Fusgeyer
As Fusgeyer ( Yiddish "pedestrian" in a figurative sense: "Emigrants walk", Romanian pietoni, drumeti ) described themselves thousands of Jewish refugees from Romania in the early 20th century.
Between 1881 and 1914, around 125,000 Jews from Romania emigrated to the United States, South and Central America, Australia, England and Palestine. Between 1899 and 1914 alone, 62,813 Jews left Romania and reached the ports of Hamburg, Bremen, Rotterdam and Liverpool via Austria and Germany in order to emigrate from there to Canada and America. These included several thousand young people - mostly craftsmen, workers and students who wanted to emigrate on foot.
causes
In 1866 Romania passed a "foreigners clause", according to which only persons of Christian religious affiliation were allowed to be Romanian citizens. As a result, the majority of the Jews living in Romania were declared stateless and lost all political and civil rights. In the period from 1868 to 1900, the Jews were exposed to arbitrariness, persecution and violent excesses, for example in Iași , Vaslui , Bacău , Focșani , Galați and Bârlad . On December 5, 1897, a mob of thousands of people marched through the Bucharest Jewish residential and business district and chanted: Jos cu jidanii! ("Down with the Jews!"). During the peasant unrest in 1888 and 1894 and in the time of famine in 1899/1900, the Jews were whipped up and made responsible for the devastating situation of the rural population. A large number of restrictions, professional bans and tax laws led to unemployment and the existence of the Jewish population in jeopardy.
Romanian exodus
All of this led to a “Romanian exodus”, where small groups set off on foot for weeks to reach the seaports. Numerous Jewish aid associations helped the refugees, in particular by financing the subsequent overseas ship trips. Due to limited financial possibilities, only a part of the refugees could be helped.
literature
- Bulletin de l'Alliance Israélite Universelle, January 1, 1900, Part III: Israélites de Roumanie, pp. 23-58.
- Jill Culiner: Finding home. In the footsteps of the jewish fusgeyers. Toronto 2004.
- Mariana Hausleitner : Intervention and Equality. Romania's Jews and the Great Powers 1866–1923. In: Yearbook of the Simon Dubnow Institute , 2002, pp. 475-531.
- Joseph Kissman: The immigration of Rumanian Jews up to 1914. In: YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science, Vol. II – III, New York 1947/48, pp. 160–179.
- Bernard Lazare : L'oppression des Juifs dans | 'Europe orientale. Les juifs en Roumanie. Paris 1902.
- Brigitte Mihok: Fusgeyer Movement (Romania) . In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbook of Antisemitism - Anti-Semitism in Past and Present. Volume 3, De Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-598-24074-4 , pp. 270-273.