Rumanian Jews Given Until End of Year to Pay $28,000,000 Tax; Situation Worsens

Since it has become obvious to the Rumanian Government that the Jewish population of the country will be unable to complete payment of the 4,000,000,000 lei (approximately $28,000,000) tax imposed upon them by August 12, which was the original deadline, Premier Antonescu has agreed to extend the period in which the levy can be paid until December 31, it is reported here today. Antonescu’s announcement, however, contained the proviso that a substantial portion of the tax be in by the end of this week.

The situation of the Jews is constantly deteriorating, the reports say. Hundreds who had been exempted from forced labor service because they were considered “indispensable to the national economy” have been called for service within the past three weeks. Even Jewish youths of 15 are being conscripted and assigned to work which is too strenuous for them.

These labor conscripts receive no pay and are dependent for subsistence on the Jewish communal organizations. The latter have very little funds, the reports emphasize, and consequently Jewish leaders are in a quandary as to how to feed the thousands of workers. Most of them are reported to be undernourished and many die from malnutrition and exhaustion while working.

Dr. N. Gingold, a Bucharest physician, who was appointed by the government as president of the Jewish Central Office which supervises the activities of all Jewish groups in the country, was received by Premier Antonescu, this week the reports add. Dr. Gingold succeeded in securing suspension of the recent order directing all Jews in country towns to move into the district capitals. The Rumanian dictator is also said to have promised that Rumanian Jews being sent home from Germany would not be deported to Transnistria, and that Dr. William Filderman, leader of the Rumanian Jewish community, would be allowed to return from Transnistria to which he was expelled last month, together with his wife.