871.4016/271
The Minister in Rumania (Gunther) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 23.]
Sir: I have the honor to enclose herewith a Memorandum8 prepared by Mr. Cloyce K. Huston, Second Secretary of this Legation, setting [Page 866] forth the reports reaching the Legation in regard to the brutal measures taken in this country against the Jews during the six months period prior to the outbreak of war with Russia, as well as subsequently thereto.
The popular Rumanian reaction to the recent excesses committed against the Jews is difficult of assessment. The Rumanians have heretofore insisted upon being known as a tolerant people, and I do not doubt that the majority of them learn of the massacres and other atrocities with, possibly, a slight feeling of satisfaction, mixed with a stronger sense of surprise, shock and misgiving. It is undoubtedly true that the anti-Semitic campaign of the Legionary régime, the continual attacks of the press, the present military collaboration with anti-Semitic Germany, and the attitude of the Government during General Antonescu’s absence at the front, during which time Mr. Mihai Antonescu has been Acting Premier, have all had their effect on popular opinion, tending to make it especially anti-Semitic, but I fail to believe that the country as a whole willingly countenances outright slaughter and brutality in the handling of the Jewish problem.
I have already reported by telegram (No. 716 of August 1, 1941, 9 a.m. [p.m.]9) the suggestion that General Antonescu was “sick at heart” because he had not been able to curb the bloody excesses committed against the Jews. The fact remains, however, that he issued the first order. (See page five of enclosed Memorandum.) You know from previous reports that National Peasant Leader Maniu and his henchmen, certain officials in the Foreign Office, Prince Barbu Stirbey, and many other important personalities, have openly deplored the extreme violence and drastic measures that have been employed against the country’s Jewish population. And when I mentioned this subject to the Orthodox Archbishop and Metropolite of Transylvania* at Braşov, he professed likewise to be shocked at the carnage and maltreatment of the Jews. Even Mihai Antonescu, the Acting Premier, has set forth to me at length his own personal abhorrence of the acts of cruelty and violence committed against the Jews, claiming to have recommended the creation of a Governmental commission with a view to establishing a juridical basis for the liberation of Jews now in internment or labor camps against whom there are no definitive charges or evidence; and it is he who professes juridical reasons for deferring the application of the law expropriating the urban properties of Jews.
[Page 867]Mr. Maniu, in a recent memorandum which he caused to reach me, claims that the Germans are provoking anti-Semitic disorders in order to divert public opinion from their aims of conquest and the subjugation of Rumanian economic life. The massacres of the Jews, he avers, are staged by them, and the responsibility is laid upon the Rumanians. I have often pointed out in conversations with officials and others here that German policy in this respect may quite well be based in part upon far-seeing plans to make room, by freeing business and other positions in Rumania held by the Jews, for German unemployed after the war.
But the fact remains that there has been no popular uprising or movement against all these cruelties. It may well be that the ethical sense of the Rumanian people has been somewhat dulled by recent miseries and disasters—the loss of Bessarabia, then of Transylvania and the Dobrodja, the dethronement of a King, a catastrophic earthquake, a bloody revolution, and, in this part of the world, war in all its most hideous aspects, including the reported butchery of prisoners and even of elements of the local Rumanian population suspected or popularly accused of Communist sympathies—, with the result that they are not fully conscious of the horrors of the Jewish phase. Whatever the cause, 1941 has thus far proved to be a black year for the Jews in Rumania.
My own experience is that the better class of Rumanians thoroughly disapproves of the methods resorted to from time to time against the Jews, the cruelty and the injustice. On general principles, I have lost no opportunity to indicate my own attitude of strong disapproval, apart from the pointed observations which I made to Mr. Alexandre Cretziano, the Secretary General of the Foreign Office, as outlined in my telegram No. 610 of July 3, 2 [11] p.m., and to intimate that the reaction in the Western World will be most unfavorable.
Rumanian officialdom and public opinion are well aware that the traditional American attitude carries an expectancy of humane and civilized treatment for the Jews, as for all other oppressed peoples, and thinking Rumanians are cognizant of the effects which the present rampant anti-Semitism must inevitably have on American sentiment. I have even availed myself of every suitable occasion to intimate to General Antonescu and other Rumanian officials how deeply my Government and the people of the United States deplore and abhor the exercise of wanton license in dealing with human lives, even in the liquidation of what this country may consider an internal problem. There is, I feel sure, no mistaking as to the American view of butchery and the brutal deprivation of human rights. I shall continue to hold this view up to the light, but, in the absence of specific instructions, I shall not seek further to trouble an already uncertain atmosphere by direct or specific representations.
[Page 868]The fact remains, however, that the lower-class Jew who has filtered into Rumania since the War from Galicia, Russia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, or elsewhere, and fastened upon village and small-town life is, by and large, not assimilable. The Rumanian resents his presence, although it is largely due to his own laissez faire that this type of Jew is here, and, from time to time when things are not going well, sporadic examples of appalling cruelty occur. The Jew is always the convenient butt. Frank Rumanians will admit that robbery is often the real leitmotif.
I have frequently discussed with Colleagues these recent outrages. They one and all are as appalled by the hideousness of it as I am. The Papal Nuncio, for example, claims to have made some pertinent observations on this subject at the Foreign Office, although he has not divulged to me the exact nature thereof. Others, such as the Brazilian and Portuguese Ministers—who have in their blood the abhorrence of cruelty common to their gentle race—, and also the Swiss, have urged me to recommend to my Government that a joint international protest be made. I am not in a position from this angle to make a recommendation one way or the other. Facts would have to be better documented than is as yet possible. A far-reaching investigation should be made—which would be far from simple—and statements taken under oath—which would be impracticable. One hears locally that the Hungarian newspapers are about to launch a campaign against Rumania on this score. That will serve at least to bring circumstances to the attention of the Western World, there being no American correspondents in Rumania. Stories of the massacres also are filtering through to Ankara, whence, undoubtedly, various and sundry versions thereof will be reported to the American press.
Respectfully yours,