Tag #123676 - Interview #78061 (tili solomon)

In 1941 there was the pogrom. Anti-Semitism burst out in Iasi. All the Jewish men on Socola, Nicolina and Crucii Streets were seized and taken to the bank of the Bahlui River, where machine guns had been installed, ready to shoot them. Only one neighbor got away. I think he had a mistress who lived opposite his house, a German woman who simply kept him at her place and refused to hand him over, although she already lived with a man. I later found out that this man was assigned to Tesatura [Editor's note: weaving mill in Iasi, founded before the war. In the communist period it became a state-owned textile enterprise.]; he was actually a German spy who had been sent to Romania. All the Jewish men were lined up on the river bank, ready to be executed. There was this police sergeant, Manuta; he had been a neighborhood policeman and knew all the Jews. He wasn't really an anti-Semite. He treated the neighborhood Jews decently. He often took bribes in order to let the merchants practice their trade in peace, but didn't ask for much; it was a way of making an extra buck.

It was Sunday. In that period he was the prefect's chauffeur. He drove downtown, he must have lived in Podul Ros, and saw what was happening on the river bank; he saw them [Jews] lying on the ground awaiting the execution. He probably went back and told the prefect about it. I don't know what really happened, but the fact is that they were all released instead of being shot. My father was among them. We didn't even know what was going on in the city. [Editor's note: Mrs. Solomon can't tell precisely how the release order was issued, but she thinks it was a less official action; she suspects Manuta of having persuaded the prefect.