[B. Destruction of
the Jewish existence in Romania
1929-1939]
[5.16. Nationalism - anti-Semitism - discrimination -
Goga laws 1938]
[Nationalism in Romania presses
against the minorities]
However, it was mainly the Romanian middle class and landowners who
benefited, while the rising tide of nationalism prevented most minority
group members from participating in this economic improvement. These
minorities, about 4.5 mio. people in a nation of 18 mio. [Germans,
Hungarians, Russians, Jews, Ukrainians etc.], were not treated equally
by the government. Hungarians and Germans, who were a majority among
the 4.5 mio. were treated better than the rest - Ukrainians,
Bulgarians, Greeks, Russians, Gypsies, and Jews. The usual reasons for
anti-Semitism were aggravated in Romania. Small trade was, in crucial
areas, in Jewish hands - 48.3 % of Romanian Jews engaged in trade -
(End note 76: R50: Situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe; report for
June 1938; 32.8 % of the Jews were engaged in industry, 4.1 % in
agriculture, and 2.7 % in the professions).
and the economic competition grew by leaps and bounds. The Jews were
the least protected of the ethnic minorities and could be dealt with
impunity by economic competitors.
[Since 1935: Anti-Semitic laws and
laws against minorities in Romania - Jewish small businesses are going
down]
It is therefore not surprising that openly anti-Semitic measures (p.213)
were taken even by the Liberal regime. By late 1935 decrees had already
been published limiting the employment of non-Romanians in industry. In
late 1936 and early 1937 a series of government decrees said that at
least 50 % of the employees in all industrial or trade establishments
must be ethnically Romanian. As the Jews were the only minority among
whom trade and industry formed a major part of the occupational
structure, the decrees were clearly aimed at them.
Worse, the Romanian National Bank instructed all its branches not to
rediscount bills of businesses belonging to members of ethnic
minorities. Merchants, artisans, and mercantile employees had to pass
examinations like the Polish ones or be deprived of their occupations.
Apprentices - in a country where the majority of artisans were Jewish -
would have to have seven years of Romanian elementary schooling in the
future.
(End note 77:
-- R48, report from Romania, 1/19/37 [19 January 1937];
-- R16, Kahn report, 11/19/35 [19 November 1935])
[The Romanians and the minorities
have to help each other to fulfill the new laws]
The results were a swift deterioration in the Jewish economic position.
One after another, Jewish banks outside the JDC kassa system were
failing. Jewish masters had to accept non-Jewish apprentices for
training, both to satisfy the quota for Romanian employees and also
because there simply were not enough Jewish apprentices to qualify
under the new regulations.
[Since 1935: Discrimination in
professions against Jews in Romania]
Unofficial but effective ostracism operated in the professions too. In
1935 and 1936 no Jewish lawyers were accepted by the Romanian bar; the
number of newly accepted Jewish medical students dropped from 66 in
1934 to five in 1935 and to none in 1936. In 1937 four Jewish students
were accepted by the medical school, but were prevented by force from
attending classes.
(End note 78: Ibid.
[-- R48, report from Romania, 1/19/37 [19 January 1937];
-- R16, Kahn report, 11/19/35 [19 November 1935])
[18th Dec 1937: Romania: The right
extreme Goga government - "Christian" maids' law etc.]
It was against this background that the extreme rightist government of
Octavian Goga came to power on December 18, 1937. The rumors that began
to spread among the Jewish population were only too well-founded. The
New York Times reported on
January 20, 1938, that Goga wanted to expel
500,000 Jews, that another luminary of the government, Cuza, had said
that there would be no expropriation of Jewish property "at present",
and that no Christian maids under 45 would be allowed to work in Jewish
homes - this latter statement had been taken straight out of the Nazi
Nuremberg laws. (p.214)
[22th Jan 1938: Romania: Law about
citizenship brings Jewish communities in big trouble]
On January 22 [1938] a law was passed forcing Jews to submit to a
"revision" of citizenship. This was to completed by February 12 in
so-called Old Romania (that is, Moldavia and Walachia) and in the rest
of the country 50 days later.
Jews had never bothered to establish
their residence by documentation. The peace treaty [of 1919] had laid
down that
people habitually residing in the territories acquired by Romania after
World War I would automatically become Romanian citizens.
Owing to
their lack of documentation to establish habitual residence, the
anti-Semitism rampant in courts of justice, their limited knowledge of
Romanian culture and language, and the ridiculously short time in which
to correct all this, there was pessimism and even panic in Jewish
circles. Dr. Wilhelm Filderman, a lawyer and the head of the Romanian
Jewish community, who also was JDC's most trusted contact in Romania,
estimated that 80 % of the Jews in "New" Romania would be deprived of
their citizenship.
At a meeting in France between Filderman and
representatives of JDC, ICA, and the Reconstruction Foundation, the
conclusion was reached that the coming Romanian elections on March 2,
1938, would be of "vastly greater importance than the hopeless task of
mitigating the effects of an anti-Semitic victory." The situation of
the Jews in Romania was judged to be a "disaster, even worse than
(that) which befell the Jews in Germany."
(End note 79: R48, Nathan Katz to Hyman, 2/2/38 [2 February 1938])
[10th Feb 1938: Dismissal of the
Goga government - king's government follows]
However, the new decrees were too much even for many of Romania's
rightist politicians, including the king. Early in February a juridical
committee of the Romanian parliament found the anti-Jewish decrees
unconstitutional, and the Goga government resigned on February 10. It
had been in power for less than six weeks, but the damage it did was
incalculable. In its stead the king established a coalition of Right
and Center, with the patriarch Miron Cristea as prime minister. It was
in a real sense the king's government that now took over.
[More anti-Semitic laws from Goga
government]
The openly anti-Semitic course gave way to a more subtle approach. New
decrees were enacted regulating such things as the renovation of shops,
requiring state examinations for previously qualified doctors and
druggists, forbidding the transfer abroad of (p.215)
funds for the support students who were not of Romanian descent,
requiring proof of Romanian citizenship for any foreign transaction,
and the like.
(End note 80:
-- 48-Gen. & Emerg. Romania, general, 1938-39, 4/28/38 [28 April
1938];
-- report of Kahn and Schweitzer on meetings in Bucharest)
This was followed by the mass cancellation of the licenses of Jewish
petty traders. All big industrial companies were told to name Christian
directors. Worst of all, although the summary procedure of depriving
Jews of their Romanian national status was abolished, the principle of
a revision of citizenship was maintained and the threat of
denationalization remained.
Kahn fully expected that 150,000 Jews would lose their Romanian
citizenship. Most of them would then have no way of earning a living,
and there would be a tendency for them to emigrate under government
pressure. Yet there seemed to be no alternative to supporting the king,
because the most vocal opposition to his rule came from the pro-Nazi
Iron Guard.
