All About the 800,000 Romanian Jews of 1939, Where They Came From and What Happened to Them

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

Elie Wiesel  was born in 1928 in the town of Sighet, now part of Romania. During World War II, he, with his family and other Jews from the area, were deported to the German concentration and extermination camps, where his parents and little sister perished. Wiesel and his two older sisters survived. Liberated from Buchenwald in 1945 by advancing Allied troops, he was taken to Paris where he studied at the Sorbonne and worked as a journalist. In 1958, he published his first book, La Nuit, a memoir of his experiences in the concentration camps. He has since authored nearly thirty books some of which use these events as their basic material. In his many lectures, Wiesel has concerned himself with the situation of the Jews and other groups who have suffered persecution and death because of their religion, race or national origin. He has been outspoken on the plight of Soviet Jewry, on Ethiopian Jewry and on behalf of the State of Israel today.

Elie Wiesel was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.

  Romania seemed like a good place to move to in the 4th Century for Jewish descendants of Jerusalem's destruction in 70 CE.  They were among the first settlers of the city of Roman in 1391.  By the end of the 16th century, Joseph Nasi and Solomon Ashkenazi played a part in the history of this area. 

A century later, the Jews received legal status from the princes who were in power.  In 1740, there were important communities at Bacau, Barland, Galati and Roman.                                                                                                                                        

The actress below is of Romanian Jewish descent.  She is the recipient of several awards, including a Golden Globe Award, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards.

                                                    

        Born October 29, 1971,   Winona Ryder’s  full name is Winona Laura Horowitz.  Her Romanian origins come from his father’s side. Her Jewish family emigrated from Russia and Romania to the US. The actress is known for playing in several successful movies such as Beetlejuice, The Age of Innocence, and Heathers.  She is the recipient of several awards, including a Golden Globe Award, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards.

      He was born on August 13, 1982, in Constanta city, Romania. Now Sebastian Stan  is one of the most famous actors. He moved to Vienna, Austria with his mother, a pianist when he was eight and then to New York when he was twelve. He starred in movie such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, The Martian, Captain America: Super Soldier, Captain America: First Avenger, Gossip Girl, Hot Tub Machine and the Avengers.

Yair Lapid,  of the new coalition,  has a  grandmother from Romania.  

The Jews in the 1700s suffered greatly from both sides in the various Russo-Turkish wars taking place in Romania between  1769 and 1812.  Between 1750 and 1850, large numbers of Jews immigrated from Poland to the region, especially to Moldavia.  They played an important part of transforming the old feudal system into a modern economy.             

From the temporary Russian occupation in 1828 until 1916, Jews were subject to discriminatory legislation, violence, and arbitrary expulsions.  They were divided into "foreign subjects," under the protection of a foreign consul, and "native born," to whom citizenship was also refused.  200 special laws regarding the Jews made it difficult  for them to earn a livelihood.                                                                                                                                     

       Berlin Treaty of 1878  Dominated by the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the congress solved an international crisis caused by the San Stefano treaty by revising the peace settlement to satisfy the interests of Great Britain (by denying Russia the means to extend its naval power and by maintaining the Ottoman Empire as a European power) and to satisfy the interests of Austria-Hungary (by allowing it to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina and thereby increase its influence in the Balkans). In acting so, however, the congress left Russia humiliated by substantially reducing the gains that it had made under the San Stefano treaty. Furthermore, the congress failed to consider adequately the aspirations of the Balkan peoples themselves and, thereby, laid the foundation for future crises in the Balkans.

 A short interlude of liberal treatment in 1860 was followed up with anti-Semitism which became part of internal Romanian policy.  In 1872, the US representative in Paris termed the Romanian persecution of the Jews "a disgrace to Christian civilization".  The provision of the Berlin Treaty of 1878 which demanded equal treatment for the Jews  were evaded on the pretext that even the native born Jews were not citizens, either.  Those Jews with nothing left could not bribe the officials were the first to suffer.  

The main body of the Jewish population were Hasidim and had bitterly fought any attempt at modernization.  There was no modern Jewish school until 1860, when one was opened at Jassy.  

More than 70,000 Jews left Romania from 1900 to 1906, a period all over Eastern Europe of immigrating either to Palestine or the USA.  

After World War I in 1918-1919 granting equal rights to Jews, discrimination and anti-Jewish agitation persisted.  By 1937, Romania turned against Jews by the advent to power of Octavian Goga of the National Christian Party that led to a series of decrees depriving the Jews of citizenship.  That was only 84 years ago and Jews of Romania still had no rights nor citizenship.  To make matters worse, they were also deprived of their Hebrew and Yiddish press, and even the opportunity to practice their profession.                                                        

On that note, massacres took place after 1940 when ordinances patterned on the NUREMBERG LAWS came into effect.                                       

Of the nearly 800,000 Jews in Romania at the outbreak of World War II, 385,000,  were exterminated at the outbreak of World War II.  

Auschwitz

   Deportees from Auschwitz and Transnistria  and the immigration of 50,000 Jews from Soviet annexed territory amounted to 50,000 Jews back in Romania.

That was greeted with Communism which had entered the country.  Their domination in 1946 led to the Jewish orgnizational life's liquidation.  From 1948 to 1952, the government halted immigration.  The result was that 125,000 Jews of Romania left for Israel.  

Surprisingly, Romania was the only Eastern European country which maintained relations with Israel after the SIX DAY WAR of 1967.  It even intensified its ties, especially in the economic and diplomatic spheres.  This caused Romanian Jewry to emigrate  en masse to Israel and by 1991, less that 20,000 Jews remained in Romania.                              

Anti-Semitic slogans were daubed on the childhood home of Romanian-born Nobel prize winner Elie Wiesel

Anti-Semitism is very strong again today, leading up to the worst of 1930s, even in Romania.  The graffiti scrawled on his former home, now a museum, read: "Public toilet, anti-Semite paedophile" and "Nazi Jew lying in hell with Hitler."

Resource;

The new Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/biographical/

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/romania-virtual-jewish-history-tour

https://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/watch/extras/angela-buchdahl-seeking-religious-freedom-from-romania-to-ny