Rumania Planning New Anti-jewish Law Based on Nuremberg Decrees

The Rumanian Government will shortly frame an entirely new anti-Jewish law modelled on the Nuremberg anti-Jewish legislation, unconfirmed reports said today.

The reports said the law would be designed to eliminate whatever obstacles stand in the way of complete liquidation of the “Jewish problem” under existing anti-Semitic legislation and Iron Guard policies.

Meanwhile, this correspondent learned from reliable sources that Valera Moldovanu, secretary of the Nazi wing of the Peasants Party led by Alexander Vaida Voevod, would be named head of a new commission to speed up emigration of Jews from Rumania.

The future anti-Semitic policy of the Antonescu Government will be directed by Valeriu Pop, former cabinet minister and negotiator who accompanied Prof. Mihai Manoilescu, Rumanian economist and politician, to Vienna last August to accept Germany a orders for cession of North Transylvania to Hungary.

Pop has been in Berlin and Vienna for the last three months studying German methods in the treatment of Jews and will work directly with Moldovanu to “liquidate Rumania’s Jewish problem” as rapidly as possible, it was asserted.

It is difficult to see how the Government can stimulate emigration when every neighboring country, including Soviet Russia, has now closed its doors to the Jews. In the light of the practical impossibility of forcing any more Jews to emigrate it is believed the work of the Moldovanu commission will be confined for the time being to building an emigration fund through special taxes on Jews, as has been done in Germany. Then, in the unlikely case that a neighboring country should open its doors to the Jews, mass emigration can be carried out immediately with funds already taken from any Jewish incomes still remaining.

Contrary to reports abroad, no general expulsion order has been issued nor could any be issued since there is nowhere the Jews could be forced to go. The expulsion is still being carried out, however, in the case of Jewish refugees from the provinces who entered Bucharest “illegally” after fleeing villages where their property was expropriated and they were persecuted by the Iron Guard. Such refugees are being interned in certain areas, where they are put to work in labor gangs repairing earthquake damages.

Today hundreds of refugees began pouring into Bucharest from Galatz, where 5,000 collected in the frontier bottleneck following the Soviet decision to close the Bessarabian frontier at Reni. It is expected that these, too, will be rounded up and sent to work in labor gangs in the next few days. The steamer Darien II, the same boat which was turned back ten days ago, again failed to unload its human cargo at Reni and returned to Galatz last night.

Moldovanu was formerly a follower of Maniu’s Liberal Peasant Party but joined Vaida-Voevod three years ago when the latter embraced totalitarianism and split the party to form a new “nationalist” and anti-Semitic Peasants’ Party. One of the main policies of the Vaida-Moldovenu Peasants’ Party has been a numerous clauses and gradual restrictions against Jews. In the light of recent anti-Semitism in Rumania, however, Moldovanu’s brand of anti-Semitism is considered very mild.