Salient points in the Rumanian Government’s policy on Jews, including emigration of many thousands who have already been deprived of their citizenship or will be by March 31, were outlined to a special J.T.A. correspondent today by a high Government official.
The official made two important disclosures. Of major interest is the fact that the Government will permit emigrating Jews to transfer to the country of immigration their capital and property, despite existing currency regulations. Secondly, the Government has worked out in collaboration with another power a plan for mass colonization of a territory outside of Palestine, with at least 8,000 Jews to be settled in the first year.
The interview was given by the official in connection with a session of the Cabinet at which the Jewish question was thoroughly discussed. Reporting to the Cabinet on revision of citizenships, which has been in progress for several months in accordance with a royal decree issued last Winter, Justice Minister Victor Iamandy announced that 43,000 Jews had been deprived of their citizenship. He said another 100,000 would lose their citizenship by March 31, when the revision is scheduled to end. Estimates of previous regimes that Rumania’s Jewish population totalled 2,000,000 were refuted by Mr. Iamandy who told the Cabinet that the revision process had established that the number of Jews did not exceed 900,000.
Jewish leaders will be consulted on all emigration activities and machinery will be set up by the Government to intensify emigration and to establish conditions of transfer of property, the official revealed in the course of the interview. Denationalized Jews who are unable to emigrate, he said, will be regarded as “stateless” and will not be permitted to work or to engage in trades or professions and will have to be supported by the 750,000 Jews whose citizenship has not been revoked.
Jews whose citizenship is not withdrawn, the official declared, will be accorded liberal treatment for “tactical reasons,” but will not be admitted to the totalitarian National Regeneration Party and to certain professions for several years. New anti-Jewish economic measures might be expected, he added, since the Jews were considered economically too strong. “Anti-Semitism is over,” the official added, “but the Jewish question still exists in Rumania and will be solved in a legal, logical manner in the interests of the country as well as Jews recognized as citizens. Violence will not be tolerated under any circumstances.”
Meanwhile, the Black Sea port of Constanza resembles a refugee camp, with hundreds of young Jews and Jewesses forming queues in front of travel offices. Allured by agents of racketeering shipping companies, hundreds drift to Constanza with the hope of finding means to emigrate and find themselves penniless and stranded after paying their transportation fares. Faced with the problem of hundreds of hungry and desperate Jewish youths, the Constanza Jewish Community is warning Jews not to be misled by false emigration propaganda. A delegation of Jewish leaders has left Bucharest for Constanza to investigate the situation. The Palestine Office at Czernowitz and the Zionist Revisionist party have also issued statements warning against racketeering travel agents.
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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.
