Tag #137789 - Interview #101975 (Alexandru Kohn)

I recall from the time of my childhood that a group of legionaries once entered our shop in Beliu and said, ‘It’s over for you, Yid! You have stolen our wealth, and what you own doesn’t belong to you! And you have to give it back!’ The presence of the legionaries probably had something to do with one of our apprentices. None of our apprentices were Jewish, but they took meals with us and were like a part of the family. My father presided over acquisition and selling, but it was my mother who was responsible for the supervision of the apprentices. She discovered that one of the apprentices was stealing and told him, ‘Listen Iosif, I kindly ask you to be honest. Be honest and don’t pilfer anymore.’ This probably upset him, and he soon became a legionary and started causing troubles for us. His name was Negui Iosif.

The whole situation with the legionaries was something of a nightmare. They came and brought us to the cemetery. They probably wanted to kill us. My parents were frightened, and the legionaries threatened to take the shop. They kept us in a state of terror in the cemetery for over an hour. At one point a car came, as the Jewish cemetery was along the road to Beliu. The legionaries weren’t happy about seeing the lights, and so they let us go. We came home, but I remember that from that moment we didn’t sleep alone. A woman or a man from the village would stay with us because my parents were overcome with fear.