Tag #136287 - Interview #78490 (Katalin Kallos Havas)

When my brother came home he joined the Party and immediately got himself a job in Kolozsvar. He became chief engineer at the pharmaceutical factory. In 1948 he was promoted and sent to Bucharest. Transylvanians were hunted because they were good professionals, and he became the executive manager of the national pharmaceutical industry. He had ministerial rank for twelve years. But then, in the 1960s, he was almost thrown out of the Party, and he was sacked from his job. The reason for this was that one of his colleagues emigrated to Israel and my brother was suspected of giving away secret information about the Romanian pharmaceutical industry to him. They thought the information was then sold in Israel. The pharmaceutical factory in Iasi was built in that period, and it was the first place in the country where penicillin was manufactured. They accused my brother’s friend of industrial espionage and my brother of being an accessory. This was all a fabrication. In the end my brother remained in the ministry as quality controller. He retired from there for health reasons, the result of the beating he had taken from the law students in 1940-1941. He still lives in Bucharest. He has a daughter, Eva, who emigrated to America. His wife, Rozsi, died of cancer.