Recent Roumanian Riots Were Made to Order, Says ‘nation,’ Giving New Facts

Tataresen, Who Wired ‘The Thing Can Go On,’ to be Promoted

New facts on the recent anti-Jewish excesses in Roumania, the reporting of which was suppressed by the Roumanian censorship, were disclosed by Emery Deri, writing in “The Nation.”

Referring to the statement of the Roumanian Minister at Washington, George Cretzianu, the writer declares that the “American public swallowed this statement for lack of reliable information” and offers a staggering description of the pogrom in Oradeamare which resulted in three deaths and sixty-five serious injuries. Mr. Deri writes:

There were no anti-Jewish “riots” in Roumania. What happened in the first and second weeks in December in Transylvania was a country-wide bloody pogrom directed against the national minorities, organized by responsible government officials, supported by the Government, aided by the army and the police, planned, prepared, executed, and finally hushed up and camouflaged by the governmental machine of M. Vintila Bratianu. It was a pogrom made to order and executed in the classic Russian style of the Czarist regime, with the same purpose of distracting the attention of the masses from the paramount political issues and of dealing a blow to the seething and embittered national minorities. It was carried out according to a pre-conceived scheme planned to the minutest detail.

On the following day–it was Sunday– student leaders distributed printed circulars among the students. The circular opened with the words: “The hour for action has struck..,” and was signed by Professor Calinianu known as a supporter of the Bratianu Government. Immediately the pogrom began and raged for days in the dazed and terrifed city, trembling under the reign of bloody terror. First the onslaught was directed against the Jews. The three synagogues of the city were devastated, invaluable religious relics and ancient books were thrown into the mud of the streets and practically all the stores were looted. On the third day three men were murdered and the number of seriously wounded had jumped to sixty-five.

According to Deputy Madgearu, who described the events in Oradea Mare in a speech in Parliament — which, however was printed only in part by the Buchares papers–the streets looked as if they had been ravaged by a hostile army. The students were led by the chief of police M. Bunescu, while M. Egri, the mayor o? Oradea Mare, gave a banquet in honor of the pogrom leaders. The house of the mayor stands opposite one of the synagogues and M. Egri and his guest witnessed from the balcony the looting and ransacking of the building and the killing of a man named Joseph Katz. The police did not raise a finger against the students. They did, however, arrest 30 organized laborers, workers in the leather factory of Hartmnan Brothers, who had armed themselves with iron rod awaiting a possible attack on the factory. The charge against them was treason and conspiracy. One victim, the owner of first-class hotel, M. Veiszlovits, who had been beaten senseless and had stabbed two of his attackers in self- defense in the course of the struggle, was also placed under arrest; while his attacker went scot-free, the police placed armed gendarmes, before his room in the hospital, where he lay between life and death.

All outside communication from and to Oradea Mare was suspended during the pogrom. There was no telegraph, no telephone, no possibility of asking for outside help. Still. Minister Tatarescu was able to communicate from Cluj with Chief of Police Bunescu on the third date of the riots and reported to Buchares that nothing serious had happened and that there was no reason why the congress should be closed. His order to M. Bunescu was: “Everything is all right the thing can go on.” And “the thing went on with unabated fury. It now turned against the Hungarians and ended with the devastation of all Hungarian stores, printing plants, and newspaper and with the murder of a second newspaper man, the unfortunate Andreas Fleisches.

The Government also promised wholesale discharge of police chiefs. U. to the present time three of them have in fact, been discharged, but the government has refrained from prosecution them and plans no special measure against the official promoters of the pogroms. In deference to public opinion in foreign countries, the Government has also announced that Minister Tatarescu has handed in his resignation. A week after the publication of the official commnique, however, the newspaper Cul?ul announced that this same Tataresm was slated for a very important diplomatic position and that his appointment would soon be published.