Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

The Cap tain of the Met ro pol i tan Po lice, Gen eral Dona, was re placed by amem ber of the Iron Guard Senate, Col o nel Stefan Zavoianu , whose crim i -nal dis po si tion could be used to extend the acts of ter ror (he appeared in agreen shirt at the Iron Guard cel e bra tion); Zavoianu also announced thelaw con cern ing the appointment of the officer in charge ofRomanianization and the ex pro pri a tion of rural Jew ish property.The simultaneous appearance of these two laws signaling the beginning ofrobberies and looting, is characteristic and significant.The law of October 14, which organized the ghettoization of schools, wasintroduced soon after the announcement of these basic laws. /.../Two very important laws succeeded each other: one affecting doctors onNovember 15, and the other affecting company employees on November16.Every set of sta tis tics indicates, and all avenues of re search agree on the factthat one of the ba sic problems in Ro ma nian so ci ety was the lack of phy si -cians, and the con se quences of this were cat a strophic for the Ro ma nian na -tion. The wor ry ing spread of the so-called national dis eases, and the in fantmor tal ity rate which was much higher than the average fig ures in other na -tions—these two facts were el o quently pointed out with an enor mousamount evidence by all those who dealt with the ba sic issue of the health ofthe Ro ma nian nation. The so lu tion recommended was always thesame—ir re spec tive of how much the po lit i cal and so cial views of the re -search ers varied—that the num ber of town and vil lage doc tors had to bein creased, and more em pha sis should be placed on health care.In spite of this, there was a government, the Iron Guard government,which not only did nothing towards providing a remedy for the muchwarned endemic, but with a simple directive—aimed at satisfying thesavage impulses of certain members—expelled a great number of doctorsfrom the Board of Physicians, thus catastrophically diminishing theoriginally small number entrusted with caring for the health of a nation.With the law of November 15, 1940, under the threat of severe penalties,Jewish doctors were prohibited from treating non-Jewish patients. In orderto avoid misunderstandings, Jewish doctors were forced to clearly indicate61