Tag #123734 - Interview #78460 (Isac Tinichigiu)

After that, I started to talk with my colleagues in the apprentice school about ethnic issues. They talked me into joining an organization, Dror [3], which prepared young Jews for immigrating to Israel. It was while I was in Dror that I first found out some things about Jewish history: the scattering of Jews all over Europe, about the atrocities that were taking place in Germany and about the existence of the Soviet Union, where everyone worked for themselves and where there was no bourgeoisie. Then I remembered how hard my father worked and how, despite that, some winters we barely had food on the table, and I became aware for the first time of class differences. I was old enough to remember the invasion of Poland [4], the Anschluss [5] of Austria, the occupation of Czechoslovakia [see Munich Pact] [6]. We talked about these things in the organization. And I witnessed, back then, the flight of Poles through Moldavia to Constanta; they were trying to leave Europe. [Constanta is a Romanian port at the Black Sea.] And I remember discussions among Jews that stated that we would share their fate if Hitler took over Romania as well. I was afraid, and so were my parents.