Tag #129488 - Interview #84078 (Roseanu Oscar)

An interesting thing is that, in 1944, when I came back to Petrosani, the Jews were fewer than before. Some had left. The Jewish community tried to regain its daily routine. And it felt as if the Jewish youth had got more united – we all joined the Ihud [the Zionist Social-Democratic Party]. We organized a club and we even had a band… Our drummer, Tiberiu, later became the national vice-president of the Investment Bank. I played the accordion, another fellow played the violin, and this was our little band. On every Sunday night of the month of January, there was a ball: the Firemen’s Ball, the Small Craftsmen’s Ball, the Physicians’ Ball, and the Jewish Tradesmen’s Ball. The most popular was the Jewish Tradesmen’s Ball; the entire town’s elite was there and everyone struggled to get tickets for that ball, not just the Jews. This tradition went on until 1948, when the ‘ethnic problem’ was ‘duly addressed’ and things fell apart. The nationalizations [10] and the mass emigration [11] of the Jews in our town began. For instance, the fabric store of the Schweber brothers was given to a worker; it took him only one week to destroy everything. Business in Petrosani had a lot to lose.