A majority of Rumania’s 900,000 Jews face denationalization, it became known today when it was announced officially that the new Government’s measure for revision of the citizenship rolls will affect all Jews naturalized since 1918, and not 1922 as previously believed.
An official communique reveals that the citizenship purge, from which even war veterans will not be excepted, will begin Jan. 10 under direction of commissions of magistrates appointed by the Minister of Justice.
Most of Rumania’s Jews were naturalized in the period beginning 1918, when Rumania annexed five provinces from Russia and Austria-Hungary after the World War, doubling her area and population.
King Carol said today Jews who entered Rumania after the war would lose citizenship and other rights in the general revision of naturalizations, but gave assurances that none would be expelled from Rumania.
In an interview with Al Easterman, correspondent of the London Daily Herald, King Carol emphasized that Rumanian-born Jews would not be affected. He estimated that a quarter-million entered the country illegally after the war.
Asked about his personal attitude on anti-Semitism, the King declared that the existence of an anti-Jewish Government could not be denied, but said that he, as head of the country, had no alternative but to follow public opinion.
Despite a promise made to a delegation of Jewish Leaders by Premier Goga that newspapers dealing with Jewish affairs would not be interfered with, four Yiddish papers in Czernowitz were among 14 suppressed by Prefect Robu. They are the Czernowitzer Bletter, Dos Yiddische Wort, Aufbau and Darkenu.
Members of the “Lancers,” Semi-military National Christian Organization, made a bonfire of Yiddish newspapers seized in attacks on Czernowitz newsstands.
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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.
