Tag #151719 - Interview #78100 (Lazar Gurfinkel)

We heard on the radio that Bessarabia was to become a part of the USSR a day before the Soviet army units came to town. They entered it in the fall of 1940. Almost all Romanians had left their homes the night before. We had nowhere to go. On the first days of the Soviet power we were told about equal rights, freedom and the brotherhood of all people. Later we found out that people were arrested for no reason and put to prisons without a trial. Many wealthier people perished in prisons in the first days of the Soviet regime. Then the authorities turned to the middle class. They took away our pharmacy. We were afraid of further actions on their part, but they left us alone.