Word: trifa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Archbishop Trifa agrees...
...archbishop simply threw in the towel. Since 1975, Valerian Trifa, head of the 35,000-member Rumanian Orthodox Episcopate of America, has faced Justice Department charges that during World War II he led an anti-Semitic group in Rumania and incited riots that led to the deaths of hundreds of Christians and Jews. In 1980, the archbishop gave up his U.S. citizenship, acquired in 1957, rather than face trial on the allegations. Last week in Detroit, in the midst of a deportation trial that was to air the charges, the prelate abruptly agreed to leave the U.S. Justice dropped charges...
...Trifa's main accuser was Charles Kremer, a retired New York City dentist who lost family members in a 1941 riot in Bucharest. Kremer, now 84, has been trying to get U.S. officials to prosecute Trifa for 30 years. Last week, when the deportation agreement was read, Kremer was sitting in the Detroit courtroom...
Largely through his efforts, the U.S. Government eventually reopened the file on Trifa. In 1975 it accused him of failing to disclose in his naturalization questionnaire that he had been a member of the dreaded pro-Nazi Iron Guard and that he had incited persecution of Jews...
Attorney Woods charges that the Government had available to it all the accusations before granting Trifa citizenship and reopened the case simply because of political pressure. He does not deny that Trifa made anti-Semitic statements, was a wholehearted supporter of the pro-Nazi Legionary movement, and gave a speech on the eve of the 1941 riot. But he denies that Trifa was a Legionary leader, belonged to the Iron Guard, or intended to cause a pogrom. His client, he says, was forced to choose between the Soviets and Nazis, and chose the latter, adopting anti-Semitism that was rampant...