Instructions covering the issuance of new “certificates of citizenship,” published today by the Provisional Town Council of Bucharest, indicate that the Rumanian Government has scrapped a 1938 law under which thousands of Rumanian Jews became statelese persons.
The law, approved during the anti-Semitic Goga-Cuza regime, ordered all Rumanian Jews to submit to a lengthy and costly legal procedure to prove their right to Rumanian citizenship. Thousands of Jews, whose families had been living in Rumania for many generations, lost their citizenship rights because of their inability to secure the necessary legal documents.
Today’s instructions describe the 1938 law as of “racial character” and add that the loss of citizenship resulting therefrom should not be taken into account when citizenship certificates are issued at the present time.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
