Leader of Roumanian Jews in U.S. Rebukes Col. Ament for “whitewash” Campaign

Leo Wolfson, president of the United Roumanian Jews of America, in a statement commenting on the interviews of Col. Lytton Gray Ament, declared yesterday:

“It would be screamingly funny and painfully clumsy, this evident attempt of the government to whitewash itself, were there not several angles of real pathos behind this ill-staged show. Roumania is indeed to be pitied that it needs to be whitewashed and defended in this manner and in such a way. The government is to be pitied that it must stoop to use such means to state its case and to defend itself. The cause of the Jews in Roumania is to be pitied that its tragedy is presented along-side race track news, theatricals and moving picture stuff.

“The Roumanian Government and Col. Ament, and those who are responsible for the staging of this show, are naive if they believe, that the serious minded men and women throughout the civilized world, will give any credence or place any faith in the denials of the acts of vandalism and persecution against the Jews in Roumania, that ‘peace prevails and justice reigns’ as Col. Ament is made to say, and that the government is not responsible for the acts of individuals. Such statements and denials have been made before by the government. It has even forced Jews to make denials. Its mouthpieces in Roumania and abroad have even tried to blame the Jews and charged them with provoking the outrages against themselves, but the terrible facts and the daily occurences as mirrored in the Roumanian press eloquently refuted their statements. The world knows by this time, that Roumania is not the Eden for the Jews, which Col. Ament tries to picture.

“Roumanians here and abroad, diplomats, members of parliament, university professors and men of affairs have time and again shamefacedly admitted the truth of many of the charges we have made against the Roumanian government. Col. Ament’s claims to the contrary, we maintain that Jewish life and property in Roumania is unsafe, that they are continually tortured and harassed with the knowledge and consent of the government, and that the government has failed to protect the Jews. Col. Ament does not know Roumania, does not speak Roumanian, he is an estimable gentleman who went to spend his honeymoon in the basking sun of the Roumanian queen. Although he claims to have made unofficial investigations by talking to some sixty people, with the aid and connivance of the government, he is not qualified to give the Roumanian government a clean bill of health. If he does so as a complaisant gesture for having been royally entertained there, it is well that it should be known.

“It would better serve Roumania, if the outrages against the Jews were stopped. It would be better for the interests of Roumania if it would not need the hand of Col. Ament to whitewash her and to offer on her behalf such absurd and clumsy excuses and defences.”