A chance hearing of a conversation between two pogromists in Transylvania was the means of thwarting the nation-wide plot against the Jews which had been planned for Yom Kippur in connection with the “putch” against the government.
Samuel Gruen, Jewish proprietor of a tavern in Marmarosziget, the ghetto of Transylvania, overheard a government clerk, named Machalache, who is also a correspondent for the Bucharest daily “Universul”, giving a young fighter, Varga, instructions regarding the execution of the pogrom plot. Gruen informed the police. The two were arrested and the wide ramifications of the plot were revealed.
A police detail was rushed to the synagogue and two students were found walking in front who, when arrested confessed that they had been designated to murder Chief Rabbi Teitelbaum.
In view of the shortage of hooligans in Marmorosziget, sixty armed students were entrained to that place from another point. Upon learning of this, 100 Jewish young men armed themselves and accompanied the police who awaited the train and arrested the students.
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.
