A membership campaign has been started by the National Peasant Party, which constituted the Maniu Government, and propaganda meetings are being held in connection with the campaign in the district of Marmorosz, which is largely inhabited by Jews, who still have strong recollections of the serious antisemitic outbreaks which took place in Borsha and other places in the district during the summer of 1930, and who are consequently alarmed by the anti-Jewish character assumed by many of these meetings.
One such meeting held at Sighet has been addressed by ex-Deputy Elie lazar, a prominent member of the Party, who declared that the Jews were themselves to blame for what had happened in Borsha, because the Jews had taken excessive interest from the peasants on their loans. They had no need to consider the Jews, he added, because they could very well do without the Jewish votes. A number of Jews who were present at the meeting strongly objected to these remarks and the meeting was continued amid uproar.
It is pointed out in Jewish quarters that the National Peasants’ Party, which at one time used to make friendly approaches to the Jews, has for some time now been adopting antisemitic tactics, especially in Transylvania, where Danila, one of the organisers of the Borsha outbreak, has joined the National Peasants’ Party, and is now one of the local leaders.
Meanwhile, M. Mihalache, who was Minister of the Interior in the last National Peasant Government, has become alarmed about the growth of Cuzist agitation, which, according to an article which he publishes in his paper “Zaranismul”, has destroyed all sense of right and justice among the peasants, who are now beginning to apply the Cuzist teachings in an attempt at Communist confiscation of property. Having been taught by the Cuzists that it is permissible to seize the possessions of the Jews, they are extending the doctrine, the ex-Minister writes, and big farmers and estate owners are being threatened by the smaller peasants with the confiscation of their land and cattle for distribution among themselves. It is essential that the Government should take drastic action to put down the Cuzist agitation, which is having such dangerous consequences, M. Mihalache writes.
A certain paper, the “Strelucitorul”, which appears in Constanza, has come out with an open call to the Roumanian people to organise pogroms against the Jews. The only solution of the Jewish question in Roumania, it writes, is to deal with the Jews as the Turks dealt with the Armenians. This can be best done on those days when the Jews assemble in their synagogues, on Purim or on Passover, it says, when they can easily be wiped out en masse.
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.
