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For three days Rumania's borders were tight as a clenched fist. Around the Balkan rumor circuit wild reports grew and multiplied. The only direct word from Rumania came over the radio, as rebel and Government spokesmen seized and recaptured the transmitters. The rioters seemed to be anti-everything. The Bucharest broadcast was interrupted by a voice shouting down Premier Antonescu, accusing him of selling out to the Germans. Another announcement ordered Guardists to "reserve your energies for the fight against the Jews, the Freemasons and the Communists and for the forthcoming fight for Transylvania." A warning from the Brasov station threatened: "There are many more Dörings to come."
Anti-Semitism broke out. Shops and houses in Bucharest's ghetto were plundered, synagogues destroyed, Jews rounded up and machine-gunned. Some estimates put casualties as high as 6,000.
"Loyal Shadow." Not until the fourth day did the newsline from Bucharest reopen, with a communiqué from Premier Antonescu announcing the suppression of the revolt, the establishment of an Army-keyed Government for as long as he considered an emergency to exist. Ordering up all reservists for a month's training, imposing a drastic 10 p.m. curfew law, Antonescu cinched his dictatorship tighter with a buckle of new decrees. All utilities and communications were taken over by the Army. All public meetings were outlawed. Rumanian and, for the first time, German troops and mechanized units patrolled the bullet-scarred streets, mopping up the last rebel nests.
Strong Man Antonescu set about punishing the rebels, ruthlessly guided by membership lists seized at Iron Guard headquarters. A military court was set up, directed to try all those captured within 24 hours of their arrest, to carry out all sentences within the succeeding ten hours. To the Iron Guardists still at large he offered only one alternative: "If you are true Iron Guards, punish yourselves with true legionary punishment [that by tradition is suicide] or otherwise you may be sure that I shall apply mass punishment."