Address: R. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rome

Bucharest, 23th September 1942 – XX

Re: New measures against the Jews in Romania

Romanianauthorities seem determined to solve the Jewish problem with drastic measures, sending a great number of Semtic elements to the occupied Russian territories. These deportations had already started during last winter and involved the Jews living in Bessarabia and Bukovina, who were accused of having welcomed the Bolshevik occupation, and those in Moldavia, who during the first days of the war had stirred up Communist riots in Jassy and in Galatz that were immediately suppressed. The system now has been extended to other regions and towns, including the capital, where in the last few days the police have carried out vast round-ups among the Jewish element and have sent the people arrested beyond the Dnestr and beyond the Bug. There they are employed in public works, mainly road works, but reportedly last winter many, due also to lack of equipment and of suitable lodgings, did not survive the long marches from one place to the other and the rigours of the Russian winter.

News of these measures spread rapidly even abroad, causing the United States to send a protest note through the Swiss Legation which here protects their interests. However, the Romanian government, during the last meeting of the Council of Ministers, decided

to ignore the American démarche and to carry on with the deportations. To this end, the Jews to be sent beyond the Dniestr have been classed – according to a list that Romanian authorities have handed to German authorities on their request – in thirteen categories, namely: 1) those who when the Bolshevik invasion took place submitted an application to the local Soviet Legation to be allowed to move to the U.R.S.S. (the relevant lists were found by the Romanians in the archives of the Russian Legation); 2) people who are in jail for being Communists; 3) those who already are in concentration camps; 4) those engaged in illegal activities; 5) owners of gambling houses, gamblers, cardsharpers; 6) saboteurs of the economy, that is those guilty of speculating and hoarding, according to information acquired by the Prefecture of Police; 7) those who are in favour of the Americans; 8) Russophiles, who oppose the war against the Soviet Union; 9) alarmists; 10) Hungarophiles in Transylvania, particularly in the Deva and Arad areas, and those who have tried to emigrate to Hungary; 12) those guilty of fraudulent bankruptcy; 13) former journalists who were employed by the Anglo-American news organization.

The said measures are in my opinion further proof of the resolve with which the Conducator’s regime has embraced the cause of totalitarian Nations. They will no doubt please Germany, which never tires to urge Romanians to use forcefulness in eliminating Jewry, but at the same time will deepen the chasm separating Antonescu’s Romania from the democratic countries.

In the country itself the anti-Semitic measures are designed instead to do away with the most dangerous hotbeds of opposition and to “romanize” the vast Jewish assets, while the

deportation of Transylvanian Jews, who are all Hungarophiles, is aimed at strengthening the Romanian make-up of those contested regions.

I enclose on this point the copy of a report by the R.Vice Consulate in Timisoara.

R. Bova Scoppa