The Woman Who Escaped Death

LMC: Today, September 30th, 2004, we are in Ivești. In front of us are our uncle Gheordi, our aunt Urica and our aunt Taxia. Welcome to you!

Gheordi: Welcome!

LMC: Please tell us who you are.

Gheordi: I’m Franț son of Istraka and I’ve been to the Bug.

LMC: And what was your grandfather’s name?

Gheordi: My grandfather’s name was Lupașcu and he was the Bulibaşa of the Roma. I was with my father and my grandfather, and they took us to the Bug. We travelled through Vancea. Here is Vancea. And they promised they would give us houses in Pasarabia. From Pasarabia we were taken and evacuated to Ukraine. From Ukraine we reached the banks of the Bug. Further on the banks of the Bug, we arrived one night, and it was snowy and cold, and they put us in some huts, in a forest. Salvan was the name of that forest. Salvan Forest. And he put us there in huts. Those who caught a hut, those who didn’t, no. There was a city hall there, with gendarmes, made by the city. Those who didn’t catch a hut remained outside. Roma from Oltenia, from Craiova who were poorer, froze. God forbid. When my grandfather Lupașcu woke up in the morning, he found them frozen. We could see them, and we cried. Then the gendarmes made us a camp. They went around us with wire so that we wouldn’t go outside. We had to stay inside and cut down trees in the forest. We worked that winter in the forest, and we stayed as we did. We still had gold, we changed it and my grandfather and Polu from Piatra went and brought food. He brought food to people. Bărculică made a restaurant, as we called it, Bărculica. And there was also this old man, your grandfather, Bulibașă over the people and we came through the winter. As soon as we survived winter, gendarmes came and as they saw that we were working, they took us out of the huts and sent us to another place where we were going to work at the kolkhoz. At the kolkhoz, we worked in Bravarovca. In Bravarovca, they came and asked us, if they saw that we worked, the Jews did not work, and if they saw that they did not work, they came and made a trench and shot the Jews. We, if we worked, got an allowance/portion: 100 grams, 200 grams of food. The old man brought it in the cart and shared it with his company. Polu shared with his group, and we lived like this for two years. After that, they moved us from there to another place. The order came to retreat to Pasarabia. And when the war line approached, the Americans, who were defeating the Germans, as there were Germans and Romanians. They reached the banks of the Bug to take over Romania.

 We stayed with the Romanians and the Germans who were about to cross and take over the big Russian city over the Caucasus Mountains. And they fought and then the front line retreated, back and we came there, and we crossed. They took our mules, they took our horses, they took our carts. There, they put us back in a kolkhoz, from there, what did we do. They had collected our carts and horses and all our belongings, the clothes, the carpets we had, we were left with the buckets in our hands and, forgive me, with gold coins hidden in our buckets, as we Roma use to hide them. And they beat us and took us on foot to shoot us too. Then a new order came, and they didn’t shoot us in the end. And we did what we could do and that order came and we saw those bombs coming. And some people came and told us: „Run away, because the war line is approaching.” And we ran away. And when we fled, we moved away but we saw dead people on the roads, much trouble. We were running away from our carriages. The planes came and shot at us.

They shot and put binoculars on and when they saw that we were Roma, they didn’t kill us anymore. They killed the army that was there before and had told us to flee. And that urged a big curse upon us.  It urged misery and in the end the typhus. When we arrived on this side of Pasarabia, we stopped because the battle line was steady, so we stayed for another summer. And we remained in Culabacia. We stayed there because we were stopped until further notice. There, we walked through the villages like Roma used to. As soon as the typhus occurred, many people died. They died. After this, we changed and thank God the war got near, and we fled. We took the road to Galati, trough Valicea and we came back to our Romania, and we were caught up by the Russian here. And when the Russian caught us here, I ran away, without father but we met on this other side.” Where is my father? Where is my grandfather/”I ran away from bombs, grenades, because the bombs were coming from above. They didn’t pass us…”What was it called, God? From… Tighina that it was water. And there was a bridge vastehko, and the Romanians crossed us and took the bridge. But some have remained beyond. Those who stayed behind were brought back when the war line crossed over. And by the mercy of God, we came back to our Romania, and we made carts, we bought tents, and we arrived back in our Romania like this. But we suffered, God forbid. We left clothes, carts, gold coins and necklaces, we left them all behind…

LMC: Uncle Gheordi, I want you to tell us what your old eyes see even now, and you can’t forget? Something very painful.

Gheordi: What happened there? The heavy storm came, and many froze and died, and mules ate from them. May God stop something like that on the face of the earth.

Urica: The lice were walking…

Gheordi: The mess of lice, dirt, because there was no soap, there was no salt to eat. We ate unsalted, as there was none. We were doing trade for as long as it was going.

LMC: Did your entire family come back?

Gheordi: My grandfather came, my mother came, they all came back. When we returned to Romania because my grandfather was a strong man, he was trading, and we survived. All the families, the group from Galati, my grandfather led it, Lupașcu. And he brought his people here and Polu from Piatra also came, two and three teams. And yours too, these people were the people of Oleti and those from Bucharest, they were called Ialomiteni, they also crossed and went to their places and we to ours. But we witnessed a lot of mess, you know? I saw the ones who were dead, who no longer ate and had nothing to eat and… I am ashamed… some ate unclean things, those who were poor. We survived. The Germans came and shot us, shot at us, took our carts, put their tools inside and we remained aground in the mud. We suffered for 2 years and 7 months. We suffered trouble, torment and bitterness. After that we recovered. Yes.

LMC: Live long and be healthy!

Gheordi: May you live long too!

LMC: Aunt Urica, please tell us, who are you?

Urica: I’m Hînate’s Urica and my mother’s name is Talia.

LMC: And what was your grandfather’s name?

Urica: My grandfather’s name?… Iața. My grandmother’s name was Rupînca.

LMC: Live long and be lucky!

Urica: May you live long and happy too!

LMC: Please now tell us the testimony of the Bug as it was, full of pain and suffering, full of tears.

Urica: Listen to me. My father was a trader at the Bug, who fed the world. And in the end the Germans shot him.

Tasia: Your father was shot dead.

Urica: Ho!

LMC: Let her talk.

Urica: The Germans shot him on our way back here. I was little and he told my grandfather, Iațahcă’ s Iorgu: „Give me some salt, so I can go and get a piece of bread because Urica is crying, that was me. Gheordi, my brother, and Gogu are crying with hunger.” But he said: „Pull the cart aside and take some salt out of the cart.” He took too long to get the salt out of the cart.  The Germans caught us on the way. They took the cart, they took the gold, they took the clothes. They shot my father, they shot my mother and took me on the back.

LMC: They died?

Urica: They died.

LMC: May God forgive them!

Gheordi: Yes, they didn’t die then.

Urica: But why does he speak?  And he took me on his back and grabbed my little brother by the feet, because he was more suitable and me in the back and one of our relatives took my father. And my mother stayed by the fire in… What do you call it? In the city by the water….

Tasia: Ucraine.

Urica: She remained by the fire with three little sisters. And I came ahead with my uncle Iorgu and my father. Do you understand?

LMC: Well, you  did say that the Germans shot him?

Gheordi: They shot him, but he didn’t die,  just in the leg.

Urica: And he died over here. You understand?

LMC: I understand.

Urica: But my mother remained, by the fire.

Gheordi: She remained there as she could not come further.

Urica: She was shot, she couldn’t move.

LMC: And did she stay there?

Urica: She finally caught up with us, but she was shot, she was tortured. And we broke up.

Gheordi: We didn’t know about each other anymore.

Urica: When we came back and came to the water, some people passed us by boat and wanted to drown us, to keep our horses. You understand, bădulești. And then I said: „I’m not going to cross the water, dad, because these bădulești scoundrels are drowning us.” And then a man went, another man, he went by boat to pass and brought a good boat back to pass us to our Romania, over here to Pasarabia. And we returned, may God keep us away of such suffering, full of lice and we ate what we could find, misery, torment… trouble. And my mom stayed over there, and our daddy came with us, shot as he was, wretched souls, troubled. Beaten by gendarmes and killed. They didn’t give us food. My uncle, Bucur, set fire to the kolkhoz because he had nothing to eat. He made a small fire to boil some potatoes, some food that he was making, and the kolkhoz caught fire with everything in it. We had lots of trouble and a lot of pain, God forbid! We were crying for each other. We saw the dead, that the blizzard had taken from us, and we saw the dead and how people ate each other, God forbid, like a dog eats. God forbid any more torment like these. And they took my gold, and they took my money, and they took all my father’s clothes and we remained naked, just like that. We returned naked, barefoot. We did not have anything left to put on our feet or to cloth with and we were tormented as God gave. From great gentlemen, we were left tormented that they took our gold and clothes, they took everything, the Russians. And they killed my father and mother.

Gheordi: The Germans.

Urica: The Germans. When we came to Găleni, in Romania, a lady put us in the cellar. She had known us since my father was young. „Get in here, brother” When we entered there, the Germans came to shoot us there, in the pit, in that cellar. Let’s kick the lady out. But we made the lady a gypsy and we put her among us. My father knew a little German: No stre leai. We are gypsies.” Țihani?” they entered the lady’s house and took her pigs, took her chickens, took everything from the house, killed everything, broke everything but they didn’t kill us because we were „țhanea”. We are Roma people. And they killed us and tormented us, God forbid. .

Kaisero: Our wealth remained there.

Urica: Everything remained there, I told you: „barefoot, naked. I saw the dead, my uncles died, all my relatives died, my grandmother died, all my relatives died. Only my father and my mother came shot and stayed in the hospital for five years each. And when they cut off my father’s leg, because he got cancer, the leg was shot, they operated on him 10 times, look here, like this on the leg.

Gheordi: Stop showing yourself.

Urica: Why should I not just show, he was my father. And in the end a lady came and made nine ties for him, and after that they didn’t cut off his leg.

LMC: And did he live after?

Urica. He lived.

Gheordi: Until I took her.

Urica: Yes, my mommy died. Understand?

LMC: When she returned from there.

Urica: When she came back, she died soon after. My daddy still lived for a time.

Gheordi: He was strong, that is how his kind were, strong people. Yes, pus was flowing from his foot for 2-3 years. The pus was flowing, but his heart was strong, and he didn’t die.

Urica: But my uncle died, my grandmother died, all my relatives died, and I had no one left. And when God gave and I came, my brother and two sisters died, and I cry out of anger when I remember.

LMC: Live long and be healthy!

Urica: May you live long too! And look how many people took money from Bug and I who saw the torment and suffered a lot and I saw my father, my brother and I lost them all, I didn’t take anything. I came so many kilometers on foot, on foot I came, from the Bug to Romania on foot.

LMC: Put your hope in God and he will take care of you.

Gheordi: We pray to Him.

Urica: By Gods willing, He will send us. And now, those people should send me because I was left poor and without a relative and I was tormented, God forbid. And I was 15 years old, and I was tormented, stupid and naked and lice were crawling on me, poor me.

LMC: Live long and be lucky!

Urica and Gheordi: Have a long life too!