Tag #127041 - Interview #78410 (Ticu Goldstein)

During the Antonescu-Sima [8] government, when the Legionaries [9] had the power and terrorized the Jewish population, I went through an experience that I would like to share with you. My father had a co-worker named Marcel Carlin, who had come from Russia. When the man saw that the times were hard and troubled in Romania, he decided to go back to Russia with his wife and children. So we all met on an October evening, in 1940, at the place of a relative of his who lived on Vacaresti Ave., in order to say good-bye. Suddenly, a group of Legionaries burst in, accusing us that we were having a Bolshevik meeting and asking for money in return for their ‘forgiveness’. We quickly made a collection and gave them the money. The problem was that my father’s friend had the passports for Russia on him and, should the Legionaries have found them, they would have probably killed us all. So, taking advantage of a momentary lack of attention, he hid the papers in the children’s pockets, which the Legionaries would have never thought to search. (This friend of my father’s eventually managed to get to Russia. Unfortunately, he was assassinated because he sold bread and an inspection revealed some problems. Whether these problems were real or not, I don’t know – this is how things went during the war.