Memorial Services Held to Mark 45th Anniversary of Bucharest Pogrom

The Choral Temple here was crowded to capacity today as memorial services were held marking the 45th anniversary of the pogrom in which thousands of Bucharest Jews were murdered by the Nazi-backed Rumanian fascist organization, Iron Guard.

The Temple, where Rumania’s Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen presided at the services and delivered the sermon, was the principal scene of the carnage that took place in January, 1941. Jews were herded into the main sanctuary which was set on fire. The bodies of Jews were hanged from the ceiling, each body bearing the inscription, “kosher meat.” Scores of other synagogues were destroyed in the rampage. The Jewish quarter of Bucharest, known as Vacaresti Dudesti, was devastated by the mobs.

The ceremonies were attended by many notable, including the Israeli Ambassador to Rumania, Iosef Govrin, and officials of the United States Embassy. In his sermon, Rabbi Rosen, who is president of the Federation of Jewish Communities, the central representative body of Rumanian Jewry and the World Jewish Congress affiliate here, declared:

“Only in having our own homeland in Israel, where we are neither subject to the hate nor pity of others, where we are the masters of our own destiny, only in this way can we be certain that the dangers of such barbaric pogroms will no longer exist.”

A young Rumanian fascist, Valerian Trifa, a leader of the Iron Guard, was one of the chief instigators of and participants in the 1941 pogrom. Trifa made his way to the United States after the war and became Archbishop of the Rumanian Orthodox Church in that country, with headquarters in Grasslakes, Michigan. After years of effort to bring him to justice, Trifa was finally stripped of his American citizenship and was deported from the U.S. as a war criminal. He presently resides in Portugal.