871.4016/283: Telegram
The Minister in Rumania (Gunther) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 16—12:02 a.m.]
960. In the course of a recent conversation with Maniu, the National peasant leader, Benton19 requested an expression of his views in connection with the atrocities being committed against the Jews in Rumania. Maniu replied that he had on three separate occasions, twice through one of his principal lieutenants, Lupu, and once through George Bratianu, leader of the dissident Liberal Party, lodged protests with Marshal Antonescu concerning the treatment being meted out to the Jews, expressing his own and his party’s horror and revulsion at the Government’s attitude towards these unfortunate people.
Maniu repeatedly expressed his disgust at the excesses committed against the Jews, remarking that the Marshal was really no longer “in his right mind” and entirely incapable of putting an end to these atrocities. He mentioned that the Marshal had through Lupu promised to draft a Jewish statute for Transylvania and the Old Kingdom but indicated that the Marshal was not in a position to carry out his promise; and in this connection referred to the continued promulgation of new decrees such as the one recently announced making it a crime for a Jew to purchase food in a public market place before 11 a.m. The truth, he concluded, was that the Germans, particularly the German Army, were responsible for the present anti-Jewish measures; [Page 878] of this he asserted he had abundant and convincing proof. This latter assertion, which is in close agreement with what Marshal Antonescu told a friend (please see paragraph 3 of my 959, November 15, 8 a.m.20) supports the opinion I have held for some time that the measures taken in the formerly Russian occupied provinces though participated in with fiendish glee by the worst elements of the population were insisted upon by the German military authorities while themselves setting the pace. In all justice to decent Rumanians, however, I must emphasize that although they are subject to many annoyances—usually for the purpose of extortion—and various measures of confiscation, deprivation of rights and confinement to forced labor, the Jews of Bucharest or Moldavia and Transylvania have not generally been made the object of persecution of a violent character. In Bucharest at least many Jews such as dentists and oculists are still exercising their profession.