871.4016/280: Telegram
The Minister in Rumania ( Gunther ) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 2—11:48 a.m.]
931. For the Secretary and Under Secretary. (Please see my letter of August 5, 1941, to the President, pages 2, 3 and 4, copy of which I sent to Mr. Under Secretary Welles on the same day.11) Your No. 458, October 23, 11 a.m. [p.m.]. The worst elements of the population emulating the Germans have them biting their teeth on this matter and I doubt if any public or private condemnation or objurgation on our part would do good any more and might make matters worse. However, if the solution suggested in the above letter as a postwar solution only were by any chance so far advanced in wartime that the British Government is in a position to announce, which I doubt, the definite allocation now of a large territory in Africa available immediately as a homeland for the unwanted Jews of Europe such an announcement would go far to deter this Government from the prosecution of the diabolical measure now being applied to Jews in Bucovina and Bessarabia of forced emigration with a totally inadequate minimum of possessions to Transylvania. I realize that even so the solution would present great technical difficulties. I have frequently counseled patience here and averred that a world solution of the Jewish problem would be reached at the time of the peace conference. This, however, is too remote to outweigh present exigencies.
The head of the Jewish community in Bucharest has told a member of my staff that the Jews in Rumania due to their peril would actually welcome segregation in a foreign homeland and that Marshal Antonescu had promised him that no such measures as the above [apparent omission] Transylvania and the Old Kingdom. The Marshal likes to salve his conscience with the claim that the measures taken are merely reprisals for the hostile action of the Jews toward the Rumanian forces when retreating before the Russian occupation in the summer of 1940, the denunciations by the Jews during the Russian occupation and executions allegedly allotted by the Russians exclusively to them and for the sniping and sabotage upon the triumphant return of the [Page 871] Rumanian Army. The Marshal’s promise moreover like others is subject to pressure and amendment and it is reported that the Germans desire to divert attention from a similar forced exodus into territory formerly Russian of German Jews from southern Germany.
Reports of indescribable horror continue to reach us and will be covered by despatch with reserves as to possible future confirmation.
- Not found in Department files.↩