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Antisemitism in Romania manifested in the country's legislation during its early times following Romania's foundation as a modern state in the mid-19th century. Antisemitism increased considerably in Romania in the late-1930s and the 1940s, culminating with The Holocaust in Romania.
Sporadic antisemitic legislation existed in Wallachia and Moldavia, the predecessors of the Romanian state, since the settlement of Jews in the area. As a non-Christian people coming mostly from the Ottoman Empire (almost all Jews in Wallachia were Sephardi at the time), their allegiance was considered dubious. Nevertheless, their community was usually given a large amount of autonomy. [1]
The Russian-imposed quasi-constitutional document Regulamentul Organic demanded Jews to register with the local authority, specifying their occupation, so that the Jews who "cannot demonstrate their usefulness" could be identified and expelled. [1]
During the Wallachian Revolution of 1848, the Proclamation of Islaz demanded the emancipation of the Jews, but the eventual defeat of the revolution meant that its clauses were not applied. [1]
When Romania was formed by the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia, Jewish residents did not become citizens of the new state. Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza announced in 1865 a project which would lead to the "gradual emancipation of the people of Mosaic faith", however, all the plans were canceled as Cuza was deposed the following year. [2] After Cuza was deposed, Article 7 of the 1866 Constitution of Romania did not allow non-Christians to become citizens of the United Principalities of Romania, [3] so Jews could not become citizens unless they converted to Christianity. [1] The change in outlook can be explained by the weakening of the liberalism which led to the 1848 Revolution and its replacement with nationalism. [2]
As a result of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Romania gained its independence and at the Congress of Berlin of 1878, the nations of Europe recognized it, with the condition of making all citizens, regardless of ethnic origin or religious beliefs, equal under law. [1] In 1879, the Parliament of Romania grudgingly removed the constitution article which barred Jews from becoming citizens. However naturalization was still a cumbersome process requiring a personal petition and the approval of the Parliament on individual cases. [1]
The result was that very few Jews were naturalized: between 1866 and 1904, only 2000 people of Jewish faith were naturalized, of which 888 were granted citizenship for their participation in the Russo-Turkish War. [1]
The Prince and later King of Romania, Carol I was an antisemite and the Liberal Interior Minister Ion Brătianu began some tightening of policies against Jews. In 1867 he demanded the prefects to enforce the regulations about the "Jewish vagabonds" and therefore stop the Jewish immigration into Romania and prevent their settlement into villages. [1] [3] One year later, the Chamber of Deputies received a draft law project that would attempt to eliminate the Jews from economic activity in the villages. [1]
The policies of the other major party, the Conservative Party, regarding the Jews were similar to those of the Liberals. For instance, in 1873, the Lascăr Catargiu government introduced a law regarding the sale of alcoholic beverages which tried to remove the near-monopoly Jews had on these products. [3]
The Jews of Romania protested against the economic and political discrimination they faced and gained support from Western European Jewish organizations such as the Paris-based Alliance Israélite Universelle, which attempted to put pressure on Romania with the help of sympathetic politicians. [2]
Romanian legislation generally discriminated against the people who were not citizens of Romania (such as were most Jews) and as such, Jews were not allowed to hold certain offices. [4]
Several laws from 1919-1924 granted Jews in Romania Romanian citizenship, although the restrictive conditions excluded some from citizen rights. The effects of these laws were cancelled from 1936. In early 1938, the far-right Goga cabinet started a systematic "revision" of citizenship rights, which was continued by King Carol II after his coup of February 10, 1938. It left about 36% of the "revised" Jews without citizenship and, due to heavy taxes imposed on them, without access to work. The antisemitic laws of August 1940 did not distinguish any more between Jews with or without citizenship. [5]
Already in June 1940, Jews had been banned from Carol II's single party. After the cession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR later that month, antisemitism was used to divert from this disaster. In July 1940, Carol II's regime issued a first definition of "Jew". On August 9, 1940, two antisemitic laws were published, which were based on the Hungarian and Italian law. The people whom the laws defined as "Jews" were divided into three categories. Most Jews lost their right to work in a series of professions. Jews were banned from non Jewish schools. Marriages between ethnic Romanians and Jews were forbidden. [6]
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Ion Constantin Brătianu was one of the major political figures of 19th-century Romania. He was the son of Dincă Brătianu and the younger brother of Dimitrie, as well as the father of Ionel, Dinu, and Vintilă Brătianu. He also was the grandfather of poet Ion Pillat.
Octavian Goga was a Romanian far-right politician, poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.
Cezar Petrescu was a Romanian journalist, novelist, and children's writer.
Nichifor Crainic was a Romanian writer, editor, philosopher, poet and theologian famed for his traditionalist activities. Crainic was also a professor of theology at the Bucharest Theological Seminary and the Chișinău Faculty of Theology. He was an important racist ideologue, and a far-right politician. He was one of the main Romanian fascist and antisemitic ideologues.
Alexandru C. Cuza, also known as A. C. Cuza, was a Romanian far-right politician and economist.
The history of the Jews in Romania concerns the Jews both of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is present-day Romanian territory. Minimal until the 18th century, the size of the Jewish population increased after around 1850, and more especially after the establishment of Greater Romania in the aftermath of World War I. A diverse community, albeit an overwhelmingly urban one, Jews were a target of religious persecution and racism in Romanian society from the late-19th century debate over the "Jewish Question" and the Jewish residents' right to citizenship, to the genocide carried out in the lands of Romania as part of the Holocaust. The latter, coupled with successive waves of aliyah, has accounted for a dramatic decrease in the overall size of Romania's present-day Jewish community.
The National Christian Party was a far-right authoritarian and strongly antisemitic political party in Romania active between 1935 and 1938. It was formed by a merger of Octavian Goga's National Agrarian Party and A. C. Cuza's National-Christian Defense League (LANC); a prominent member of the party was the philosopher Nichifor Crainic. Goga was chosen in December 1937 by King Carol II to form a government which included Cuza. The government lasted for only 44 days and was followed by a royal dictatorship by Carol.
The Jewish Party, in full the Jewish Party of Romania or the Jewish National Party, was a right-wing political party in Romania, representing Jewish community interests. It originally followed an undercurrent of Zionism, promoting communitarianism as a prerequisite of resettlement in Palestine, and later progressed toward Religious Zionism and Revisionism. Founded by Tivadar Fischer, József Fischer, and Adolphe Stern, it had particularly strong sections in Transylvania and Bessarabia. In the Old Kingdom, where it registered least support, it was mainly represented by A. L. Zissu, Mișu Benvenisti, and Renașterea Noastră newspaper.
The National-Christian Defense League was a far-right political party of Romania formed by A. C. Cuza.
The zone libre was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during World War II, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on 22 June 1940. It lay to the south of the demarcation line and was administered by the French government of Marshal Philippe Pétain based in Vichy, in a relatively unrestricted fashion. To the north lay the zone occupée in which the powers of Vichy France were severely limited.
The National Agrarian Party was a right-wing agrarian party active in Romania during the early 1930s. Established and led by poet Octavian Goga, it was originally a schism from the more moderate People's Party, espousing national conservatism, monarchism, agrarianism, antisemitism, and Germanophilia; Goga was also positively impressed by fascism, but there is disagreement in the scholarly community as to whether the PNA was itself fascist. Its antisemitic rhetoric was also contrasted by the PNA's acceptance of some Jewish members, including Tudor Vianu and Henric Streitman. The group was generally suspicious of Romania's other ethnic minorities, but in practice accepted members and external collaborators of many ethnic backgrounds, such as the Gagauz Dumitru Topciu and the Romani Gheorghe A. Lăzăreanu-Lăzurică.
The Holocaust in France was the persecution, deportation, and annihilation of Jews between 1940 and 1944 in occupied France, metropolitan Vichy France, and in Vichy-controlled French North Africa, during World War II. The persecution began in 1940, and culminated in deportations of Jews from France to Nazi concentration camps in Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied Poland. The deportation started in 1942 and lasted until July 1944. Of the 340,000 Jews living in metropolitan/continental France in 1940, more than 75,000 were deported to death camps, where about 72,500 were murdered.
Henric Ștefan Streitman was a Romanian journalist, translator and political figure, who traversed the political spectrum from socialism to the far-right. A physicist, social commentator and publisher, in his early years he was a promoter of natural selection ideas as well as a translator of Marxist and naturalist literature. Respected for both his polemical stances and his erudition, he was also rendered controversial by his inconsistencies and his alleged corruption. Often struggling financially, Streitman set up several short-lived periodicals, and involved himself in the cultural and political debates, from 1889 to the time of his death.
Led by Philippe Pétain, the Vichy regime that replaced the French Third Republic in 1940 chose the path of collaboration with the Nazi occupiers. This policy included the Bousquet-Oberg accords of July 1942 that formalized the collaboration of the French police with the German police. This collaboration was manifested in particular by anti-Semitic measures taken by the Vichy government, and by its active participation in the genocide.
Constantin-Radu Budișteanu was a Romanian lawyer and activist of the Iron Guard.
Le Juif et la France was an anti-Semitic propaganda exhibition that took place in Paris from 5 September 1941 to 15 January 1942 during the German occupation of France in the Second World War. A film version of the exhibition came out in French cinemas in October 1941.
The Kingdom of Romania was under Fascist rule for a total of six to eight months, comprising two separate regimes headed by two different parties. First there was the National Christian Party between December 1937 and February 1938, then the Iron Guard between September 1940 and January 1941. The sole legal party from 1938 to 1940, the National Renaissance Front, was also called fascist, as was the dictator Ion Antonescu (1940–1944).
Freedom of religion in Romania refers to the extent to which people in Romania are freely able to practice their religious beliefs, taking into account both government policies and societal attitudes toward religious groups.
Antisemitism in France is the expression through words or actions of an ideology of hatred of Jews on French soil.
The election to the Romanian throne in 1866 followed the deposition of Prince Alexandre Ioan Cuza, with the aim of giving the united principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia a new ruler.