While King Carol and Premier Maniu are making reassuring declarations regarding anti-Semitism in Roumania, violent anti-Semitic agitation is going on throughout the country, says a report of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Anglo-Jewish Association and of the Board of Jewish Deputies which is to be submitted to tomorrow’s meeting of the Board of Jewish Deputies.
AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION IN BUKOWINA
The report points out that Bukowina has lately been the prey of a most serious agricultural depression and the anti-Semites are taking advantage of the misery and discontent of the peasants to send emissaries to the provinces in order to stir up anti-Jewish outrages and have held and are holding inciting meetings which have resulted in attacks on Jews which are daily becoming more frequent.
Pointing out that Jewish houses are painted with the Hakenkreuzler sign during the night so that the peasants will avoid attacking Christian homes, the report says that the agitation has been particularly severe in South Bukowina in such towns as Kimpolung, Vama, Barlaceana and Suceava.
AUTHORITIES PASSIVE
The Joint Foreign Committee charges that the local authorities in these towns remained almost entirely passive while the government has done nothing to insist upon the local authorities doing their duty or else placing at their disposal sufficient resources to restore law and order.
After relating the occurrences in Borscha, which the report maintains shows strong evidence for the assumption that the fire was set by anti-Semites, the report proceeds to say that whatever the truth may be regarding the fire, it seems beyond question that both the government and local authorities did nothing until too late to prevent what proved to be a terrible disaster for a considerable part of the Jewish population of Southern Bukowina.
On this point the Joint Foreign Committee uses the testimony not only of the government’s critics but also of government supporters in parliament.
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