The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1982 (9. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1982-10-01 / 10. szám
Rumania: the Most Chauvinistic Country on Earth (Excerpts from the “Study On Rumanian Anti-Semitism and Anti-Hungarianism” prepared by Prof. Andrew Haraszti for the Transylvanian World Federation Committee on International Relations, 1982.) “The present-day Rumanian government is internationalist in theory, but extremely chauvinistic in practice” Prof. Haraszti ascertains in his report, “consequently the Rumanians, who were ill-famed concerning their extreme and murderous anti-semit>sm for several centuries, are treating now the Jews of Rumania in a very interesting way. If a Rumanian Jew happens to be orthodox, who considers his indentity as a nationality or as a race, he can be persecuted just as before, during the previous centuries. However, if an orthodox Jew proves himself good communist and good Rumanian in the same time, the government will probably forget that he is “only a Jew”. Now the treatment of the neolog Jews is drastically different. “Since most of the orthodox Jews are from the territories of ‘old Rumania’, they can be considered as old Rumanians, but since most of the neolog Jews are from Transylvania, they are treated by Rumanian officials with extreme chauvisism and hatred. A very large part of the Transylvanian Jews assimilated into the Hungarian culture long time ago, and most of them considered themselves as Hungarians with Jewish religious background. Since Hungarians have been discrimininated against and persecuted from the very first day Rumania occupied the eastern part of Hungary, called Transylvania, being a Hungarian Jew provoked the extreme of Rumanian anti-semitism, uniting anti-Judaism with anti-Hungarian chauvinism into one furious and brutal sentiment. Thus, Transylvania became the land of the most brutal genocide. Hannah Arendt, one of the most experienced and most professional analyst of Totalitarianism writes in her book “Eichman in Jerusalem”: “in Rumania even the SS were taken aback and occasionally frightened by the horrors of old-fashioned spontaneous pogroms on a gigantic scale. They often intervened to save Jews from butchery, so that the killing could be done in a “more civilized way”. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Rumania was the most anti-Semitic country of Europe.” Unquestionably, the Rumanians became “champions of anti-semitism” up to the end of World War II. Did they change their anti-semitic character after 1945? Let us quote another author, Paul Lendvai. In his book “Anti-Semitism without Jews” the author writes on page 326: “When Nicolae Céausescu succeeded Gheorghiu-Dej as First Secretary of the Communist Party in March 1965, at the age of 47, a high Hungarian offical in Budapest said that the new party leader was anti-Hungarian and anti- Semitic ...” Nicolae Ceaustescu is actually nothing else as a Rumanian chauvinist, and he is not different from the most notorious Rumanian fascists. His government is working very hard to spread the myth that the Rumanians are the oldest and most civilized race in Europe. All the others: Hungarians, Jews, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Serbians, Greteks, etc. are “barbarian newcomers”. This Rumanian myth is dangerously similar to the Aryan myth of Hitler’s Germany. The essence of Rumanian chauvinism was, and 8till is: to hate and persecute all those who are non-Rumanians and who are presumbly against the predicted great role of Rumanian expansionism. With the Rumanian annexation of Bukovina, Bessarabia and the thousand-year-old Hungarian Transylvania, the various national minorities faced a horrible chapter of their history as the victims of Rumanian super-nationalism. In 1945 Rumanian chauvinism replaced the Swastika with the Sickle and Hammer. Thousands of Transylvanian Hungarians became victims of Rumanian terror, and hundreds of them were Hungarian Jews. In 1958 Westfern sources reported that.over a hundred thousand Jews had registered for emigration in Rumania. Following this, in February 1959, the Rumanian government issued a statement accusing Israel and “other imperialist sources” of unleashing a diversionist campaign. Bucharest accused the Israeli embassy of spreading Zionist slogans among Rumanian Jews. Dozen of Jews were arrested again and tried on charges of treason. Rumanian nationalists faced a difficult problem. As anti-Semites, they were happy to get rid of the Jews. But on other hand, large scale departure of trained Jewish personnel could have effected Rumanian economy. Between 1960 and 1965 about 35,000 Jews left Rumania very quietly, without ‘causing diplomatic troubles with the Arab friends’ of Bucharest. Today, Rumanian diplomacy is performing the unique feat of maintaining good relations with both Israel and the most extreme Arab nationalists, simultaneously, although Rumanian domestic policy is THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY III
