Selected text
My parents owned a store until 1943. Then things got really hard… Here’s what happened. The store sold most of the items needed in the countryside: tobacco, alcohol, petrol, cotton, sugar, and so on and so forth. But the State began to enforce its monopoly in trading most of these goods; they started with tobacco and alcohol, but didn’t stop there. Soon, the items that my father could sell legally were limited to so few (candy, flour etc.), that the store couldn’t secure our living anymore. My parents had a very hard time.
Today I have this little home and a small pension – but it’s already more than we had back then… If they bought food, they ran out of money and couldn’t renew the store’s supplies anymore… Plus they had to provide clothes for the two sons who went to work [in the forced labor detachments] – and the Army didn’t give them anything. And there were three more children at home to take care of. Things were very, very tough. You can’t imagine how tough they were unless you were there… This is what happened in 1943.
Today I have this little home and a small pension – but it’s already more than we had back then… If they bought food, they ran out of money and couldn’t renew the store’s supplies anymore… Plus they had to provide clothes for the two sons who went to work [in the forced labor detachments] – and the Army didn’t give them anything. And there were three more children at home to take care of. Things were very, very tough. You can’t imagine how tough they were unless you were there… This is what happened in 1943.
Period
Year
1943
Location
Romania
Interview
Zoltan Blum