terror against
Jews]
In certain areas of the country Jews were forbidden to use
any language except Romanian, even though that was not the
language generally spoken there.
[Emigration terror
without organized emigration - memorandum by Noel
Aronovici]
Economic and political ostracism of Jews reached
unheard-of proportions. The only Jewish organization
permitted to exist, declared the foreign minister, would
be a committee for the emigration of Jews.
(End note 83: Ibid.)
Paralleling the development in Poland, Romanian
politicians now began an intensified propaganda campaign
for Jewish emigration. Illegal immigration into Palestine
was encouraged, and further declarations in favor of
Jewish emigration were made.
JDC, overwhelmed by the effects of Nazi expansion on
Central (p.217)
European Jewry and deeply worried about the fate of Polish
Jewry, which was also facing threats of expulsion, did not
know how to deal with the Romanian situation. A memorandum
by Noel Aronovici, himself a Romanian Jew, proposed
remedies in more or less traditional terms: more homes for
apprentices, vocational retraining, establishment of Free
Loan
kassas
(despite the fact that the existing ones were being closed
down), and aid to children.
(End note 84: R11, memorandum of December 1938)
[1937-1939: Not much help
of JDC possible]
Indeed, there was very little that JDC could do in this
situation except increase their help in the form of thinly
disguised relief until the overall situation eased.
Attempts by the World Jewish Congress to arouse public
opinion by political action at the League of Nations met
with no greater success.
(End note 85: WJC submitted a sharply worded memorandum to
a subcommittee of the League of Nations that was supposed
to investigate complaints regarding the treatment of Jews
in Romania, 3/1/39 [1 March 1939])
[There is the same suspicion like in Poland: The Yiddish
speaking Jews in Romania shall be exterminated, and the
German Jews may go to Palestine to create the new Israel
state. And this is regulated by the Zionists].
The feeling of gloom and lack of any real hope found its
way into Joseph C. Hyman's speech in September 1938, when
he declared: "While we sit here and talk of budgets, of
quotas, of campaign agreements, a remorseless torrent
sweeps away everything that our brethren have believed in,
have prayed for, have fought for, and have built up during
their existence."
(End note 86: Speech by Joseph C. Hyman at the JDC
National Council, 9/18/38 [18 September 1938])
JDC was trying its best to stem the flood, but those who
directed its fortunes were well aware not only of the
hopelessness of their task but also of the fact that the
very foundations of their humanist and liberal philosophy
were being swept away.
Finally, as in Poland, the very grimness of the situation
was beginning to force upon local Jewry the necessity for
unification. As in Poland, JDC in 1939 tried to set up a
Central Committee of Romanian Jews, for economic purposes
at first. But unlike Poland, negotiations in Romania did
not advance beyond a preliminary stage. Nothing had
changed by the time war broke out.
(End note 87: 48-Gen. & Emerg. Romania, general,
Troper to JDC, New York, 1/13/39 [13 January 1939])
