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43 C h a p t e r 4 Fascism and Antisemitism in the 1930s Between the world wars public institutions to which Romanian Jews had appealed for relief from persecution or support in their struggle for political rights declined or disappeared, or, like the government, church, law courts, and press had become united against them. Beneficial influences from the west, which had brought some advantages to Romanian Jews in the past, faded as Romania moved into the economic and political orbit of Nazi Germany . The underlying cause of this growing hostility was a volatile mixture of the old Christian mythologies, emerging pseudoscientific racism, militant nationalism, and a multitude of economic woes. In the rising tide of discontent , fascist antisemitic political parties flourished. A key event in the success of this movement in Romania was, as Livezeanu points out, the energetic and sometime violent response, especially of Christian university students, to the granting of citizenship to Jews after the First World War. The two most effective postwar antisemitic parties were the Christian National Defense League (Liga Apărării Naţional-Creştine, or LANC), founded by A. C. Cuza and Corneliu Codreanu in 1923, and the Legion of the Archangel Michael created by Codreanu in 1927. Success of the Legion (also known from 1930 as the Iron Guard) encouraged the formation of other such militant-nationalist groups, such as the Svastica de Foc (Swastika of Fire), founded in 1933 by Colonel Emanuel Tătărescu, whose brother Gheorghe was prime minister in the 1930s, Frontul Românesc (The Romanian Front), founded in 1935 by former Interior and Prime Minister Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, a staunch supporter of the Legion, and Straja Ţării (Guards of the Fatherland), established by King Carol II in October 1937.1 44 C H A P T E R 4 A key issue for these and other militant nationalist parties was “the Jewish problem”: that Jews were a plague on Romania and their participation in the life of the country had to be reduced or eliminated. Their offenses ranged from “peculiar” noxious habits of speech and dress to having murdered God. They were accused of poisoning peasants with alcohol, practicing usury and tax evasion, and taking control of the legal and medical professions, newspapers , classrooms, banks, industry, commerce, and even some cities. They were described as parasites, seditious agents of international Jewry or Bolshevism or both, destroyers of morality, wandering-vagabond exploiters, an alien epidemic, and hostile toward good, honest, hard-working Christian folk. Typically, the mythical venomous Jew was contrasted with the mythically virtuous Romanian peasant. There were differing opinions about how to solve “the Jewish problem,” but all major parties called for limiting Jewish participation in the economy, culture, and governance of the country. Christian lawyers in 1935 called for numerus nullus, eliminating Jews from the legal profession; Christian university students demanded numerus clausus , sharply cutting the number of university places available to Jews. The University of Iaşi admitted only five Jews for the 1939–40 academic year.2 Vaida-Voevod’s Romanian Front favored numerus Valahicus, a general limitation on minorities, claiming for native Romanians (Valahi, Wallachians) a share in the economy and culture “proportional with their ethnic number.” By the late 1930s, however, fascist parties generally favored a statewide numerus nullus, eliminating Jews from Romania.3 Codreanu’s green-shirted Legion survived King Carol II’s determined efforts to destroy it and continued to widen its public support. In September 1936 British envoy Sir Reginald Hoare was assured by Prime Minister Tătărescu that he “had undressed the wearers of the green, blue and other coloured shirts.” Hoare replied that General Cantacuzino (Codreanu’s standin leader of the Iron Guard) had recently received Times correspondent Mr. Reed at green-shirt headquarters in Bucharest itself and “declaimed for about half an hour on the necessity of exterminating the 1 million [Romanian ] Jews.” Hoare also reported that during the general’s harangue young men in green shirts were entering and leaving the building.4 The blue shirts, mentioned by Tătărescu, belonged to the National Christian Party, created in 1935 when Professor Cuza’s LANC merged with poet Octavian Goga’s National Agrarian Party. The symbol of the National Christians was the swastika. The party’s storm trooper and Jew basher was the revolver-toting, black-trousered, blue-shirted, Lance Bearer (Lăncier).5 Each fascist party was supported by its own and other...

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