FROM ROMANIA TO ISRAEL: TWO WAVES, TWO PEOPLES
Can
you tell us about your roots?
My
father was an engineer, my mother was a lawyer. She passed
the bar in 1935, and the following year all Jews were
disbarred. From that point onward, my mother worked in her
father's business producing detergents. She later returned
to the law after the war when the Jews were reinstated in
1945. My father had a good heart which got him into trouble
with the communists in the 1950’s. One of his employees was
an embezzler, and my father offered financial support.
Under Communism, embezzlement and fraud were not civil
violations but crimes against the state. After a second
request for assisstance, my father renounced the guy. The
authorities uncovered the embezzlement and my father
testified against him in criminal court. You would think
that testifying for the prosecution would bring some merit
from the authorities but the opposite effect occurred: he
was prosecuted. "Why did you help him in the first place?"
This trial against my father ate up a good part of our
family income.
What was Romania's position during W. W. II?
Romania was not conquered by the Nazis, but joined the Axis
as a willing ally. So unlike the conquered territories of
Poland and the Ukraine, the Germans were not directly
running the country from above. There were some good
repercussions: we were not all summarily sent off to death
camps. In Bucharest, and in a part of Romania called
Valachia, the Jews were persecuted but not killed.
Moreover, the Romanians thought it better to keep the Jews
"on our side." Then in 1944, when the defeat of the Third
Reich became imminent, the Romanians switched sides and
joined the Russians against Germany.
And
after the war?
In
1947, the Romanian king abdicated and moved to Switzerland.
He still abides there today. Israel became a state in 1948.
At the time, Russia voted for Israeli independance, so the
Romanian government allowed many Jews to leave. My parents
sold all their belongings in preparation to leave but were
suddenly denied exit visas. They were intellectuals and the
government, trying to stave off a brain drain, wanted to
keep them.
How
was life under communism?
Under
communism, everything belonged to the state. There was no
such thing as private property. The state assumed ownership
of all companies and commercial enterprises. Bulgaria
allowed private property but not Romania. I had an uncle
who owned ten apartments – they were all
‘nationalized’,
or in other words confiscated by the government. Apartments
were allocated and you lived where you were told. My aunt’s
property was confiscated and she was forced into a large 4
bedroom apartment shared with 4 different families, one of
these being the previous owner of the building! They had to
share one bathroom and one kitchen. And these were wealthy
people.
Were
the police a problem?
The
Romanian equivalent of the KGB was the Securitate. In this
sense, Romania was worse than other communist block
countries. A famous defector from the Securiate, General
Ion Pacepa, has written a book about the methods of the
secret service in Romania. He mentions that every third
person in Romania was somehow working for the Securitate,
either willingly or by coercion. There were microphones at
every table in every restaurant. All telephones were
bugged. In country areas the party had a problem: how do
you monitor the peasants who did not own telephones. The
problem was solved by providing radios with bugs!
But
eventually you were allowed to leave?
In
general, the Jews were accepted as a national minority.
Many were intellectuals and well immersed in the economic
and cultural life of the country. At one time, the chief
Rabbi, Dr Mozes Rosen was a member of parliament. With the
birth of the state of Israel, the first wave of Jews left
in 1950. We joined the second wave in 1959. Perhaps our
departure was a stroke of luck. We had a neighbor who was a
policeman. My father was then in charge of installing an
air-conditioning system in a large hospital. Somebody under
him sold various components of the system on the black
market and the installation could not be completed. A case
was being built against my father, quite wrongly, on the
charge of theft. Our neighbor the policeman let on that the
investigator looking into my father’s case had taken a
vacation. We took advantage of the situation and swiftly
departed. It was a tough move. My father was already 50,
and emigrating to a new country was very, very hard on him.
What
later happened in Romania?
Ceausescu
came to power in 1965. At the time, the Comintern
designated Romania as a warehouse of agricultural produce.
Ceausescu desperately wanted to escape this designation and
became obsessed with industrialization. He forced field
workers into factories, and built the largest steel mill in
Europe. After emigrating to Israel, I became involved with
importating steel from Romania. The price was very good,
but the quality was crap, full of impurities. Whatever
could go bad with the stuff did. And in the factories, many
people were injured and killed during production. The end
result of this stupid policy was that agriculture was
neglected, and industry grew poorly because farmers do not
make good workers. So Ceausescu managed to destroy two
birds with one stone. Romania would later be starving.
Who
gave Ceausescu the title, "Genius of the Carpathians?"
Himself,
of course! And he bestowed titles on his wife. She was a
fraudulent scientist and Ceausescu had the university in
Bucharest award her a Ph.D. There are some scholarly
publications with her name all ghost written. There was a
funny joke about the two of them. Ceausescu is speaking
with a Romanian astronaut who returns after a mission on a
Russian vessel. Ceausescu inquires "How was your journey in
space?" The astronaut: “overall it was good but I had some
problems with the laws of gravity.” That night, Ceausescu
relates the story to his wife and scratches his head, "The
astronaut said he had problems with the laws of gravity,
but to tell the truth, I don't remember passing any such
laws." His wife responds, "I'm sorry I can't help you. My
specialty is science, not law."
But
externally, Romania was viewed differently?
Historically,
the Romanians were less hateful toward the Jews than either
the Russians or Poles. For this reason, over the years, in
the 18th and 19th centuries, many Jews, including my
family, left these countries and settled in Romania.
Romania was trying to look different from the communist
block and even kept up ties with Israel after 1967 when the
other communist countries cut relations. Externally,
Ceasescu looked pro-western and was friendly with the US,
even to the extent of participating in the Los Angeles
Olympics in 1984-- flagrantly disobeying the Soviet lead
boycott. But internally, the dreadful economy coupled with
the overbearing security apparatus made Romania the worst
possible place to be in the communist block.
And now?
Now
there are less than 10,000 Jews in Romania. Most are old
people who do not want to move, and some are married to
gentiles which makes emigration to Israel a little harder.
At the present, there are some Israelis going back to
Romania because land is so cheap and because it is
considered a place with good prospects for the future (The
country will become a EU member in 2007). The economy is
bad, but if you have any money, you can live well. The
average salary is $100 a month, $200 is very good. And on
the other hand, many Romanians are going to work in Israel.
They are taking jobs vacated by Palestinians after the
second intifada. It truly is amazing, the way peoples flow
from one country to another.
Note: Rafael now lives in Columbus,
Ohio.