Roumania Starts Campaign of Reprisals Against Jews for Refusing to Deny Excesses

The Roumanian Government and its official organs have started a campaign of retaliation against the Jews for refusing to issue official statements denying the continuous excesses. This news has been received from Roumania by Solomon Sufrin, former member of the New York State Assembly, and leader of Roumanian Jews in America.

Hundreds of Jewish veterans of the World War, under the threat of being court-martialed, have been summoned before a Commission appointed by the Military Court and asked to prove under what circumstances they were taken prisoners by the Germans, and to disprove that they did not voluntarily surrender. Those who have been admitted to citizenship are informed that they will be disfranchised and those who apply for citizenship are told that the mere honorable discharge-certificate will not be considered as primafacie evidence of faithful service. Such evidence is almost impossible to produce after the lapse of ten years, the period required to make a Roumanian resident eligible to citizenship.

“Eight hundred and seventy Jewish soldiers out of 23,000 (1011/2% of the Jewish population of Old Roumania at that time) had been decorated for heroic deeds on the battlefields,” the report states.

“In the meantime the anti-Semitic press continues its instigations against the Jewish population. A postal-card representing an imaginary ritual-murder is being distributed through the mails by the thousands. Manifestos calling upon the Christian population to ‘make the Jews drink their own blood’ appear in the anti-Semitic press.

“The Union of Roumanian Jews has appealed to the Metropolitan Patriarch of the Roumanian Orthodox Church and to all Ministers of the Cabinet calling their attention to these scurilous publications but no answer had been received up to January 26.

“Constantine Mille, the editor of the ‘Lupta’, publishes an editorial ridiculing Minister Goga’s statement to the foreign press that anti-Semitism does not exist in Roumania, and concludes as follows: ‘The Roumanian people are surely not anti-Semitic. A certain stratum in the large cities is. But this stratum is very turbulent and the fault is that of the Government who encourages all its undertakings. This is the veritable truth.

“The ‘Courierul Israelit’ of January 23 writes: ‘The anti-Semitic propaganda continues. The instigations against us are conducted by word, pen and deeds. We are being considered by the propagandists as direct enemies of the country, who should be exterminated. The Jewish religion is described as a misfortune for Christians and the Jewish God as a simple ‘Codosh.’

“The agitators go on with their work. No one interferes with them. We thought that there are laws against such criminal propaganda,” the report received by Mr. Sufrin concludes.

Vigorous steps to counteract the impression of the reports of continuous anti-Jewish excesses in Roumania, are being taken, it would appear, by the representatives of the Roumanian Government in this country.

The following item appeared on Friday in the New York “Sun,” under the headline “Jews in Roumania Happy as Citizens.” The despatch, from Washington, is apparently a product of the Roumanian press bureau. It reads:

“The Jewish newspapers of Roumania, according to a communication received from the press bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest, accentuate the importance of the declarations made by the new Senator, Rabbi Niemirover, before the Roumanian Parliament:

” ‘We Israelites living in this country, know how pacific and goodhearted the Roumanian people are. We know that we cannot make the Roumanian people responsible for the excesses of an isolated anti-Semitic party.

” ‘There is a difference between the Israelites of the old kingdom. who are happy to have become entirely Roumanian citizens, and the Israelites of the reunited provinces, who are not all yet in the frame of this country. I can testify that I protested and still protest categorically against the exaggerations and the intrigues of foreigners against Roumania.”

T. Tileston Wells, Consul General of Roumania in New York, writes in a letter to the editor of the New York “Times” as follows:

“Of late the press of the United States, particularly that of New York City, has paid considerable attention in its news columns to the protests of the Roumanian Jews in America against the alleged unjust treatment of their coreligionist brethren in Roumania. Some of the ‘facte’ on which these allegations are based have been frequently reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“Often the nature of the charges is such that the Government at Bucharest can make no adequate reply; the results of its investigations, when made known, would be too long after the accusation to be of any repudiative value, and it may be for this reason alone that certain papers decline to pay any attention to them.

“There are, however, certain facts of considerable repudiative value which it is important for Roumanian Jews in the United States and their sympathizers here to consider. There are distinguished Jews in Roumania who do not believe that the Roumanian Government is primarily responsible for the conditions complained of. This belief is quite frankly given publicity to by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency itself. These dispatches, it must be confessed, do not receive in the Gentile press the same attention given the news of the alleged atrocities.

“For example, the new Jewish Senator, Rabbi Niemerover, in speaking before the Roumanian Senate on Jan. 30 said:

” We Jews who live in Roumania know that the Roumanian people is pacific and kind-hearted and that it cannot be made responsible for the excesses committed by isolated anti-Semitic organizations. Moreover, we are aware of the differences existing between the Jews of the Old Kingdom—who are happy to have become full citizens and the Jews of the reunited provinces who as yet have not identified themselves with their new country of adoption. I call the Senate to witness that I have protested and still protest emphatically against the exaggerations and the intrigues of aliens inimical to Roumania.”

“The foregoing is confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a communique to the Roumanian Legation at Washington, as well as by a Bucharest dispatch from the agency published in ‘The Jewish Daily Bulletin’ in New York City on Feb. 3. This dispatch adds that the Jewish Senator ‘also protested against the participation of foreign Jews in the spreading of reports concerning anti-Jewish pogroms in Roumania.’

“In ‘The Bulletin’ of Feb. 1 another agency dispatch makes note of the fact that on Jan. 31 the Ministry of Education published figures showing the number of Jewish students enrolled at the Roumanian universities for the 1926-1927 term and comments that the statisties are ‘apparently calculated to destroy the impression that a numerus clausus is being practiced by the universities.’ This dispatch continues:

“The University of Bucharest had an enrolment of 25,391 students, of whom 2,637 are Jews; the University of Cluj (Clausenburg) with an enrolment of 2,491, numbers 180 Jewish students. Of the 1,161 students at the University of Czernowitz 280 are Jews, the Ministry of Education asserts.’ “