Jews in Rumania have been instructed to prepare for mass-deportations to the province of Transnistria, where the Rumanian authorities have established a “Jewish reservation” on occupied Soviet land beyond the Dniester river, in an order issued recently in Bucharest, according to reliable information reaching Rumanian circles here today.
The order says that every Jew in Rumania between 15 and 70 years of age may be expelled to Transnistria. A person must leave for the “reservation” within twenty-four hours after receiving notification that he has been chosen for deportation. He will be permitted to take along only hand-luggage. The death penalty is provided for anyone “trying to escape.”
The order provides exemption for Jews who a special commission finds are “elements essential to Rumania’s economy.” On the basis of this provision, leading members of the anti-Semitic Iron Guard have already started to blackmail Jews for large sums of money, under the threat that the commission will be guided by their testimony and recommendations in determining which of the Jews are to be spared deportation under the exemption.
JEWS FORCED TO ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR
Other reliable information reaching here today from Rumania reveals that every Jew in Rumania must now sign a declaration which reads: “I am responsible for the outbreak of the present war and I have to accept punishment for it.” Many Jews refuse to sign this statement even though faced with the alternative of being sent to a concentration camp, the reports disclose.
What the Jews in Rumania consider most regrettable is the fact that the “declaration” was prepared by Joseph Willmann, who has been appointed by the authorities to head the Central Office for Jews which was established to exercise supreme authority over all activities of the Jewish population. Willmann, who is a professional swindler and who speaks perfect Yiddish, was posing as a Jew but turned out to be a Nazi spy. He is now playing an important role in the persecutions of the Jews of Rumania.
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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.
