The Romanian Shoah: Confiscation of a Beloved Property

This is not a story about Auschwitz or the murder of millions during the Shoah; nor is it about the cattle trains, Partisans, Righteous Gentiles or daring escape. It might pale in comparison, but still it’s a cautionary tale that reveals how antisemitic policies and activities during wartime led to the slow and subtle chiseling away of Jewish civil and human rights that manifested in other ways. This may be just one small story, dwarfed by the enormity of murders on an unimaginably massive scale; but it’s pivotal nonetheless. My grandfather  may never have broached the painful ending of this chapter, but it forever changed the course of his life.

All photos by author.

My paternal grandfather, Iuliu Iancu (Jules Janco), was a Jewish architect, developer, and businessman who worked in Bucharest during the interwar period. For nearly two decades, he ran a successful architectural practice with his brother Marcel. Their largest commission, developed in 1929, was an expansive sports and entertainment resort in the capital’s northern reaches. Strandul Kiseleff, featuring a massive pool, beach area, changing cabins, restaurants and tennis courts, was completed in approximately 50 days.

Iuliu’s involvement extended beyond the mortar and bricks aspect of this project; he was also instrumental in establishing the company – Muntenia S.A.R. – that managed the construction, maintenance and overall functioning of this complex. Aside from holding a major stake in the company, my grandfather also held an executive position on the board. He, along with his brother-in-law Leon Packer, were entitled to sign company documents.

When the firm was founded, Board members were predominantly (if not almost exclusively) Jewish; relatives and colleagues – some of whom were also their clients on other projects. A minority of two were Romanian Orthodox, probably longtime business friends belonging to an esteemed local family with a considerable legacy and fortune.

The Strandul Kiseleff opened in the summer of 1929 to much fanfare; the mayor of Bucharest, Romania’s finance minister, the King, and other personalities came out for the inauguration. From photographs, it seems that a Romanian Orthodox priest also offered blessings on the auspicious occasion. The men from the Board of Directors, my grandfather included, were outfitted in tuxedos and smiles. It was the talk of the town, and covered widely in the press.

By the mid-1930s, and certainly a few years later, discrimination against Jews was ramping up. Racial laws, curbing the rights of Jews, were being passed into law. Jews could no longer study or work in certain trades. They could not attend certain schools. They had to employ a certain number (or percentage) of Romanians – i.e. non-Jews. Businesses could not be majority-owned by Jews… a seemingly slow trickle that soon became a slippery slope where many lost their livelihood.

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The National Archives of Romania contains a thick file about Muntenia, in which the history of antisemitic activity towards Jewish business owners in Bucharest can be traced on its pages (I also found similar files, attesting to parallel circumstances and outcomes for my grandfather’s relatives). The following combines historical timeline with elements located in the archival records.

June 1940: A new Board of Directors is elected. My grandfather’s name is inexplicably scratched out.

August 1940: In a ‘modification’ form, all auditors are now explicitly expected to be Romanian.

September 1940: King Carol II is forced to abdicate.

October 8, 1940: 500,000 German troops invade Romania.

November 1940: Romania joins the Axis powers.

September-December 1940 (date unknown): Legionnaire soldiers enter the offices of Muntenia (at Strandul Kiseleff), threaten and beat up Iuliu, steal from the company’s coffers, and lock him up in detention with his Romanian co-founder for a few days. My grandfather may have been blessed to evade murder and deportation by train to Transnistria and worse. But that his most significant and cherished project up until then – where his offices were located, where my father spent his childhood summers, where summers were wonderful and carefree for Bucharest residents – was seized from him, must have pained and haunted him for the remainder of this life.

January 1941: Iuliu, his wife and son flee Romania for British Mandate Palestine.

January 21-23, 1941: Bucharest pogrom. A relative of Iuliu’s is slaughtered.

May 31, 1941: The German Mission entered the Strandul Kiseleff. The company (Muntenia) was informed that the German authorities had requested the requisition of the Strandul from the General Staff, which was done by the minutes of September 1, 1941 of the requisition commission.

March 1942: Minutes from the Board meeting note “that the Kiseleff swimming pool was rented to the German mission starting from 1 June 1941 and until 1 October 1941, with a rent for this period of lei 3,300,00… The German military mission paid a down payment of lei 500,000 on May 28, 1941 with the remainder of the rent to be paid on May 30, 1941.”

May 1942: A declaration lists the names of all Muntenia shareholders; not a single Jewish remains on the list.

September 1942: Board Meeting Minutes notes that the Mission did not want to pay the rest of the rent and complained to the General Staff for requisition and this, through the minutes of September 1, 1941, requisitioned it for the use of the German army, depriving the company of its only goodwill, so that the company, finding itself in preventive composition, is unable to pay its creditors, being threatened with bankruptcy.

March 20, 1946: In a “Revision form,’ Muntenia, a construction company founded in 1929, with a share capital of 20,000,000 lei is no longer functioning… rendered illegal by the (Ion) Antonescu regime.