Hardly recovered from the fierce anti-Jewish pogroms which took place in Rumania during the uprising of the anti-Semitic Iron Guard against the government of General Ion Antonescu, last January, the Jews of Rumania today again feared possible pogroms as civil war was reported to be looming over Bucharest.
Rumanian refugees reaching the Hungarian frontier reported that a rebellion led by the Iron Guard had again broken out in Rumania and that heavy fighting occurred in Bucharest between the rebels and the troops loyal to Antonescu. The rebellion, they as sorted, broke out on Sunday.
Traffic between Rumania and Hungary has been suspended since Sunday and telephone communication interrupted. The last message which reached here from Budapest on Saturday evening, over the telephone, stated that Rumanian officials married to Jewish women were ordered to divorce their wives or face summary dismissal.
The sound of heavy machine-gun firing was heard at several points along the Rumanian-Hungarian frontier and it was reported that Rumanian guards shot at persons attempting to cross the frontier into Hungary. The fighting in Rumania was said to be the result of Premier Antonescu’s flat refusal of an offer to accept Iron Guard leaders as members of his Cabinet and his declaration of the Iron Guard as an “enemy of the State.”
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