Tag #138647 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

I joined the Red Aid in 1937, or maybe earlier. This meant I collected 1,000 lei from 4 or 5 people and handed it over to another person, let's say to you. I don't know what you'll do with it. You only know you got 1,000 lei from Sauber and Ausch. Then you pass it to Grun. Grun doesn't know where the money is from, he only knows you gave it to him. Grun collected such money from 8 people and gave it to Schwarz. [Editor's note: The above people are employees of the Jewish community, and Mr. Bernat used them only to illustrate the situation.] They gave the collected money to families of people who had been sentenced to prison due to their activities as communists. Or if they were social democrats and they needed help. They had nothing to sustain themselves if the head of the family was convicted, and the duty of the Red Aid was to help them out. They even sent packages to the prisons using different cover-names, this also was their activity. This was entirely illegal, since the communist party was banned both in Romania and Hungary. The Red Aid, apart from this assistance, never organized any meetings. Its members knew absolutely nothing about the other members.