Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

(c) Crafts menThe cer tif i cates of trade, work-books, and con tracts of Jew ish apprenticecraftsmen were invalidated by the Min is try of la bor with unduly Dra co -nian—and in a large num ber of cases un law ful - directives.Al though some craftsmen were able to safeguard their right to workthrough con ces sions, such ar range ments were il lu sory, since the ap pren -tices in question had to spend almost all of their time in la bor service any -way.(d) In the Fields of Com merce and IndustryThe sphere of eco nomic activities in volv ing Jews, which had been severelyreduced as a consequence of their new le gal status, was di min ished fur theras a re sult of a se ries of de crees. They were expelled from the boards of pub -lic lim ited com pa nies; barred from commercial activities in vil lages; pre -vented from mer chan dis ing al co holic drinks; pro hib ited from sellingof fi cial forms in the Ro ma nian lan guage; from trad ing in leather, iron,grain; from working in the tour ist and travel in dus try, and film in dus try,etc. With the help of the law on com pany reg is tra tion, it became possibleto re fuse reg is tra tion to all Jew ish firms. The most was made of this op por -tu nity. /.../XIII. Labor ServiceThe au tumn of 1940 witnessed the be gin ning of Jews used as “labor forpublic use” un der the or ders of county heads and mayors (later a separatede cree re ferred to this as “obligatory labor”). It became a le gal ob li ga tion inDe cem ber 1940, and was or ga nized under the supervision of the armyfrom 1st August, 1941. 35 For the fol low ing three years, almost without re -spite (the only considerable break took place in the win ter of 1941/42)more than 150,000 Jews—men and women—were forced to carry out dif -ficult, and of ten com pletely ex haust ing work on roads, railway lines andquar ries. They had to sweep streets, clear snow, re move the dead andwounded from debris fol low ing bomb at tacks, de fuse un ex ploded de vices,etc. Al though the law im posed oblig a tory work only for those between theages of 18 and 50, ad min is tra tive abuses extended the age limit in both di -43