Tag #127771 - Interview #89861 (Dan Mizrahy)

At the beginning of 1949 – in February, to be more precise – the radio announced a contest to fill five vacant positions of ‘sound masters.’ The average that I got after the commission examined me placed me in the first position. I was 23. Shortly after the results were made official, I was visited by a ‘comrade’ named Katzenstein, who introduced himself as the ‘head of personnel of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company.’ After a formal handshake, he told me he was in charge of ‘running a check’ on me before I could be hired for the position that I had already earned through the contest. He called me to his office and he actually investigated me! Katzenstein’s verdict was: taken into consideration the fact that I had left for Palestine with my uncle, counsel Leon Mizrachi, former president of the Zionist organizations in Romania, as well as the fact that I had returned, while he had stayed in Israel, I may have returned as his agent or… in order to make Zionist propaganda in the People’s Republic of Romania! Because of that, I was not trustworthy and I could not be hired by the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company… I think it’s worth mentioning that ten years later, Comrade Katzenstein, recently dismissed from the Radio Company because he had filed for emigration to Israel, could be seen in Sf. Gheorghe Square, selling the ‘Informatia Bucurestiului’ [‘Bucharest’s Information’] newspaper!