Deny Rumania is Easing Up on Jews; Reports Seen Aimed at U.S. Sympathy

Well informed central Jewish organizations here today found it difficult to reconcile reports published abroad, of adoption by the Rumanian Government of a more lenient attitude towards the Jews, with their own most reliable information from Rumania.

At the same time, diplomatic circles saw in the reports, which were published in London and New York recently, the hand of a Bucharest regime eager to win America’s sympathy for King Carol. This view is supported by information reaching Paris that Chancellor Adolf Hitle of Germany is insisting that King Carol abdicate within six months.

According to the latest information reaching Jewish organizations here, more than 150,000 Jews have been deprived of their citizenship under the decree for revision of the citizenship lists issued last year by King Carol. Not only have those Jews not been reinstated, but the process of denaturalization is stated to be continuing with severity. Among those deprived of their citizenship are war widows and orphans, as well as wounded veterans and those holding decorations.

Jews deprived of their status as citizens are automatically deprived of their right to work. Artisan cards have been taken away from tailors, shoemakers, barbers and launderers Without these cards, craftsmen are forbidden to work, even in their own homes. Simultaneously, trade licenses have been revoked from firms whose owners have been denaturalized. Opening of new Jewish shops has been forbidden.

Similar methods are being applied, although contrary to the law, even to Jews who have remained recognized citizens. During the past few weeks, licenses have been revoked from Jewish innkeepers and tobacconists in Cernauti (Czernowitz) Suecava, Dorohoten and many other towns and villages. In January, the 280 Jewish proprietors of inns and cafes in Bucharest, were deprived of their licenses and ordered to liquidate their affairs within a month. An estimated 40,000 Jews, including waiters and employers, will be totally ruined, Jewish spokesmen here said, if the cancellation of Jewish inn licenses continues.

In addition to exerting economic pressure, the Rumanian Government has deprived the Jews of all representation. This had been accomplished by closing down all Jewish central organizations, with the exception of those community bodies which are restricted to religious affairs only, and by refusing to accept Jews into the Party of National Regeneration, the nation’s single official political party, which is alone permitted to nominate candidates for election to Parliament. Thus, Rumania’s estimated 800,000 Jews are now not even permitted to speak up for their rights nor to protest in difficult situations.

Anxious to have foreign opinion under the impression that the Jews are treated properly, the Rumanian censorship does not permit a true picture to reach the press abroad. At the same time, the Rumanian press continues unmolested its anti-Jewish campaign within the country. Thus, the nationalist newspaper Curentul complains in an article that the present anti-Jewish measures are insufficient and voices demands for enforced Jewish emigration. Similarly, Foreign Minister Grigoire Gafencu, in a recent radio address, emphasized that while other Rumanian minorities would be treated properly, the Jews should not expect such treatment since the Government wished them to emigrate. Intervention of Jewish leaders with Cabinet members has not resulted in a change in the Government’s attitude.

REPORTS OF EASIER POLICY PUBLISHED IN LONDON, NEW YORK

On Feb. 13 a London newspaper published a dispatch from Bucharest reporting that the Rumanian Government was adopting a more lenient policy on the Jews. According to the correspondent, the policy was attributed to a stiffening of the democracies’ stand and a fear that persecution of the Jews might upset Rumania’s economic system.

On Feb. 18, a New York newspaper said in a Bucharest dispatch that the past six months had witnessed “frequent signs that the position of Jews is progressively improving.” “Indeed the dispatch added, “nowhere in Southeastern Europe do they enjoy as much liberty as in Rumania.” The correspondent reported that no differentiation was being made between Jews and Rumanians and that those deprived of their citizenship during the Goga regime had been re-instated. He also asserted that professional guilds had been ordered to revoke decisions to oust Jewish members, that Jews had been readmitted to practice of medicine and law and that liquor licenses which had been withdrawn from “non-Rumanians” had “for the most part” been restored. Anti-Semitic press attacks were said by the correspondent to have ceased almost entirely, “owing to the Government’s instructions to censors not to tolerate such propaganda.”