Re: [Cz-L] A.C. Cuza

My late mother, Pearl Spiegel Fichman, wrote in her memoirs Before
Memories Fade about traveling to Bucharest from Czernowitz as a 17 year
old student on holiday break in December 1937, when she:

"left by tain on a Friday morning to arrive at six in the evening in
Bucharest. My friend awaited me at the railroad station. As I got off
the train, on that snowy late afternoon, I heard newspaper boys hawking
an extra edition: 'Extra, extra, the new government of Goga, Cuza.
Death to the Jews.'

That was my bone chilling, frightening recepion on my first pleasure
trip. King Carol II had called on Octavian Goga, a well-known poet and
politician and rabid anti-Semite and on Alexandru Cuza, a historian,
professor at the University of Iassi, infamous for his incitement to
pogroms on Jews in that town, to form a new government. Actually, it
was a maneuver on the part of the King of Romania, who felt threatened
by Ionel Codreanu, the leader of the 'Iron Guard,' known Fascists and
anti-Semites, who were taking their orders from Hitler. The King felt
less endangered by Goga and Cuza tha by the young generation,who were
looking at the German model. The Romanians had full fledged swastika
carrying naionalists well before it became the rage of the 30's. Cuza
made the Jews of Iassi tremble before Hitler came to power.

King Carol outmaneuvered the Iron Guard with one fast action: he copied
the German actions faithfully. He had Codreanu and his clique arrested,
led into a forest and shot them in the back. Next day's newspaper
headlines read: They were shot while trying to escape (Auf der Flucht
erschossen), the typical Hitlerian method of disposing of political
enemies. The King dared to detroy the Iron Guard, showing Hitler that
he wouldn't bow to his dictates, yet he put a nationalist, anti-Semitic
regime into power, one based on ethic nationalism, without foreign
models."

-------------
Eytan

Eytan Fichman

-----Original Message-----
From: GERHARDRODICA_at_aol.com
To: czernowitz-l_at_list.cornell.edu
Sent: Sat, Aug 15, 2009 5:35 pm
Subject: [Cz-L] A.C. Cuza

Alexandru Ioan Cuza was the first ruler (Voevod) of the United
Principalities of Moldavia and Valahia in the middle of the 19-th
century. The
Cuza in
the Iassy trial was A.C. Cuza the leader of the National-Christian
party.
Later his ally, and a leading member ot this party, the poet Octavian
Goga
  became prime minister of Romania, fortunately for only a few months.
                               Gerhard Schreiber

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Received on 2009-08-16 13:28:57