ushmm-testimonies-ner-v1 / RG-50.030.0049_trs_en_cleaned.html
wjbmattingly's picture
Upload folder using huggingface_hub
4213a96 verified
---
layout: transcript
interviewee: ion none butnaru
rg_number: rg-50.030.0049
pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0049_trs_en.pdf
ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504455
gender: m
birth_date: 1918-12-04
birth_year: 1918.0
place_of_birth: huşi
country: moldavia
experience_group: survivor
ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
ghetto: none
camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
camp: none
non_ss_camp: none
region: none
needs_research: none
data_entry: gg
accession: 1990.381.1
revisit: none
tags: transcripts
---
---
layout: transcript
interviewee: ion none butnaru
rg_number: rg-50.030.0049
pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0049_trs_en.pdf
ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504455
gender: m
birth_date: 1918-12-04
birth_year: 1918.0
place_of_birth: huşi
country: moldavia
experience_group: survivor
ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
ghetto: none
camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
camp: none
non_ss_camp: none
region: none
needs_research: none
data_entry: gg
accession: 1990.381.1
revisit: none
tags: transcripts
---
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
<title>Document</title>
</head>
<body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">ION BUTNARU May 3, 1990</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: We're on.</sentence><sentence id="4">Tape is rolling.</sentence><sentence id="5">Please tell us your name.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: My name is Ion Butnaru.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="11">Q: When and where you have been born?</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: Iam born in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>, a small <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> from <span class="COUNTRY">Moldavia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="14">At...December 4th, 1980...1918.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="17">Q: Please tell us about your family, about growing up in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span> before the war.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="19">A: My family is from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="20">My grandfather was born in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>, my father born in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="21">What I can tell you?</sentence><sentence id="22">They make a living being vineyards [NB: vintners].</sentence><sentence id="23">They plant their vineyards.</sentence><sentence id="24">They harvest the vineyards.</sentence><sentence id="25">They sell the wine.</sentence><sentence id="26">They are very good winemakers.</sentence><sentence id="27">As a matter of fact, all my young...my childhood, my young years I spent on the...in the vineyards.</sentence><sentence id="28">So what more I can tell you about?</sentence><sentence id="29">I learn...1 was in <span class="BUILDING">elementary school</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>, and, uh, <span class="BUILDING">high school</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu _i.</span> I couldn't go to the <span class="BUILDING">university</span>, because I was taken to work for the army in 1939--November 11, after the war broke between <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> and <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="41">Q: Let's go back for a moment, please, and tell us about the community life in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="43">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="44">Uh, uh, the city of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>, it was a very interesting <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> from a social point of view.</sentence><sentence id="45">They are, uh, Romanian, of course, the majority.</sentence><sentence id="46">It was a Bulgarian population, who, uh ... they, uh ...they, uh, were vegetable, uh...gardeners.</sentence><sentence id="47">There are a kind of Hungarian people, they are most of them vineyard...vineyards [NB: vintners]; and Jewish population.</sentence><sentence id="48">The Jewish population, it wasn't so big.</sentence><sentence id="49">Around thousand, or twelve hundred, uh, families.</sentence><sentence id="50">Uh, the maj...majority of them are, uh, shopkeepers and, uh, artisans--tailors, shoemakers, uh, roof...uh, uh, they... they deal with roofings.</sentence><sentence id="51">And, uh, from a cult...cultural point of view, it was interesting that it was a <span class="BUILDING">library</span> organized in the...in the...by the Jewish community, which each of us...almost each generation of boys and girls from the <span class="BUILDING">high school</span>, they work as a volunteers in this <span class="BUILDING">library</span>.</sentence><sentence id="52">So, uh, they organized, uh...they were organizing, um, the literary festivals and artistical festivals.</sentence><sentence id="53">We...uh, I mean, it was a very interesting, uh, cultural life.</sentence><sentence id="54">There was, uh, small newspaper, which I start when I was seventeen years old to publish some articles regarding the...the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>.</sentence><sentence id="55">Epigrams--I liked this kind of thing when I was young.</sentence><sentence id="56">So it was a kind of apprenticeship writing, to this small newspaper.</sentence><sentence id="57">And, uh, I have a cousin.</sentence><sentence id="58">The cousin, he was a lawyer.</sentence><sentence id="59">He...he was a very talented, uh, writer and journalist; and he gave me...gave me the courage to start to do this.</sentence><sentence id="60">I mean, it was the beginning on my writing career, how to say.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="79">Q: Would you tell us a few words about day-to-day life of your family?</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="81">A: Uh, it was nothing exciting.</sentence><sentence id="82">My were...my father was very busy with our vineyard.</sentence><sentence id="83">She...he woke up in the early, early hour of the morning, being there.</sentence><sentence id="84">Because I don't know if you know, a vineyard is taking a lot of work to...to maintain it, to keep it.</sentence><sentence id="85">And, uh, my mother was <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="86">I have a sister, which she is...she is older as me--seven years.</sentence><sentence id="87">She married very young.</sentence><sentence id="88">She moved out from our <span class="BUILDING">house</span>.</sentence><sentence id="89">So I was alone.</sentence><sentence id="90">It was nothing... Uh, I had friends-- boys and girls from my generation.</sentence><sentence id="91">But we spent all the time, our leisure hours out in the vineyards.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="103">Q: What happened to you once the war broke?</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="105">A: As a matter of fact, it happens in this...in 1939, in the summer, I was very sick.</sentence><sentence id="106">I was... took a cold.</sentence><sentence id="107">I...I caught a cold.</sentence><sentence id="108">I don't know how to say in English "pleurisy"; I have water in my...my lungs.</sentence><sentence id="109">I was very, very sick.</sentence><sentence id="110">But in... later in the summer, in the beginning on the September, I start to recover.</sentence><sentence id="111">And I...I was in our <span class="DLF">vineyard</span>, because it was fresh air.</sentence><sentence id="112">And, uh, I have received good nourishment from my...my family.</sentence><sentence id="113">So, uh, when war broke, I was <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="114">Uh, I was <span class="BUILDING">home</span>, recovering from my illness.</sentence><sentence id="115">And in November, when I first...I received an order to present myself to the...my uh...my, uh, regiment, I could try to postpone the military duty, because I was still not recovered.</sentence><sentence id="116">But I want to do this, because L...I understood there wasn't any reason to postpone.</sentence><sentence id="117">Because anyway I'll be...I'll have to go to...to... to the army.</sentence><sentence id="118">So, uh, in November 11, when the war broked, already I was in the army.</sentence><sentence id="119">And I was tried...uh, I...I trained very hardly.</sentence><sentence id="120">And it was a very hard winter in 1939- 1940; and after then, the spring of 1940, I was sent, uh, on the <span class="REGION">military zone</span> in northern part of, uh, <span class="COUNTRY">Moldavia</span> where my regiment belongs.</sentence><sentence id="121">I was in the Regiment, 9th Regiment of Infantry from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Rimnicu S rat</span>.</sentence><sentence id="122">So being in the army, I was trained during the during the summer and we walked to the fortification facing... facing the Russian coming from the northern part of <span class="COUNTRY">Moldavia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="123">We didn't know about if they'll ...if they'll come; then nobody thought... But we worked to this kind of fortification all the period of time.</sentence><sentence id="124">And the summer of, uh, 1940, it was a Russian ultimatum asking Romanian to cede the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bessarabia</span> [and], uh, northern part of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bukovina</span>.</sentence><sentence id="125">I was, uh, near...uh, two or three kilometer fr...from, uh, uh, small <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>--the name is Her_a--which, uh, which never was, uh, in the occupied by the Russian.</sentence><sentence id="126">But it was in the <span class="REGION">Moldavian part</span>.</sentence><sentence id="127">And the Russians, they were interested to have, uh, <span class="DLF">bridge</span> in[to], uh, uh, <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="128">So they took...they took this city of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Her_a</span>, too.</sentence><sentence id="129">And, uh...and after then, we retreat.</sentence><sentence id="130">It was, uh...I retreat from, uh... with the whole army, the Romanian army, from this point "til Roman--the city Roman.</sentence><sentence id="131">Day and night, day and night; uh, because it was... We were under very big pressure, because behind us it was the Romanian army from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bessarabia</span> [and] from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bukovina</span>, who has to escape.</sentence><sentence id="132">And, uh, after then, being in Roman--as a matter of fact, in a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> near Roman--I, uh...I being Jewish, and, uh, with other people...and other soldier being Jewish, we were expelled from the Amny."</sentence><sentence id="133">And I remember, because I was on act...on active duty.</sentence><sentence id="134">I didn't have even civilian clothes with me.</sentence><sentence id="135">So they give me some kind of clothes from the...from their <span class="BUILDING">warehouse</span>, which didn't fit on me.</sentence><sentence id="136">Which was...I was almost naked.</sentence><sentence id="137">And I receive orders to present myself to the to the regiment in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Rimnicu S_rat</span>.</sentence><sentence id="138">And it was...it was a problem to, uh, to take the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> and to make the journey to... to, uh, Rimnicu S rat, because everybody, it was military.</sentence><sentence id="139">And who was was dressed like me, know...know...they know exactly that...that I...I was a Jew.</sentence><sentence id="140">So it was...it was very dangerous to make this trip to, to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Rimnicu S_rat</span>; because uh, well, I...I could be beaten or just threw out...threw out of ...of the <span class="DLF">window</span>--which that happened to many people.</sentence><sentence id="141">So I managed to escape.</sentence><sentence id="142">And, uh, I present the second day I was to the regiment.</sentence><sentence id="143">And they give me...they give me a order to go <span class="BUILDING">home</span>, and to wait for new...new...new disposition.</sentence><sentence id="144">I arrived <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="145">And after three days or four days, I receive an order to come back to the regiment on September Ist, 1940.</sentence><sentence id="146">I come back.</sentence><sentence id="147">And I was...I, I was sent to, uh, in the working battalions.</sentence><sentence id="148">It was not yet in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">labor camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="149">All the former soldiers, they have to go to the work...to the <span class="DLF">fortification</span>.</sentence><sentence id="150">And I was sent to the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">Carpathian Mountains</span> and, uh, the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>...the small city Tirgu Neam_, working the fortification facing the <span class="DLF">Hungarian border</span>.</sentence><sentence id="151">That's...this was the period of time when the br...the war broke.</sentence><sentence id="152">And, uh, when in the summer of 1941 I was <span class="BUILDING">home</span>, sent back from the working battalions.</sentence><sentence id="153">And I worked in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> [of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>], sent doing kind of cleaning the <span class="DLF">streets</span> and something like this.</sentence><sentence id="154">Not...not too hard.</sentence><sentence id="155">It was very humiliating, because everybody knows us.</sentence><sentence id="156">But we didn't have another choice.</sentence><sentence id="157">I remember that the war broke against the Russians on June 22nd [1941].</sentence><sentence id="158">It was Sunday.</sentence><sentence id="159">Saturday, in the afternoon, all Jewish male from, uh, the age of eighteen to sixty, we have to present ourselves to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">police quarter</span>.</sentence><sentence id="160">I didn't know why.</sentence><sentence id="161">So I was there; and there we were locked up.</sentence><sentence id="162">Nobody can leave.</sentence><sentence id="163">We left...we slept in the <span class="DLF">courtyard</span> of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">police quarter</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="164">And in the dawn, we're sent to an unknown <span class="NPIP">destination</span>.</sentence><sentence id="165">What was known, it was that I heard going to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">villages</span> that the war broke.</sentence><sentence id="166">And we heard the orders that everybody has to go to war against the...the Russians.</sentence><sentence id="167">As...an interesting story which I remember, that we arrived in a small <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> in a nearby <span class="REGION">county</span> near, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tutova</span>, is the name of this <span class="REGION">county</span>.</sentence><sentence id="168">And the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span>, the name is <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bogdana</span>.</sentence><sentence id="169">I can't forget it.</sentence><sentence id="170">And we stood there for one night waiting for some orders.</sentence><sentence id="171">I don't know what kind of order we expected.</sentence><sentence id="172">But I remember, that it was in afternoon of this same day that, uh, an officer from the gendarmerie came to us.</sentence><sentence id="173">And we know very well who the gend...the...the...the gendarmerie is.</sentence><sentence id="174">They were the most " This would have been early in August 1940.</sentence><sentence id="175">oppressive part of the Romanian Army.</sentence><sentence id="176">But I have to tell you that this man, it was a very kind man.</sentence><sentence id="177">And he told us, "Don't be afraid, as long as you are under my jurisdiction.</sentence><sentence id="178">If I...if I have to go to eat, I'll never eat if I know that you are hungry...uh, hungry."</sentence><sentence id="179">His name is [Gheorghe] Pris caru.</sentence><sentence id="180">And I remember that after the war, I wrote about this man, in September 1944.</sentence><sentence id="181">But from...from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bogdana</span>, it comes the order to go to a city of Birlad.(Cough) Iam sorry.</sentence><sentence id="182">And now, in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birlad</span>, we are...we embarked on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span>, the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cattle train</span>, and sent to a camp--<span class="POPULATED_PLACE">deportation camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="183">And the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>, it was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span>.</sentence><sentence id="184">And we arrived in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span> after a journey of two or three days.</sentence><sentence id="185">But on this our journey to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span>, I want to tell you something which I like to be made...made...make it public.</sentence><sentence id="186">We stopped in a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>--the name is <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Craiova--</span>to change the engine to go to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span>.</sentence><sentence id="187">It was in the morning.</sentence><sentence id="188">The soldier opened the <span class="DLF">doors</span> from the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cattle cars</span>.</sentence><sentence id="189">And some of us stepped out, just to take a breathe of fresh air.</sentence><sentence id="190">And a petty man from the... working, uh...a worker from the...from the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">railroad</span>, come to these people and...and start to mug them, taking their money and things which they have.</sentence><sentence id="191">An engine makes a maneuver, and ...and the neighbor from the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span>.</sentence><sentence id="192">And the mech...the mechanic from the engine saw this man mugging people.</sentence><sentence id="193">He stopped the engine, stepped down; and he went to this guy who who continued to do it, to mug.</sentence><sentence id="194">He slapped him in the face.</sentence><sentence id="195">He said, "Give back everything!"</sentence><sentence id="196">The guy, uh...the...the guy, he was afraid of [the mechanic], and he gave everything [back].</sentence><sentence id="197">This man stepped up on the engine, started the engine, and he'll go continue his work.</sentence><sentence id="198">I don't know his name.</sentence><sentence id="199">I never saw him in my life.</sentence><sentence id="200">But I feel that I have to tell this story.</sentence><sentence id="201">In the beginning on the war, when in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Ia_i</span> the Jews start to be killed by the Romani...the same people.</sentence><sentence id="202">We arrived in the camp of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span>.</sentence><sentence id="203">It was something unbelievable huge.</sentence><sentence id="204">I want to tell you that this camp of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span> was built by the Polish army.</sentence><sentence id="205">When Polish was destroyed and occupied by the Russian, a part of the Polish Army was evacuated in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="206">So this...this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> was built by the Polish Army.</sentence><sentence id="207">Now in this period of time, the Polish Army left <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>--this is another story.</sentence><sentence id="208">So it [NB: <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span>] was a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">concentration camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="209">It was the first <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">concentration [camp</span>], beside other: <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="44.11575" long="24.342472">Caracal</span>, and <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.691" long="21.903472">Lugoj</span>, and <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Miercurea-Ciuc</span>, and so on.</sentence><sentence id="210">But this was the biggest of all of them.</sentence><sentence id="211">And, uh, this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>, it was a very interesting mixture of people.</sentence><sentence id="212">It...it was divided in four and seven classes...uh, seven departments.</sentence><sentence id="213">And this department one or two, it was ...it was some opposition of the Antonescus--and, uh, generals and, uh, diplomats, which they paid to stay there.</sentence><sentence id="214">And the third class, it was a Legionary--the fascists.</sentence><sentence id="215">I'll tell you that, entering in this...in this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>, I said to myself, "Hey.</sentence><sentence id="216">At least, here I'll be, uh, nobody's yelling to me.</sentence><sentence id="217">No...no ...no...no...no...nobody will call me dirty names, and so on."</sentence><sentence id="218">Walking in front of this, uh, [third] department of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">labor camp</span>, which we didn't know who they are--these people, they start to yell to us and curs...cursing us.</sentence><sentence id="219">I said, "Here, too?!"</sentence><sentence id="220">Where there are the Legionnaires.</sentence><sentence id="221">And department four, there were womans.</sentence><sentence id="222">The department five, it was the evacuees.</sentence><sentence id="223">We stood [NB: stayed] in the evacuees department.</sentence><sentence id="224">It was the department number six, it was the suspects of communists.</sentence><sentence id="225">And number seven, these were the communists.</sentence><sentence id="226">There are separate <span class="INT_SPACE">quarters</span>, but we managed to communicate with each other.</sentence><sentence id="227">Of course, not with the Legionnaires!</sentence><sentence id="228">Uh, after a short period of time, uh, part of us they sent to work in the <span class="DLF">garden</span>...in the <span class="DLF">gardening</span>.</sentence><sentence id="229">And another <span class="NPIP">part</span>, there are sent the <span class="NPIP">place</span>...it was, uh, Valea or Valea Jiului, which was, where it was a famous lieutenant commander-- Trepadu_--which was the criminal, and after the war he was judged as a criminal.</sentence><sentence id="230">Uh, we stood [NB: stayed] in...in the camp of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span> with a period of time, uh, four months, almost four months, when we are sent back in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="231">And we are put in, uh, a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">local camp</span>, into the <span class="DLF">courtyard</span> of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Jewish community</span>.</sentence><sentence id="232">We are obliged to wear the yellow badge.</sentence><sentence id="233">And we are from time to time allowed to go <span class="BUILDING">home</span> and to change our underwear.</sentence><sentence id="234">Talking about this, I want to repeat another story about this, what happens.</sentence><sentence id="235">When I received my first, uh, "approval," how to say, to go <span class="BUILDING">home</span> to change my, my, uh, underwear, it was in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="236">Uh, I remember that it was way to go to...to my hou...my parents" <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="237">And I know [one is] quite, uh...not a very, uh...not a center of the <span class="DLF">street</span>; but I said, "No, I have to go through the center of the <span class="DLF">street</span>."</sentence><sentence id="238">I'm wear the badge, so I ...I didn't care.</sentence><sentence id="239">I want to go see people, and people to see me; because everybody knows me there.</sentence><sentence id="240">And I remember that walking on the <span class="DLF">street</span>, I saw a girl which it was a very good friend of my young years.</sentence><sentence id="241">And she saw me, too.</sentence><sentence id="242">But she saw...seeing me coming with the yellow badge, she crossed the <span class="DLF">street</span>.</sentence><sentence id="243">She didn't want to talk to me.</sentence><sentence id="244">And I walked farther.</sentence><sentence id="245">And it was in the center of the <span class="DLF">street</span>; people usually walked in the center, they stood [NB: stayed], they talk to them.</sentence><sentence id="246">And a friend of mine, uh, which are very close, he was a...a Romanian.</sentence><sentence id="247">And he saw me.</sentence><sentence id="248">And in front of all the people, he came to me and he hugged me.</sentence><sentence id="249">It was just a rebellion, to hug a Jew with a...with...with a yellow badge.</sentence><sentence id="250">And I want to say this, and to be--how to say?--forever.</sentence><sentence id="251">Because I can't forget this.</sentence><sentence id="252">Unfortunately, he died after the war.</sentence><sentence id="253">He was...he has tuberculosis.</sentence><sentence id="254">But doesn't matter.</sentence><sentence id="255">I want to talk about my friend.</sentence><sentence id="256">Uh, in this period of time being in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span>, it happened something with my father which it was very important and very difficult period of time.</sentence><sentence id="257">As I told you, my father, it was a very well-known person in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>.</sentence><sentence id="258">A very honest man, with a... with a high degree of dignity and pride.</sentence><sentence id="259">If he borrows from somebody...somebody something, every penny he give back.</sentence><sentence id="260">And he kept his whole word.</sentence><sentence id="261">So I told you that Sunday morning, on June 22nd, we were sent to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> to..to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span>.</sentence><sentence id="262">So it was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...somebody knocked to our <span class="DLF">door</span>.</sentence><sentence id="263">We know--my father told me, my mother-- they never even saw these people.</sentence><sentence id="264">And he start to talk: "Hey, Mr. Butnaru!</sentence><sentence id="265">How are you?"</sentence><sentence id="266">In Yiddish.</sentence><sentence id="267">And he said, my father, "I don't know who you are." "</sentence><sentence id="268">Oh, it doesn't matter you don't know me.</sentence><sentence id="269">Don't worry!</sentence><sentence id="270">The Russians are coming.</sentence><sentence id="271">Our brothers will be here.</sentence><sentence id="272">You'll be liberated!"</sentence><sentence id="273">My father was very... "Who are you, sir?</sentence><sentence id="274">I don't make politics.</sentence><sentence id="275">I don't talk about this.</sentence><sentence id="276">I have my problems."</sentence><sentence id="277">And this man, he continued to talk in this way.</sentence><sentence id="278">And after that: "Don't worry, we'll see each other."</sentence><sentence id="279">And he left.</sentence><sentence id="280">And this afternoon, my father was arrested with another nine people from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu _i.</span> Leading person, and director of our <span class="BUILDING">bank</span>, uh, a bookkeeper, a young lady, a pianist--and they're beaten to death to try to tell, ask them...ask them to tell them where their...they have their communist meetings.</sentence><sentence id="281">And my father was a communist?</sentence><sentence id="282">I don't know if you are talking about somebody who is a...to speak in Hindu language.</sentence><sentence id="283">And after then, [they] were sent in a trial.</sentence><sentence id="284">Because the war...the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">war zone</span>, it was very close from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="285">They was to be to be sent to a <span class="BUILDING">military court</span> to be judged.</sentence><sentence id="286">Their luck it was that the <span class="REGION">military front</span> moved far away very fast from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>, so they they weren't anymore in this jurisdiction of the <span class="BUILDING">military court</span>.</sentence><sentence id="287">The, a <span class="BUILDING">martial court</span>.</sentence><sentence id="288">So they were sent to a <span class="BUILDING">military court</span>, but not, uh, for the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">front zone</span>.</sentence><sentence id="289">I don't know if you understand me exact.</sentence><sentence id="290">It was a trial in...in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city Gala_i</span>; they sent to this <span class="BUILDING">court</span>.</sentence><sentence id="291">How much they hate the Jews, they couldn't do this mockery.</sentence><sentence id="292">So they acquit them, all of them.</sentence><sentence id="293">But they ask the local authority from the city of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span> to kept them like... like, uh, hostage, as a guarantee.</sentence><sentence id="294">If will be a sabotage somewhere in this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">neighborhood</span> of our <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>, they'll be shot.</sentence><sentence id="295">So when I came <span class="BUILDING">home</span> from the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>, from the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>...from the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span>, I was very surprised that my father didn't come to see me.</sentence><sentence id="296">Only my mother.</sentence><sentence id="297">Everybody, waiting from my mother, for...for my father; because everybody's looking for relatives to come.</sentence><sentence id="298">Uh, I talked to some people who knows me, and everybody said, "Okay.</sentence><sentence id="299">Is okay with your father.</sentence><sentence id="300">Don't worry."</sentence><sentence id="301">But I didn't know to what to worry, because my mother hadn't any opportunity to write me being in...in the camp of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span>.</sentence><sentence id="302">Later on, I saw my mother come--of course, wearing the badge.</sentence><sentence id="303">And she told me this story that my father is not <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="304">Uh, my father is arrested in a military, uh, <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>, near the the...the <span class="DLF">border</span> of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="305">So after a couple of months, we are allowed to go <span class="BUILDING">home</span>, as the...as the...as the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">local camp</span> was dismantled.</sentence><sentence id="306">And my father was allowed to come <span class="BUILDING">home</span>, too; but he has to present himself each week to the police to sign in, in...in a book that he didn't leave the...the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>.</sentence><sentence id="307">Uh, in this period of time in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>, it was the Legionary government with Antonescu.</sentence><sentence id="308">It was in the fall of 1941.7 The situation, it was terrifying.</sentence><sentence id="309">My father lost everything--the <span class="DLF">vineyard</span>, the harvest.</sentence><sentence id="310">It happened to be a very good year with wine, and full of...it was the...the <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span> full with wine.</sentence><sentence id="311">And, uh, they start to take the <span class="BUILDING">houses</span> and everything.</sentence><sentence id="312">One night was...I was arr...arrested by the Legionary police; and kept arrested...</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="524">Q: Excuse me.</sentence><sentence id="525">This happened before the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu camp</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="528">&gt; Antonescu declared <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span> a "National Legionary State" after King Carol II fled the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span> in September 1940.</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="529">A: After.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="531">Q: After?</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="533">A: After.</sentence><sentence id="534">I told you.</sentence><sentence id="535"><span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tirgu Jiu</span>, it was on the beginning of the war with <span class="COUNTRY">Russia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="536">It was the summer of 1941, and I stood in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp "</span>til September 1941.</sentence><sentence id="537">In September 1941, I come back.</sentence><sentence id="538">My father was hostage, and I was in a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">local camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="539">In the fall of 1941 the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">local camp</span>, was dismantled.</sentence><sentence id="540">My father was allowed to come <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="541">The Legionary government, it was in full power.</sentence><sentence id="542">We took out...we lost everything--the <span class="DLF">vineyard</span>, the <span class="BUILDING">house</span>, everything.</sentence><sentence id="543">From our big <span class="BUILDING">house</span>, we are allowed... allowed to live in a one <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span> in...was near...which was a <span class="INT_SPACE">kitchen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="544">It was all which we possessed.</sentence><sentence id="545">One day I was arrested, I said...I told you, by the Legionary police.</sentence><sentence id="546">And I have to confess, I wasn't beaten.</sentence><sentence id="547">I heard people yelling and moaning, because they were [being] beaten.</sentence><sentence id="548">They didn't beat me.</sentence><sentence id="549">Because all of them, they are former colleagues and from our childhood.</sentence><sentence id="550">And they didn't dare to do this to me.</sentence><sentence id="551">They didn't do this to me.</sentence><sentence id="552">But they are my friends, all of them.</sentence><sentence id="553">So we decided we have to do something.</sentence><sentence id="554">We decided to do something; because the situation, it was very dangerous.</sentence><sentence id="555">And if I was so lucky not to be beaten once, who knows what will be the second time?</sentence><sentence id="556">So one night...one day, I went to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">police quarter</span>.</sentence><sentence id="557">I paid a fee; and my father found a friend of ours, and he bribed a police...a policeman from the <span class="BUILDING">office</span> to give me the...the auth...authorization to leave the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>.</sentence><sentence id="558">And I left the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bucharest</span>.</sentence><sentence id="559">My father and my mother left in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="560">So in January...no, in December.</sentence><sentence id="561">December 1941.</sentence><sentence id="562">So in the beginning of 1942--no, 1940...1941 ... No.</sentence><sentence id="563">I am a little bit mixed...no, no, no.</sentence><sentence id="564">Yes.</sentence><sentence id="565">Uh, no.</sentence><sentence id="566">There were...</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="601">Q: It's all right.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="603">A: No, no, no.</sentence><sentence id="604">In 1941, it was the Legionary movement.</sentence><sentence id="605">Uh, the war started in, uh, 1941 in June, so you have to...in the...to ...to make to edit this part of... I can try to...to tell again.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="609">Q: That's fine.</sentence><sentence id="610">Don't worry about it.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="613">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="614">Iam mixed a little bit the dates.</sentence><sentence id="615">Because I want to be very precise.</sentence><sentence id="616">So we, uh...L..I was in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bucharest</span> in 1941, in January.</sentence><sentence id="617">Uh, to...of a...to a family...to a relative of ours, very close relatives.</sentence><sentence id="618">As, uh...as they lived near <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hala</span>... the place which is <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hala Traian</span>.</sentence><sentence id="619">The <span class="DLF">street</span>, it was Miti_a Constantinescu; and not so far from the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Jewish quarter</span>, which is V_c_re_ti and Dude_ti.</sentence><sentence id="620">I remember when the, uh, Legionary revolution...uh, rebellion started.</sentence><sentence id="621">&gt; We heard, we...we are Close to...to the radio, listening to what happens on the <span class="DLF">street</span>.</sentence><sentence id="622">I...L..1 remember the shootings around the <span class="BUILDING">house</span>.</sentence><sentence id="623">And, uh, one, I...I...[ looked through the <span class="DLF">windows</span>; and I saw the, the, the Legionary in their...in their <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trucks</span>, and with with the...the flags and the green &gt; The Iron Guard rebellion took place from January 21-23, 1941.</sentence><sentence id="624">flags and tri-colored flags, running on the <span class="DLF">streets</span> with their <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">motorcycles</span>.</sentence><sentence id="625">I saw across the <span class="DLF">street</span>.</sentence><sentence id="626">I watched through the <span class="DLF">window</span> when a... when a...when a...a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span> stopped in front of the <span class="DLF">window</span>.</sentence><sentence id="627">Uh, three or four people, they would go out.</sentence><sentence id="628">Here, they enter the <span class="BUILDING">house</span> and, uh, they took somebody and left.</sentence><sentence id="629">And, uh, I remember very vividly that the second day, the second day of the rebellion," when we heard that the Legionary, they, uh, the gave up, they...they surrendered.</sentence><sentence id="630">I went to V_c re ti and to Dude ti, and I visit them.</sentence><sentence id="631">I remember...uh, <span class="BUILDING">house</span> after <span class="BUILDING">house</span>, it was pillaged and burned.</sentence><sentence id="632">Uh, I saw...I was in the ... on the front of the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">morgue</span>, which is situated not close from the River Dimbovi_a, with the...surrounded by <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">tanks</span>.</sentence><sentence id="633">And people--Jews--trying to enter in the morgue...in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">morgue</span>; because they want to recognize the...the relatives, their loved ones, who they are killed in...in this period and then during this, uh, rebellion.</sentence><sentence id="634">Uh, I have very vivid memory of this period of time.</sentence><sentence id="635">I tried, the <span class="BUILDING">house</span> which were...where lived, which was not attacked by the...by the Legionnairies.</sentence><sentence id="636">But I remember very well everything.</sentence><sentence id="637">After then, the relatives--it was an uncle of ours--he left to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span> to see what happens with my family.</sentence><sentence id="638">Because they didn't want to allow me to go <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="639">And, um, he stood there for a period of time--two weeks, three weeks--and he came back.</sentence><sentence id="640">And he said to me, "I think you can go <span class="BUILDING">home</span> now.</sentence><sentence id="641">But, uh...(pause) you'll find your father okay.</sentence><sentence id="642">He is okay now."</sentence><sentence id="643">I didn't know what happens.</sentence><sentence id="644">He had a stroke.</sentence><sentence id="645">He used to go... (Crying) I'm sorry.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="680">Q: It's all right.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="682">A: (Pause) He used to go everyday on a certain point on a <span class="DLF">street</span>, looking to his vineyard like somebody's going to see a beloved one. (</sentence><sentence id="683">Crying) And one day, coming <span class="BUILDING">home</span>, he had a stroke.</sentence><sentence id="684">Somebody has to carry him <span class="BUILDING">home</span> on his shoulder.</sentence><sentence id="685">He couldn't walk.</sentence><sentence id="686">But it happens that he was a very strong man; and he...he managed, how to say, to survive this.</sentence><sentence id="687">And when I came <span class="BUILDING">home</span>, he was a broken man.</sentence><sentence id="688">He was very...he lost a lot of weight.</sentence><sentence id="689">But he used to walk, and he talked; and it was a miracle.</sentence><sentence id="690">So he didn't know nothing.</sentence><sentence id="691">And the summer, when the war start, I told you that he was very, very hard...very brutal beaten by the officer who...who tried to find out he... he was a communist.</sentence><sentence id="692">But he was...he...he managed to...to...to survive this period of time.</sentence><sentence id="693">So, after the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> I told you, we're in...in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">local camp</span>; and we, uh...we were sent to work to clear the <span class="DLF">street</span> of snow, and the <span class="DLF">highways</span> of snow.</sentence><sentence id="694">Because I...I told you, Hu_i, it was a very important point to go to the <span class="DLF">front line</span>.</sentence><sentence id="695">So the <span class="DLF">highways</span> should be cleared by snow; the...the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">tanks</span>, and the comm...and the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">lorries</span>, and the [soldiers] too can walk.</sentence><sentence id="696">And the springtime, we...we used to work in the same, uh, way around the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>; and...and the summer of 1942, it was the first detachment of Jews sent to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bessarabia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="697">Which is just a new chapter in my life. *</sentence><sentence id="698">January 22, 1941.</sentence><sentence id="699">It was the first labor...labor battalion, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">labor camp</span>, which I was sent.</sentence><sentence id="700">I was sent...the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>, it was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.667222" long="28.612778">Bolgrad</span>, the capital of the county Cahul.</sentence><sentence id="701">The railroad stopped in a certain <span class="BUILDING">station</span>--the name, it was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bulg_rica</span>--thirteen kilometers [northeast] from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.667222" long="28.612778">Bolgrad</span>.</sentence><sentence id="702">So if somebody has to go to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.667222" long="28.612778">Bolgrad</span>, has to stop... make a stop in this <span class="BUILDING">station</span>, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bulg rica</span>, and to take a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">coach</span> or something--which we didn't (laughter) take, of course--to go to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.667222" long="28.612778">Bolgrad</span>.</sentence><sentence id="703">But not...this is not the point where I am talking about, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bulg rica</span>.</sentence><sentence id="704">When we arrived there, it was in the middle of the summer.</sentence><sentence id="705">And a terrible, terrible stink.</sentence><sentence id="706">It was an insupportable stink.</sentence><sentence id="707">We couldn't understand what is this smell here.</sentence><sentence id="708">And, uh, I asked...we asked people, "What...why is this smell here?"</sentence><sentence id="709">They didn't want to answer.</sentence><sentence id="710">So, arriving in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bulg rica</span>, we put...we were put in a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">column</span> around...surrounded by the...the gendarmes, and...and went to the...to the direction to, uh, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.667222" long="28.612778">Bolgrad</span>.</sentence><sentence id="711">We entered in this city of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.667222" long="28.612778">Bolgrad</span>, and it was a Dante-esque view.</sentence><sentence id="712">Try to imagine: You enter in a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>--empty <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>, empty <span class="DLF">streets</span>.</sentence><sentence id="713">Nobody on the <span class="DLF">streets</span>.</sentence><sentence id="714">The <span class="BUILDING">houses</span>, they don't have <span class="DLF">doors</span>.</sentence><sentence id="715">The <span class="DLF">windows</span> are smashed.</sentence><sentence id="716">Everything is pillaged.</sentence><sentence id="717">Just one dog, or a cat, running on the <span class="DLF">street</span>.</sentence><sentence id="718">In the center of the <span class="DLF">street</span>, it was, uh...it was some <span class="BUILDING">buildings</span> occupied by the Romanian administration.</sentence><sentence id="719">And we asked to stay there, to be sent in a certain direction.</sentence><sentence id="720">We didn't know nothing.</sentence><sentence id="721">Sitting there, waiting for orders, some Jews start to...to walk around.</sentence><sentence id="722">An officer come, uh, uh, with a horse... riding a horse.</sentence><sentence id="723">And he saw the people, uh, walking around; and he start beating them with...with...with a whip.</sentence><sentence id="724">With a whip, so everybody was very concentrate.</sentence><sentence id="725">A friend of mine, he was a little bit older as me--two or three year older.</sentence><sentence id="726">He told me, "Do you know something?</sentence><sentence id="727">I was here in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.667222" long="28.612778">Bolgrad</span>, in...in my military duty in an artillery regiment...the art...the number 30[th] Regiment of Artillery from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.667222" long="28.612778">Bolgrad</span>.</sentence><sentence id="728">And I remember that in a Purim night, Jews from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.667222" long="28.612778">Bolgrad</span> used to go to this regiment and ask the commander to allow the Jewish boys in the Army to come to this <span class="BUILDING">Jewish houses</span> to celebrate the festi... the...the festivity of...the festival of Purim.</sentence><sentence id="729">So I remember that the <span class="BUILDING">house</span> is not so far.</sentence><sentence id="730">It's very close from here.</sentence><sentence id="731">Do you want to go with me to this <span class="BUILDING">house</span>?</sentence><sentence id="732">I want to see this <span class="BUILDING">house</span>."</sentence><sentence id="733">And we went.</sentence><sentence id="734">You know, it's a very interesting moment which I can't forget.</sentence><sentence id="735">And I think I wrote about this in my book.</sentence><sentence id="736">Imagine, I went in this <span class="BUILDING">house</span>--completely empty.</sentence><sentence id="737">And this guy start to tell me, "In this corner, it was a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">piano</span>.</sentence><sentence id="738">And on this <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">piano</span>, a young lady plays a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">piano</span>.</sentence><sentence id="739">And the <span class="BUILDING">house</span> was full with people, and the smell of food.</sentence><sentence id="740">And everything, it was alive.</sentence><sentence id="741">And now everything is dead.</sentence><sentence id="742">Only ghosts."</sentence><sentence id="743">And I understand then why it was this smell in the ...in the <span class="BUILDING">station</span> of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bulg rica</span>.</sentence><sentence id="744">It was a common <span class="DLF">grave</span>, a <span class="DLF">mass grave</span>.</sentence><sentence id="745">The people from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.667222" long="28.612778">Bolgrad</span>, they are shot and put in this <span class="DLF">grave</span>.</sentence><sentence id="746">After then, uh, we swear...we went to, uh...to a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span>, the name it was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Cubei</span>.</sentence><sentence id="747">It was a <span class="DLF">quarry</span>.</sentence><sentence id="748">We start to work in this <span class="DLF">quarry</span>.</sentence><sentence id="749">A hard labor.</sentence><sentence id="750">We went...we were obliged to make a cubic meter of stones taken from the, from the... from...from the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">earth</span>.</sentence><sentence id="751">And we worked "til then late in the fall.</sentence><sentence id="752">We were exhausted, without clothes.</sentence><sentence id="753">And we are sent by <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> to, uh, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Dobruja</span> [region], to 0 another famous, uh, <span class="DLF">quarry</span>.</sentence><sentence id="754">It was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Turcoaia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="755">The <span class="REGION">county</span>, it was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Tulcea</span>.</sentence><sentence id="756">The <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">M cin</span>.</sentence><sentence id="757">And I remember that leaving from...from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bulg rica</span>, from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bul...Bessarabia</span> to...to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Turcoaia</span>, to...to Gala_i to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Br_ila</span> to cross the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">River</span>, uh, Da...Da...<span class="ENV_FEATURES">Danube</span>, it was terrible cold... cold.</sentence><sentence id="758">And I didn't manage to enter in, in, in a...in a wag...<span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>, you know.</sentence><sentence id="759">So I stood on the <span class="DLF">stairs</span> of the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span>.</sentence><sentence id="760">And I said, "I'll froze.</sentence><sentence id="761">I'll got froze."</sentence><sentence id="762">And I...L...1 go down, and I put around me a...a...some <span class="DLF">rug</span>.</sentence><sentence id="763">I have a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">rug</span>.</sentence><sentence id="764">I slept on this rug, so it protected me.</sentence><sentence id="765">And I didn't froze.</sentence><sentence id="766">I have this <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span>.</sentence><sentence id="767">So we cross the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">Danube</span>; and we start to work in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Cubei</span>...in, uh, Turcoaia, to the <span class="DLF">quarry</span>.</sentence><sentence id="768">It was a very hard situation there.</sentence><sentence id="769">We are under the command of a certain Captain Munteanu--a degenerate drunkard, [who] played cards.</sentence><sentence id="770">He...he need money all the time.</sentence><sentence id="771">He took ours...all our money which we still have.</sentence><sentence id="772">And uh...and it was late in October, late in November, when we were allowed to go <span class="BUILDING">home</span> for a short period of time to change our clothes, to take our winter...winter clothes.</sentence><sentence id="773">And after the Christmas, we have to go <span class="BUILDING">home</span> [NB: to the <span class="DLF">quarry</span>].</sentence><sentence id="774">Then I wrote on this card, on a... "I have to go to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="775">It's after Christmas."</sentence><sentence id="776">We go back to...to Turcoaia, and we stood [NB: stayed] there over the winter.</sentence><sentence id="777">In the spring, we start to work to, uh...um, at some <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">railroad</span>, to transport the...the... the, uh, stone from the <span class="DLF">quarry</span> which we...we brought out.</sentence><sentence id="778">And, uh, it was "til, uh..."til the "43, late in "43, when we moved to another, uh, camp not...not so from...from our hou...from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="779">It was near <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birlad</span>.</sentence><sentence id="780">It was part of improvement of our life.</sentence><sentence id="781">Because we managed to have some friends in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birlad</span>; they brought us some food, some...brought some clothes.</sentence><sentence id="782">So it was a little bit easy for us.</sentence><sentence id="783">We sit over the winter in 1943-1944; when, uh...when we were brought <span class="BUILDING">home</span> in summer of "44.</sentence><sentence id="784">And we worked to the <span class="DLF">highways</span>, to repair the <span class="DLF">highways</span> near the city of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="785">And, uh, in 1944, in August "44, it happens that the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>, it was, uh, occupied by, uh, liberate [NB: liberators]--we can say "liberate," but it's...it's the truth--by the Russian Army.</sentence><sentence id="786">After a day, the Romanians, uh, took over the... the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>; which it was, uh, fig...street fights.</sentence><sentence id="787">But the third day, the Romanian retreat...the Romanian Army, uh, surrendered; and, uh, we were, how to say, liberated.</sentence><sentence id="788">And, uh, it was for us, the war, it was over.</sentence><sentence id="789">It wasn't over for the rest of the <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>; but of this part of <span class="COUNTRY">Moldavia</span>, this part of <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span> where I lived with my parents, we managed to...to...to go through this period of time with my sack...sack with bones.</sentence><sentence id="790">So we survived.</sentence><sentence id="791">What do you want to ask me more?</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="902">Q: Yah.</sentence><sentence id="903">I... would like to know what happened to you after the war.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="906">A: After the war, I need a pair of pants. (</sentence><sentence id="907">Laughter) I need a a jacket.</sentence><sentence id="908">And my father didn't have the money to give me, to ...to buy this.</sentence><sentence id="909">I was young.</sentence><sentence id="910">I want to talk to girls, to, to met people.</sentence><sentence id="911">But I need the pants.</sentence><sentence id="912">So my father give me his only one suit.</sentence><sentence id="913">And we go to a tailor, and he tried to manage to arrange for myself.</sentence><sentence id="914">So I was very well elegant in this period of time.</sentence><sentence id="915">So we start to reorganize the life in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>.</sentence><sentence id="916">We need a mayor.</sentence><sentence id="917">We need a prefect.</sentence><sentence id="918">We 1 need the police.</sentence><sentence id="919">We need a...a <span class="BUILDING">Chamber of Commerce</span>.</sentence><sentence id="920">We need to start to... to open the <span class="DLF">windows</span> of the <span class="BUILDING">stores</span>, and to have a normal life.</sentence><sentence id="921">And we're not...we start to have...to open the <span class="BUILDING">schools</span>.</sentence><sentence id="922">I receive a job as a Secretary of the Comm...of the <span class="BUILDING">Chamber of Commerce</span>.</sentence><sentence id="923">I entered it; everything it was destroyed and broken.</sentence><sentence id="924">We didn't have...we didn't even have pencil to...to ...to start to write some orders and to give some authorization.</sentence><sentence id="925">We had everything, (laughter) but it was a very funny situation.</sentence><sentence id="926">Nobody...nobody give us order.</sentence><sentence id="927">But we have to do something.</sentence><sentence id="928">But I remember that after a short period of time--is to say three weeks, four weeks, of a kind of republic in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>--a delegation of the government from <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span> come in <span class="COUNTRY">Moldova</span> [NB: <span class="COUNTRY">Moldavia</span>] to see what happened there.</sentence><sentence id="929">Because nobody knows in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bucharest</span> what happens in <span class="COUNTRY">Moldova</span>.</sentence><sentence id="930">So they start to say to us, "Look.</sentence><sentence id="931">What you are, stay...stay in <span class="NPIP">place</span>.</sentence><sentence id="932">You are the policeman; you'll be the policeman.</sentence><sentence id="933">You are the mayor; you'll be the mayor."</sentence><sentence id="934">So, uh, that we...they...the first thing what they did, they organized the Communist Party.</sentence><sentence id="935">Which I didn't belong.</sentence><sentence id="936">I said, "It's time to think about."</sentence><sentence id="937">So 1944, 1945 and 1946, I didn't join the Communist Party.</sentence><sentence id="938">In 1946, I said, "It's any reason to stay in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i?I</span> don't want to do this here.</sentence><sentence id="939">And I don't know...I don't think I have a future."</sentence><sentence id="940">So we moved in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bucharest</span>...to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bucharest</span>.</sentence><sentence id="941">I tried to have a <span class="BUILDING">job</span>.</sentence><sentence id="942">I couldn't have a job, because I didn't...I wasn't a Communist [Party] member.</sentence><sentence id="943">Later...later, in 1947, when the Carol [II], the king, has...was obliged to...to abdicate, it was no other way."</sentence><sentence id="944">So I said, "Okay, your way.</sentence><sentence id="945">I am a Communist, too."</sentence><sentence id="946">So we joined the Communist Party, and I have a job.</sentence><sentence id="947">And, uh, I was a member of the Party "til I left <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="948">And I remember when I received the citizenship here in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>, the guy...the person from the <span class="BUILDING">Immigration Office</span>" asked me, "But you are a long time in the Communist Party." "</sentence><sentence id="949">Yes.</sentence><sentence id="950">Fora long time, I have to eat." "</sentence><sentence id="951">But how come?"</sentence><sentence id="952">And I said, "Sir, you have a very nice job here, asking me why.</sentence><sentence id="953">Do you suppose if you have this job in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>, asking people why, you can be or have the job without being a Communist Party [member]?"</sentence><sentence id="954">And he start to laugh, "I know the story."</sentence><sentence id="955">So I was a full soldier.</sentence><sentence id="956">I clapped, when I have to clap.</sentence><sentence id="957">I have to stay ...uh, say, "Hurray," when I have to say, "Hurray."</sentence><sentence id="958">And that was the life.</sentence><sentence id="959">But after the war, it was something interesting in my life, living in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span> with a friend of mine.</sentence><sentence id="960">His name is Anton Celaru.</sentence><sentence id="961">I don't know if you know him.</sentence><sentence id="962">He was a journalist working for Informa_ia Bucure_tiului for many years.</sentence><sentence id="963">We stood [NB: stayed] in.</sentence><sentence id="964">We, uh, all here with Titi Fierstein, we, uh, printed then a newspaper.</sentence><sentence id="965">I remember that the newspaper, the first newspaper after the war in this part of the world, has reprinted in two...two hundred copies.</sentence><sentence id="966">And they sold these copy through a <span class="DLF">window</span>; because everybody wants to have this copy...uh, this newspaper.</sentence><sentence id="967">What I remember about this <span class="BUILDING">newspaper</span> is that my first article-- which I wrote after the "liberation," [so] to say--it was an open letter to the Major Pris_caru.</sentence><sentence id="968">&gt; Tt was not Carol II who abdicated in 1947, but his son, Michael I--who became king when his father fled the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span> in September 1940, shortly after Antonescu came to power.8 Immigration and Naturalization Service (also: INS).</sentence><sentence id="969">2 Do you remember I told you, from this gendarme.</sentence><sentence id="970">I said, "I feel like I have the duty to wrote to you, and to thank you now for your humanity.</sentence><sentence id="971">For the human feelings.</sentence><sentence id="972">When we are down, we are nobodies, you told us you can't eat as long as you know that we are hungry.</sentence><sentence id="973">So I am writing this letter to you."</sentence><sentence id="974">L...I didn't know if he is alive.</sentence><sentence id="975">I didn't know where he is.</sentence><sentence id="976">The story is that people from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span>, who after I left the ci...my <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>, they find him.</sentence><sentence id="977">And they ask him to come to...to live with them.</sentence><sentence id="978">But this is another story.</sentence><sentence id="979">So, uh, I come in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bucharest</span>.</sentence><sentence id="980">I had a job in the <span class="BUILDING">Ministr</span>...in the Department of Art.</sentence><sentence id="981">And I was sent in a city <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.691" long="21.903472">Lugoj</span>, in Banat [region], uh, being a Concierge Cultural--a cultural counsellor.</sentence><sentence id="982">I don't know what.</sentence><sentence id="983">After then, I was, uh, brought back in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bucharest</span>.</sentence><sentence id="984">I give, I...I receive a...a...an "advancement" [promotion], how to say it; and, uh, I was General Inspector.</sentence><sentence id="985">I work with Octav Livezeanu and Eduard Mezinceascu.</sentence><sentence id="986">And, uh, after then, I was, uh, a kind of manager of the Department of the Cultural Houses from the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>...the Commitee Culturale, how to say; and, uh, I worked a lot of time there.</sentence><sentence id="987">Suddenly, they remember me.</sentence><sentence id="988">And they say, "Hey, hey!</sentence><sentence id="989">Just a minute!</sentence><sentence id="990">Who was your father?" "</sentence><sentence id="991">My father was a vineyard [NB: vintner]." "</sentence><sentence id="992">So you don't have a ...you don't have a...a sound origin.</sentence><sentence id="993">You don't have...you are not...you are not a friend of ours.</sentence><sentence id="994">You are...you are just a com...a road companion."</sentence><sentence id="995">And they...they fire me.</sentence><sentence id="996">And I was without job, with...being a Communist, a member of the Communist Party, without a job.</sentence><sentence id="997">And [they're] telling me that I...1...J am...1 am an enemy of the people.</sentence><sentence id="998">Later...later on, I receive a job--the Department of Agriculture.</sentence><sentence id="999">I said, "I don't have nothing common with this.</sentence><sentence id="1000">I...1 don't know nothing about this."</sentence><sentence id="1001">So I have to have this job for a good part of my life.</sentence><sentence id="1002">And, uh, because I didn't have nothing in common, with, uh...and I couldn't find a job in the Ministry--the Department of the Culture.</sentence><sentence id="1003">They didn't want to give me back the job.</sentence><sentence id="1004">I found a job as a Secretary Literary was a...with a...with the circus, which I worked.</sentence><sentence id="1005">And kind of a period of time.</sentence><sentence id="1006">And they built the new <span class="BUILDING">building</span> of the circus; I was the director of there--of this <span class="BUILDING">building</span>, of this hall of activity, of cultural activities there.</sentence><sentence id="1007">And after then, I moved to, uh...I was General Secretary of the...of the <span class="BUILDING">publishing house</span> of the Tourism, with Pop Simion was the director at this period of time.</sentence><sentence id="1008">I don't know if you know some...something about <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Pop Simion</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1009">A nice man.</sentence><sentence id="1010">After then, I said to myself, "I build enough socialism.</sentence><sentence id="1011">The socialism is blowing in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>; and [it] can blow without me, too."</sentence><sentence id="1012">So what I have to do?</sentence><sentence id="1013">To emigrate, it was not easy.</sentence><sentence id="1014">Because we had some familial problems with the parents of my wife; so we couldn't leave the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1015">But I didn't want; I considered I built enough socialism.</sentence><sentence id="1016">So one day, see, I said to myself, "I am sick.</sentence><sentence id="1017">Not just tired."</sentence><sentence id="1018">So I managed--paying a good money--to be retired as being a sick man; and from this position, after a couple of years, I emigrate to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1134">Q: Uh, we have to stop now because we need a short time to change tapes.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class=""><p></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1139">A: Okay.</sentence><sentence id="1140">So I immigrate to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1141">I have this point...] [TEXT IN PRECEDING BRACKETS NOT ON VIDEOTAPE] 4 TAPE #2</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1145">Q: We are on tape again.</sentence><sentence id="1146">And I'd like to ask you to describe for us the conditions of arriving in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span> immediately after the war.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1149">A: You know, I...I tried to recollect this period of time.</sentence><sentence id="1150">It's... You know, never... didn't think never about this.</sentence><sentence id="1151">But it was a kind of explosion.</sentence><sentence id="1152">A kind of rejoice.</sentence><sentence id="1153">You have to understand, from a psychological point of view, this situation of this specially of the young people.</sentence><sentence id="1154">Suddenly, from the bottom of the society, you were somebody.</sentence><sentence id="1155">You have to have...you can...have the opportunity to have a <span class="BUILDING">job</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1156">You have a certain <span class="NPIP">position</span>--a certain <span class="NPIP">position</span> which you can never dream to have.</sentence><sentence id="1157">You are a human being, too.</sentence><sentence id="1158">You walk on the <span class="DLF">street</span>, and people salute you.</sentence><sentence id="1159">And I remember something which I like to tell you.</sentence><sentence id="1160">There is something which I just forgot.</sentence><sentence id="1161">One evening, I walked with a friend of mine.</sentence><sentence id="1162">A girl.</sentence><sentence id="1163">As usual in the center of a small <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>, everybody know each other.</sentence><sentence id="1164">And walking on the <span class="DLF">street</span>, that was a group of three or four boys--old hooligans.</sentence><sentence id="1165">I know them.</sentence><sentence id="1166">And they saw me coming with the girl.</sentence><sentence id="1167">And they blocked my...my, uh... I... couldn't go through them.</sentence><sentence id="1168">It was only one way to do this--just to to go around them.</sentence><sentence id="1169">In the same way in which I did all my life.</sentence><sentence id="1170">And I said [to myself], "This...now, I don't want to do this."</sentence><sentence id="1171">And I said, "Sorry.</sentence><sentence id="1172">I have to go through."</sentence><sentence id="1173">And they parted, and I went through them.</sentence><sentence id="1174">It was the first time in my life then when I said, "I am somebody.</sentence><sentence id="1175">You can't stop me."</sentence><sentence id="1176">It was for a short period of time.</sentence><sentence id="1177">After then, I learned my lesson.</sentence><sentence id="1178">The same Janet with another haircut, in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1179">But anyway, it was a vety...very interesting period of time.</sentence><sentence id="1180">People get married. (</sentence><sentence id="1181">Laughter) Everybody wants to ...to get married, to...to have a family, to be together.</sentence><sentence id="1182">Uh, everybody is...uh, a lot of people went to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bucharest</span>, or to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Ia_i</span>, to start to...to study.</sentence><sentence id="1183">We worked there in...in...in our <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1184">We have our friends.</sentence><sentence id="1185">Myself, I...L..I thought I have to...to...to get to get married.</sentence><sentence id="1186">But that happens like in life...as in life.</sentence><sentence id="1187">And I didn't do this then.</sentence><sentence id="1188">So it was a very interesting period of time.</sentence><sentence id="1189">But shortly, a lot of things changed.</sentence><sentence id="1190">People there are poor.</sentence><sentence id="1191">They are poor.</sentence><sentence id="1192">The ...the war paid... Everybody paid a great fee in this war.</sentence><sentence id="1193">So, uh, nobody had an opportunity to do something to improve the life, of condition.</sentence><sentence id="1194">And the meantime, <span class="COUNTRY">Moldavia</span> was st...st... striken...strucken by a, uh, drought.</sentence><sentence id="1195">It was a fantastic famine in <span class="COUNTRY">Moldavia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1196">So when...when we... I was in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu_i</span> and <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bucharest</span>; from leaving <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu i</span>, I tried to send something to my parents.</sentence><sentence id="1197">But it wasn't enough.</sentence><sentence id="1198">It was a very high inflation in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1199">Everybody had...has to pay million.</sentence><sentence id="1200">They...they print <span class="BUILDING">mill</span>...paper--bills, money--for five million leu."</sentence><sentence id="1201">Only, for five million you can buy nothing.</sentence><sentence id="1202">Absolutely nothing.</sentence><sentence id="1203">So it was a very hard period of time in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1204">And the famine, and the people there are go...going from one part of the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span> to another part of the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span>. "</sentence><sentence id="1205">Unit of Romanian currency.</sentence><sentence id="1206">5 And I remember when I received my first job, in March 19...in 1989 [NB: 1949], in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.691" long="21.903472">Lugoj</span>, in Banat [region].</sentence><sentence id="1207">In <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Banat</span>, it wasn't famine.</sentence><sentence id="1208">It happens it was a luckier... luckier part of the <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1209">And I went to a <span class="BUILDING">restaurant</span> and I asked to give me something, some, uh...some food.</sentence><sentence id="1210">I couldn't eat, because it was period of time when I didn't [have] what to eat in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bucharest</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1211">And so it...it was a very hard situation in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1212">Very hard.</sentence><sentence id="1213">I don't talk about the political situation; because from the political point of view, it was start to be hard from the end of 1980...1948 and beginning of 1989 [NB: 1949].</sentence><sentence id="1214">It was a period of changement, from the political point of view.</sentence><sentence id="1215">But as individual, it was hard to live in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1216">We didn't have what to eat.</sentence><sentence id="1217">So for me, when ...when...when my boss in the Department of Arts told me, "Where do you want to go to have a job in province?"</sentence><sentence id="1218">I said, "Everywhere it's something to eat!"</sentence><sentence id="1219">So they send me to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="45.691" long="21.903472">Lugoj</span>, which is a <span class="NPIP">heaven</span> for me.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1291">Q: Could you describe, please, your arrival in <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1293">A: Arrival in <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1295">Q: Your coming to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1297">A: We arrived...we arrived on the...on the October 27 or 29-- something like this.</sentence><sentence id="1298">In the fall.</sentence><sentence id="1299">Hey, it's interesting, what I...what I felt for the first time.</sentence><sentence id="1300">Uh, we, uh...we, uh...I, uh...we receive a... We are transferred from <span class="BUILDING">Kennedy Airport</span> to, uh, La...<span class="BUILDING">LaGuardia Airport</span>; and I received a <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span> in a <span class="BUILDING">motel</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1301">It was hot.</sentence><sentence id="1302">It was stuffy.</sentence><sentence id="1303">No <span class="DLF">air</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1304">And as a Romanian, I went to open the <span class="DLF">doors</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1305">But the <span class="DLF">door</span>, it was locked.</sentence><sentence id="1306">I went to open the <span class="DLF">window</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1307">The <span class="DLF">windows</span> there are locked.</sentence><sentence id="1308">And I said, "Where in <span class="NPIP">Hell</span> you can have a little bit of fresh air in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>?"</sentence><sentence id="1309">And my daughter said, "Look, you have the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">air conditioner</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1310">Turn the air conditioner, you have fresh air."</sentence><sentence id="1311">It was my first contact in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1312">But before all this, the man from the Customer [NB: Customs], he opened .... I brought from the <span class="BUILDING">American Embassy</span> from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span> a... a yellow envelope.</sentence><sentence id="1313">And the lady from the Ame...from <span class="BUILDING">Embassy</span> from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span> told me, "You have to give... Uh, don't open this envelope; because you have...there are very important documents here.</sentence><sentence id="1314">And, uh, you have to give to the Custom."</sentence><sentence id="1315">And I give the envelope to the Custom, and they open the...the...the envelope.</sentence><sentence id="1316">And he gave to me, to my wife and to my daughter my...our "green card."</sentence><sentence id="1317">And he said, "You are a resident in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>, and you are all welcome here."</sentence><sentence id="1318">So I, as an American resident coming there in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1319">Because we came to be unified with our family.</sentence><sentence id="1320">Uh, I remember, regarding our arrival here in, uh...I remember that I had a discussion with the director from HIAS from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span>--a certain Schwartz (ph).</sentence><sentence id="1321">Gentleman Schwartz.</sentence><sentence id="1322">And he told me once, "You have... you'll have problems to accommodate in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1323">But don't be...don't worry.</sentence><sentence id="1324">Go to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Boston</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1325">You'll find there people there who they are not related with you.</sentence><sentence id="1326">They'll help you.</sentence><sentence id="1327">They don't let you down."</sentence><sentence id="1328">I looked to this man.</sentence><sentence id="1329">And I said, "Maybe he knows what he's talking about."</sentence><sentence id="1330">But I was...I was very afraid.</sentence><sentence id="1331">6 Later on, when I wrote and I published my last book, Moshe Kopf and His World, I wrote a short story about this encounter with the man with a straight face.</sentence><sentence id="1332">Uh, I think I said it's a tribute.</sentence><sentence id="1333">I remember my social worker--a lady.</sentence><sentence id="1334">He [NB: she] has a small...a small <span class="BUILDING">office</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Boston</span>, in the Jewish Family [Services].</sentence><sentence id="1335">And I talked to her so many times.</sentence><sentence id="1336">And I says...every time when I left from this <span class="BUILDING">office</span>, I said to myself, "If somebody has the opportunity to record the echoes of the voices who talk to this lady [in] this small <span class="BUILDING">office</span>, it'll be a universe of human sufferings!"</sentence><sentence id="1337">And I said, "I have to pay [NB: repay] this something for this lady."</sentence><sentence id="1338">And my first publish...published, uh, piece which I wrote, it was an open letter to this lady--"The Unseen Diploma."</sentence><sentence id="1339">She had behind her her diploma as social worker.</sentence><sentence id="1340">But I talked about her soul, her wonderful, uh, human feelings.</sentence><sentence id="1341">So I wrote a piece, which is in my book, too--"The Unseen Diploma."</sentence><sentence id="1342">And there are a lot of people who tried to help us.</sentence><sentence id="1343">And with my broken English, when I start to talk to people everybody's saying, "Oh, your English is very good!"</sentence><sentence id="1344">I know how good is my English. (</sentence><sentence id="1345">Chuckling) But I know those people try to understand us.</sentence><sentence id="1346">They give us shelter.</sentence><sentence id="1347">They give us food.</sentence><sentence id="1348">They give us hope.</sentence><sentence id="1349">You understand...have to understand something.</sentence><sentence id="1350">I discover my identity, not living in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span> so many years.</sentence><sentence id="1351">I didn't left <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span> a young man.</sentence><sentence id="1352">I don't want to say I'm a old [man] now, but I wasn't young then.</sentence><sentence id="1353">I discovered my.... I suffered like a Jew in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>; but I didn't know I am Jew, because I never considered.</sentence><sentence id="1354">I was a Romanian!</sentence><sentence id="1355">Here, I discover Iam Jew.</sentence><sentence id="1356">And I discover the whole story about the Holocaust, and what happened in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1357">Here, in the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1358">You know, I had a job at <span class="BUILDING">Boston University</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1359">Being here in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>, I said--and I...I didn't have [a job]--"Without a language and a good English, what I can do?</sentence><sentence id="1360">The only thing which I can do is to be a kind of a bookkeeper or accountant, or something like this."</sentence><sentence id="1361">So I attended a university course, which I finished with A+.</sentence><sentence id="1362">And I have a diploma in accounting.</sentence><sentence id="1363">So I was in accounting, but I am a writer by profession.</sentence><sentence id="1364">So each...each lunch time, every day...absolutely every day in my lunch time, I went to the <span class="BUILDING">library</span> and make research in trying to find out about the <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>, Romanian Jew, Romanian history, and so on.</sentence><sentence id="1365">So...so I start to write my book, The Forgotten Holocaust.*</sentence><sentence id="1366">This book is not my book.</sentence><sentence id="1367">Each <span class="DLF">line</span>, each word, each page--I did it.</sentence><sentence id="1368">I written...I write it.</sentence><sentence id="1369">But this doesn't belong to me.</sentence><sentence id="1370">It's the book of my generation, of my people.</sentence><sentence id="1371">And being here in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>, I had opportunity to read it...to write this.</sentence><sentence id="1372">Living so many years in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span> and going so many years in the library of that <span class="BUILDING">academy</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>, making research from my books which I wrote there, I never think about it.</sentence><sentence id="1373">Because nobody give me the opportunity to see a newspaper, a piece of paper regarding this period of time.</sentence><sentence id="1374">So if somebody is...can accept this euphemism "born in the second time," I am born.... I emigrate, because being a Jew in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.... Here in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span> that I discovered [myself] to be a Jew, living here in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1375">This is...it was something which which I can't forget.</sentence><sentence id="1376">It is not to...to say, "Thank * 1.C. Butnaru, The Silent Holocaust: <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span> and Its Jews (<span class="POPULATED_PLACE">New York</span>: Greenwood Press, 1992).</sentence><sentence id="1377">7 you, <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1378">You did this, so and so."</sentence><sentence id="1379">This relationship between me and <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>, it is another kind.</sentence><sentence id="1380">A kind of a... And I have to tell you something.</sentence><sentence id="1381">My character...my character, uh, Moshe Kopf, in my last book, he used to live in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1382">And he has to exp...to ...to talk to somebody, to express himself; but he was afraid.</sentence><sentence id="1383">So he wrote a letter to himself.</sentence><sentence id="1384">And the second part of my book, when he lived in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span> [NB: <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>?]</sentence><sentence id="1385">waiting for the America visa, he wrote to a friend of, uh, him letters in <span class="COUNTRY">Romania</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1386">Arriving in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>, he wrote letter to the same le....uh, friend.</sentence><sentence id="1387">And it is a letter which is very important to this problem--me and <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1388">My relationship with the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1389">Moshe Kopf, walking in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">New York</span> one day, met a very interesting person--Christoforus Columbus.</sentence><sentence id="1390">And he start to...they start to walk, to talk together.</sentence><sentence id="1391">And Moshe Kopf said to...to...to Christopher Columbus, "You know, Master, you did a great job discovering <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1392">But, you know, if you are doing something to be good, you have to do it in a right time.</sentence><sentence id="1393">You discovered <span class="COUNTRY">America</span> too late!"</sentence><sentence id="1394">And Christopher Columbus asked him, "What means, "too late." "</sentence><sentence id="1395">Of course it is too late!</sentence><sentence id="1396">If you discovered <span class="COUNTRY">America</span> when the Jew were liberated by Moshe [NB: Moses] from their...their slavery ...Slave situation in <span class="COUNTRY">Egypt</span>, instead of cross the Red Mer [NB: Red Sea], you can part the water in the Atlantic here.</sentence><sentence id="1397">He is ...".</sentence><sentence id="1398">How to say? "</sentence><sentence id="1399">He knowed how to do the job.</sentence><sentence id="1400">He can part the water in the Atlantic, and the Jew can arrive in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1401">And he can avoid so much persecution, blood, and tears, and so on."</sentence><sentence id="1402">And Christopher Columbus said to him, "Maybe you're right.</sentence><sentence id="1403">Who knows?"</sentence><sentence id="1404">And he depart from him, and he go back on his, uh, <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">pedestal</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1405"><span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Moshe Kopf</span>, leaving Christopher Columbus, he thought...he said.</sentence><sentence id="1406">And Christopher said, "Come back.</sentence><sentence id="1407">I want to tell you something.</sentence><sentence id="1408">Go back and discover your <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1409">I discovered a <span class="REGION">territory</span> which is <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1410">But everybody who is arriving on this shore has to discover his own <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1411">Two <span class="REGION">Americas</span> are not the same."</sentence><sentence id="1412">No sir.</sentence><sentence id="1413">I discovered my <span class="COUNTRY">America</span> here.</sentence><sentence id="1414">And I am very grateful for this.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1534">Q: I think that this is a beautiful end.</sentence><sentence id="1535">Uh, thank you very, very much for coming.</sentence></p></dialogue>
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1538">A: Thank you.</sentence><sentence id="1539">Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk.</sentence><sentence id="1540">8 PHOTOGRAPHS () Village scene.</sentence><sentence id="1541">Ion's family in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hu _i</span>, circa 1922-23, in the vineyard belonging to his uncle-- shown on the far right of the picture.</sentence><sentence id="1542">The vineyard originally belonged to Ion's grandfather, and was given to this uncle as a wedding present between 1912 and 1914.</sentence><sentence id="1543">From left to right in the photograph are: Jon's aunt (his father's youngest sister), an old woman whom he identifies as the mother-in-law of his aunt and wife of the man on the far right of the picture, Ion's sister (now living in <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span>), Ion's aunt (his father's oldest sister), Ion's cousin Solomon (nephew of his grandfather), Aaron Butnaru (lon's grandfather and the family patriarch), Ion's grandmother, Ion's cousin Mathilda (then a small child), Adele (a friend of Ion's sister), Adele's father (owner of the vineyard), Ion's Uncle Yerachmiel (brother of his grandfather), Sarah (a small child--probably a cousin). (</sentence><sentence id="1544">2) Ion at age 22 in December 1942.</sentence><sentence id="1545">Just after this photo was taken, he left <span class="BUILDING">home</span> for a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">labor camp</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Turcoaia</span>, in the <span class="REGION">Dobruja region</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue>
</body>
</html>