871.4016 Jews/62: Telegram
The Minister in Rumania (Gunther) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 21—5:53 a.m.]
12. Prime Minister Goga told me casually last night after dinner that Foreign Minister Micescu had just telephoned him from Geneva to say that to all remonstrances regarding Jewish or minority issues in Rumania he had countered that Rumania would do just as Poland has done in similar situations in the past, to wit, reject interference and be prepared to withdraw from the League if necessary. Nevertheless I take this stand as striking an attitude preliminary to negotiations.
The poet Prime Minister is both sane and moderate in the internal Jewish problem and has to date withstood the vicious onslaughts of the octogenarian extreme anti-Semite Professor Cuza putting him off with the fulfillment of the economic phases of the Party program, deflationary measures designed to reduce the cost of living and with administrative provisions for the sifting of the records of Jews in order to classify them. Though he will suffer different degrees of ostracism the white collar Jew of good standing has little to fear if he can avoid occasional unauthorized public roughness. I have only known the Prime Minister to show any heat himself when he talks of the wandering, money-lending Jew still in robe, cap and curls, [Page 677] who has fastened on the villages running the peasant into debt in the local wine shop and store. I asked him again last night what is to be the solution. This is not a popular question with any cosmopolite statesman. He replied: Why not send them back to Russia and Poland where they came from? That may not be so easy. Madagascar is still a hope and aggregations of village Jews in Bessarabia have just now petitioned my Italian colleague to be permitted to go to Abyssinia; and my Brazilian colleague to Brazil, both most improbable of acquiescence. The Mexican Minister stated in conversation that his country might accept certain categories. He is being besieged with requests.
I regret to report my conviction that even if this Government should not survive the elections the issue itself is now so much to the fore that it will have to be espoused by any succeeding government or even dictatorship in response to a determined insistent public demand. The question therefore is not likely really to simmer down for some time to come.
I understand that the King may give an interview soon to the New York Times correspondent from Vienna, a British subject. Mr. Montgomery, who is here, tells me that Gedye6 is of Armenian Jewish origin. I did not actually ask for this audience but was instrumental in getting it suggested to the King. It should be interesting if accurately reported. I am constantly seeing newly arrived correspondents of the American press, mostly Jewish, and am endeavoring in every way to assist them to obtain an accurate and not too sensational view of the general situation.
- G. E. R. Gedye, the New York Times correspondent in South Central Europe.↩