Dr. William Filderman, outstanding leader of the Jews in Rumania and president of the Federation of Jewish communities there , has been arrested by the Rumanian government and sent to a ghetto camp in a section of the Ukraine occupied by German-Rumanian military forces, according to unverified information reaching Mr. Charles A. Davila, former Rumanian Minister to the United States, who is now organizing a Free Rumania movement in this country.
The United Rumania Jews of America, interested in the fate of Dr. Filderman, today cabled the Jewish community in Bucharest for verification of this report, which Mr. Davila said had reached him directly from Rumania. Efforts are also being made to check the information through the state Department with the American Minister in Rumania. Dr. Filderman only last week protested to the Rumanian Premier Antonescu against the expulsion of Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina to ghettos in the occupied Ukraine. Premier Antonescu answered this protest by attacking Dr. Filderman and the Jews of Rumania in a nation-wide broadcast from Bucharest.
A statement condemning the exile of Rumanian Jews to ghetto camps in the Ukraine was issued here today by Mr. Davila. “Such measure are equivalent to murder, ” the former Rumanian Minister said. He added that he still has “a faint hope that some kind of intervention of a great democracy will result in rescinding by the Rumanian government of their barbarous measures against the Jews.” Mr. Davila is reported to have the support of 85 American-Rumanian organizations in the United States in his effort to organize a Free Rumanian movement in America.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
