A first-hand report of the conditions under which the Jews in Rumania live was made public today by the Joint Distribution Committee here. It is based upon information supplied by Rumanian Jews who succeeded in reaching Palestine.
“Every Jew,” the report states, “must go to a camp for compulsory work for a certain period. This is officially restricted to one to three months but actually there are people who have already been in camp a year or more. With regard to compulsory labor, as in everything else, there are no regulations. Without any reason whatsoswer, and with no system at all, every Jew can at any hour of the day or night be dragged from his house and sent to camp to work. Above all, the fate of every Jew lies in the hands of the nearest police official. The latter, not infrequently–particularly in the provinces–abuses his power. It is not rare to find cases where the police commissioner makes purely personal demands which are settled by a monetary exchange beneficial to the official himself.”
EVERY JEW IS “SUSPECT” LIABLE FOR DEPORTATION TO TRANSNISTRIA
“Jews, especially from Bessarabia, Bukovina and Moldavia, have been deported en masse to Transnistria. From Bucharest itself, at one time, about 1,200 Jews were summoned to police headquarters and, with the explanation that their earlier wish to go to Bessarabia would be fulfilled, were shipped to Transnistria. No one is sure that he will not share the same fate. Actual reasons for the deportations are immaterial. Every ‘suspect’ is deported, and a ‘suspect’ is every Jew with whom any Rumanian is angry or who is not sufficiently liked by a neighboring porter or ex-worker or simply is not able to give the required ‘baksheesh’ demanded from him by any police commissioner. In October, 1942, 800 persons were deported from Bucharest in one batch.
The report discloses that only about 16,000 Jews remain in Bukovina, living crowded together in the city of Cernauti. Among the deportees are such prominent Jews as Dr. Sam Mosner, former vice-president of the Central Bank in Czernowitz, Bukovina; Dr. Meyer Teich, former president of the cooperative in Suceava, Bukovina; E. M. Trachtman, former representative of the Jewish Colonization Association in Rumania, and his brother-in-law, L. Grushman, former manager of the Hidem in Bucharest, all of whom worked closely with the J.D.C. The latter pair were deported with their families. Only one of the family, Grushman’s daughter, survives. All the others have either been murdered or have died of the dreaded typhus in Transnistria. The Head Office for Jews in Rumania (replacing the former Union of the Communities) has recently been allowed to send help to Jews in Transnistria in the form of clothes and foodstuffs.
The Jews in Bucharest fare better, the report declares, although “practically all of the Jewish houses have been confiscated and given to Rumanians. The Jews who are allowed to remain in their homes have to pay extraordinarily high rents. For residences assessed at a rental of from 50,000 to 60,000 lei for Rumanians, Jews have to pay from 400,000 to 800,000 lei.”
RUMANIANS DISPLAY SYMPATHY FOR JEWS; GOVERNMENT REMAINS ANTI-SEMITIC
Sympathy for the harassed Jews is occasionally evidenced by Rumanians, the report reveals, but conditions for the Jews have been made more burdensome by regulations which require Jews to obtain special permission to practice their professions. Large fees are exacted for the necessary licenses. Jews must contribute, too, to the Rumanian welfare Work presided over by the wife of Rumania’s dictator Antonescu. A state loan to which Jews must subscribe has had a catastrophic effect. Their quota, four times as large as their taxes in 1940, cannot be met since the state has deprived them of their source of income.
The anti-Semitic policy of the government extends as well to Jewish youth. Although scholars and students are exempted from compulsory labor–the report calls this one of the “incomprehensible miracles of the present situation”–schools for Jewish youngsters are not always permitted in the provinces. Jewish youth has no possibility of receiving training in any way, although in Bucharest a network of Jewish elementary and intermediate schools and even one high school, with about 800 students, operates.
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