Food made of human flesh

Fina: May you be blessed and stay healthy! May you encounter good and be blessed with fortune! I am Fina daughter of Meluțu son of Șopârla, daughter in law to Brati.

LMC: I want you to tell us your testimony of the events at the Bug, whatever you remember about that time.

Fina: Whatever I remember? We ate uncooked food. I was little, three years old and ate uncooked food, no salt at all, unsalted. No one was giving us salt. In the end we would pay a golden coin for a spoon of salt, one golden coin for a plate of flour.

LMC: How were you taken from Romania?

Fina: They took us with the promise to give us a house, to give us the moon in the sky. But when we got there, they dug huts in the earth for us and we lived in those huts, and they did not give us any food but a chunk of molasses. Your generation does not even know what that molasses is, do you?

LMC: I for myself know. It’s the waste that remains after you extract the sunflower oil from the seeds.

Fina: Indeed. We used to eat that, and people died of tummy pains.

LMC: Whom were you with?

Fina: With my father, my mother, with everyone.

LMC: How many siblings did you have?

Fina: Had 5-6 brothers.

LMC: Whom?

Fina: Toma, Vali… they all died. All the small kids died of cold and hunger, as no one would feed them. My father searched for ways to bring us food, and he went to Mârado and he took from Mârado half a pig. He paid a big gold coin for it and brought it home. But then Mârado said he gave him way too much meat, so my father replied:” Take your meat and give me my gold coin back.” And we were shouting: „No, father, do not give the meat back father” So he did not return it. And my father went and brought some Șalingrad pots and filled them with fried meat and put them aside. I said: „Look, we have so much meat, we won’t starve anymore!” And we ate rind, and we ate meat. People came to my father, men and women: „Uncle Meluțo, be as good as to give us too some meat, some molasses, may God bless you , may God bring you back to Romania!” ” Help yourself, please take some meat, you too, and you too!” And my father gave meat to the people.  What did my father do actually: He engaged Toma with Ontolacus Marița. None of us knew what my father did. And Ontolocoanea came: „Is this the groom?” „What groom?” We got him engaged so we marry her to him. Whom else should we marry her to? We gave her to Toma.” It took some time and Mârado came again and requested once more the meat.  „Why are you pushing, you know very well, that we paid for the meat. I gave you a big gold coin for the meat. Why do you persecute us? ”Give me the meat. ” „I’ll give it to you. It is fried.”

LMC: Mîrado was a merchant, was he?

Fina: Great merchant. He brought peppers, tomatoes and food and gave them to people.

LMC: How old were you?

Fina: I had some years I remember everything.

LMC: If you do remember, you must have been older.

Fina: Quite older.

LMC: Be blessed with luck and health!

Fina: I don’t know how old I was, but I remember everything that was.

LMC: I heard that the Germans had taken you, how did they take you?

Fina: Listen, just listen now: As we were there on the road, they came, took us and drove us in the first lines in front of them. The men took me from my father’s cart. “Malinca, Malinca, Malinca” „We want Malinca!„ They just grabbed me and put me in a car and I was crying: „Father, father, they took me, they took me, why did you let them take me.” That man took me o the other side to our people, he crossed me across the Dniester, he went over the Dniester with me and took me to Valica, to my aunt Valica. When he handed me over to that woman, what was she supposed to say? „Where did your father let you, where did he let you? Hold on tight to my skirt and follow me. Hold on tight to my skirt until we arrive.” We crossed a vineyard, Lâmâie, when we crossed that vineyard, men would tear the poles and put them on fire. They broke all poles and put them on fire, and it was a huge vineyard. Where I put my foot on burnt corns, my foot got burnt, look here my foot got burnt. My leg got burnt and I started screaming: „Where is my mommy? Where is my mother?” „Here I am, here I am,” came a voice from the crowd of people. „I’m burned, I’m burned mom” My mom picked me up and tucked me in the goose feather blanket and I went with her Lămâie. I walked with her through that vineyard with my burned leg, Oh mighty God. She had a small baby, and the child died in her arms. It was snowing so she threw him into the ditch and covered him with a smallish clog. He died.

LMC: And was he left there?

Fina: There he was left as they had no place to take him to.

LMC: Did many children die?

Fina: Auuuu, they died, many children. The baby died. I cried for him. „Let’s take him mother!” „Stop crying, he is dead.” There was a baby that froze. And when he froze, they took him by the arms and the legs and put him like this on the fire to warm him up. This big was the blister on him. He got blisters all over and died too.  That one died too and when he died, they put him in the ditch, and he was dead. Gheordi was his name, mighty God: „You left us Gheordi? You died, Gheordiță, did you die?” My mother was ready to die because she got typhus, and I said, ‘What did you do, Mom?’ I did well, don’t you see that I’m dying, dear. ”

LMC: Was she the only one who got typhus?

Fina: It started with her.

LMC: And what was that type of typhus like?

Fina: The typhus??? It was the same typhus fever you could find anywhere in the world.

LMC: How was it, like a flu? What was it like?

Fina: Like flu. It was typhus. Her head hurt. Her legs hurt. All her bones ached. Should I say more?

LMC: Do tell, please

Fina: So, they gathered their things and left. When we left, we went, and we went until we arrived. Where did we arrive? We arrived at a place where people left their houses.  They left behind roasted meat, meat, flour, goodies, the houses were filled with them.

LMC: The war was over, and you were coming home. Were you escaping?

Fina:  We were running to get home to Romania.

LMC: There you found the fountains full of wine.

Fina: Yes. How do you know?

LMC: You see, I know. I know.

Fina: We found all sorts of meat and goodies there and I said: „What do you get, mom?” „I’ll get flour, whatever I need, dear. I’ll get some meat. I take a pot of grease and a pot of the meat that those people had.” My mother would take it and put it in our cart, and we left. Mîrado came too. Mîrado would follow us because the girl was engaged to his kindship.

LMC: Which one?

Fina: Leana. She had been engaged for a long time. Toma was engaged to Marița doughter of Ontolacu.

LMC: What about my grandfather, Bărculica?

Fina: I do not know what your grandfather was doing. We did not mind him.

LMC: What were you doing there? What were you doing all day long? How were you living in the huts?

Fina: I was distressed and bitter and beat my brothers. Once a mad woman came into our hut, and she pissed in the middle of the hut and threw her girdle, her apron and her head scarf there in the piss so that we would pass over them, or else we’d have trouble with her. We’ve all gone over her clothes:” What do you mind us, why do you fool us?”, I asked.” Do not be scared, you won’t be fooled, you will be lucky! “Who was that? It was Marița, Marițica daughter to my grandmother.

LMC: Well, you were indeed a lucky woman!

Fina: Now see, how I remember this woman.

LMC: You are a lucky and well-liked woman! You are a daughter of God! You are rich!

Fina: So, we set to leave Lumino, to cross the Dniester. After we crossed the Dniester, my father crossed like here with the horses across the water.

LMC: Did you still have horses? Didn’t they take them for the kolkhozes?

Fina: No. We had horses and we were all in the cart. There was a man, Mardelo. Mardelo was the son of Duda the old one. The gendarme shot after him but hit him precisely. He fell in the water. He died. They took him out of the water but 10 were left behind.

LMC: How did you cross the river? Trough the water or on the bridge?

Fina: Trough the water.

LMC: How did that happen?

Fina: We got through the water because the water was shallow. The water we passed was small. The water was deeper to…

LMC: Towards the bridge?

Fina: Towards the bridge. We set to go and crossed. At the place we crossed the river, there were many Roma. Gendarmes would come from all over the place and shoot us to take our cart. This is why we hid the cart and got lost among the other people.” Now we won’t be beaten by the gendarmes” I said. They caught my father. They beat him so hard and broke his ribs, Lumină, with an iron, just like this. They beat him so hard, Lumină.

LMC: Germans, Romanians or Russians?

Fina: The Russians hit.

LMC: The Ceolovics?

Fina: The people would say. „Why did you beat him that beastly, what harm did he do, why do you care?”” He just crossed the water”

LMC: And…

Fina: When he got in the cart so that we left, he could not drive the cart, he simply could not. We all cried beside him. My mother drove and he lay on one side, because they broke his ribs. Indeed, what did we do there? He was beaten up, so we made a stop on a side and built up our tent behind a stable. We put our tent, and he took something and ate. He was like new. „Let it be, I am better now.”  What was in my hand?

LMC: What?

Fina: The goldies, the gold coins.

LMC: did he swallow them?

Fina: Yes. He swallowed them with …

LMC: Bread

Fina: With pogace (*bread dough cookie).

LMC: Did he give you some too?

Fina: Well, me to swallow gold coins? My mother swallowed them and when she had to go out, she went into the field. What did she make, Lămâie?

LMC: Did you see?

Fina: Yes, I saw. I saw how she threw them for us to take the coins. There was a big golden coin, folded twice so she could swallow it.

LMC: I do know people used to hide coins in the goiters of geese and ducks.

Fina: In their cheeks.

LMC: Some gave it to the horses.

Fina: I don’t know about horses.

LMC: In the horse’s leg. They would make an incision in the horse’s leg, put the coins inside and sew it back. What else do you remember?

Fina: Listen.

LMC: Something you remember, something you could never forget.

Fina: I can never forget. I can truly never forget.

LMC: What exactly?

Fina: The sufferings my father had to endure, his cry and the way they brought the gold inside my mother. 100  big gold coins, that is how much they brought here, as they had no place to give them away. Lots of gold coins, poles, marks, priceless things.

LMC: You have not told us about the freezing, how people died, and they took each other’s footwear. Didn’t you see that?

Fina: I see them. You just brought that back to my mind. Eiiiii, there was a city hall building and, whenever people died, they were put there in that hall. They laid them, Lămâie, one on the top of the other, all dead people, and I used to say: „Auu, I am goanna end here too, I will be here too.”

LMC: Why?

Fina: And my mother would tell me: „Why do you say these words?” Stupid small child brain. „Look mother how many have died” We used to walk over them like you wolk on stones. Like the Romanian saying … “walking on stones”, there was a place like this one, that is where we walked on the dead. There were so many dead.

LMC: When? When did they die, was is because of the cold or because of the bombing?

Fina: because of the cold as well as because of those things from above…

LMC: The bombs?

Fina: The bombs. Whenever they saw fire, they would bomb us. God, forbid we made a fire.

LMC: So, the Roma people could not stay without fire?

Fina: They could not. When they cooked something to eat they made fire, as soon as the fire was lit, they would launch the bombs and kill from here up to …

LMC: Far away.

Fina: Eiii, exactly, you, see?

LMC: Do you remember anything else about your little brothers? Do you remember that huge pit of the dead, the bug, please tell me. Did you go to get water at the Bug? Did you go searching for clams?

Fina: No, I did not.

LMC: You were quite young?

Fina: I did not go because we took water from ditches.

LMC: Some people are recalling that when they went for water, they heard the dead people crying.

Fina: There was a woman who died, and she was calling for her husband: „Bucureeee… Bucure, you left me here. I am beautiful” She was beautiful.” I am beautiful, come and take me back, Bucure, come…”

There was another one who jumped up and down because her belly hurt as she ate molasses, and she died. What did she do? The molasses hardened up inside her so she died and people rushed to help her but she still died.

LMC: Do you know anything about Titina?

Fina: Which Titina?

LMC: Titina, the one who was cut and fried and eaten.

Fina: I do know about one human.

LMC: Titina was eaten. The famine was great back there.

Fina: The Germans came and asked: „Who is your bailiff?” „This one” They took him, cut his head off and they cut him into chunks and put the chunks to boil in order to make some stew.

LMC: Was this at the Bug?

Fina: At the Bug. They put him in a cauldron and boiled him and gave him away as food. But his wife, when she searched to see the whereabouts of her husband asked: „Where is my husband?”

LMC: Whom did she ask?

Fina: People

LMC: Germans?

Fina: Germans. „You cooked him and you ate him, you devilish gypsies” ”Auuu, why… why?” The woman was screaming, because they put her husband on the plate. They even made a song about this.

LMC: Can you tell us what was the life for women like, were they beaten, raped and ridiculed?

Fina: Well, should I use that kind of words?

LMC: I do want to know everything that happened there, so that we make the truth known. If you do not say it, who else should say it.

Fina: O dear, they took them, they took the young maiden and dishonored them, ridiculed them, beautiful girls. I used to hide together with my sisters. We, the sisters would hide so that they cannot get us and disgrace us.

LMC: And

Fina: And they took the girls, mocked them. They laughed at them and dishonored them. Virgin maiden, they dishonored them.

LMC: What happened there, that hurt your heart, and you could not forget?

Fina: What hurt my heart. A brother of mine died and then an other died and I cried for them. We then came back here, and my mother had other children and those died too.