Inauguration of a sweeping program against Rumania’s remaining 450,000 Jews was foreshadowed today as King Carol swore in a pronouncedly pro-German and anti-Semitic cabinet headed by Ion Gigurtu.
The German wireless, hailing the new Government as “of a definitely anti-Semitic nature,” reported that “one of its first measures is to be the creation of a new press law by which every Jewish influence in Rumania is to be excluded.”
The new cabinet comprises chiefly supporters of the late Octavian Goga, who during his brief administration as Premier in January, 1938, attempted to oust Jews completely from Rumanian national life; adherents of Prof. Alexander Cuza, “father of Rumanian anti-Semitism,” and Iron Guardists, with Hans Otto Roth, representative of the German minority, as Minister of National Minorities.
Premier Gigurtu, former Foreign Minister, is known as a close friend of Germany’s Field Marshal Hermann Goering, while the Berlin wireless boasted that “some of the new ministers, like Foreign Minister (Mihail) Manoilescu, Prof. (Grigore) Caracostea (Education Minister) and Prof. Nichifor Crainic (Propaganda Minister) have close scientific connections with Germany. Prof. Crainic was recently made honorary doctor by the University of Vienna. Prof. Gheorghe Leon (Minister of Economics) got his degree of Doctor of National Economics at the University of Jena.”
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.
