Holocaust in Romania - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

came here rather inclined to condone or ex ten u ate much of theRoumanian pro ce dure, but their out ra geous con duct in vi o la tion of all in -ter na tional law, de cency, and humane con sid er ations, has made me be -come an ad vo cate of the Hun gar ian cause.” Bandholtz —who was ProvostMar shal Gen eral of the Amer i can Expeditionary Force in Europe—wroteto Brit ish Foreign Sec re tary Earl Curzon: “Ev ery effort hu manly possiblehas been made by an Inter-Allied Mil i tary Mis sion, with the pa tience of aset ting hen on a nest of china eggs, to coax Roumanian Headquarters intocarrying out the ex pressed wishes of the Su preme Council or into keepingany of its solemn prom ises 2 . The good will was one-sided with a ven geance.Judging from the Roumanian oc cu pa tion of Hun gary, our lit tle LatinAllies have the re fined loot ap pe tite of a Mississippi River cat fish, the chiv -alrous in stincts of a young cuckoo, and the same han ker ing for truth that asea sick pas sen ger has for pork and beans.” 3This is not an easy book to read and not only be cause of its hor ren douscon tent. Matatias Carp was no great writer and made no pre ten sion of be -ing one. Al though at the time of pub li ca tion he was the Gen eral Sec re taryof the Association of Ro ma nian Jews, he stated in his own fore word that hewrote this book as a sim ple ar chi vist, a chronicler of the suf fer ings of Ro -ma nia’s Jews. “I wrote this book of blood and tears with blood and tears...”he states else where.His deed has been of enor mous significance. What he did was to bear wit -ness in the real bib li cal sense. His prose may be sim ple, the marshaling ofhis data awk ward, but he has re corded, for us all that was to be recorded,and all good men and women dedicated to remembrance as one way ofpre vent ing new ho lo causts will remain in Matatias Carp’s debt forever.2 Brit ish dip lo mat turned au thor, Lt. Col. Charles à Court Repingtonex pressed an iden ti cal opin ion when he wrote in his book: Af terthe War, a Di ary ; Hought on-Miffin, 1922: “Roumanians are not re -mark able for keep ing prom ises or ap point ments”. (fn. page 327).A splen did Brit ish un der state ment.3 Ibid. Bandholtz : “The Rattigan Cor re spon dence”.3