Bert Dan - November 17, 1982
Arriving Back in Cluj
It was winter too, wasn't it?
It was cold. It wasn't winter yet. There, there were no snow on the ground yet, you know, but it was--it was the end of October, not middle of October, middle of October. So it was a very chilly night and so on, but it wasn't uh, there was no really--so we could stand it. And we walked all the way and finally we made it home--and I call it a home. There was nothing uh, no--my mother and my sisters, everybody was gone and all the Jews--everybody, everybody was gone. And in my hometown I found at that time when I got home--it must have been around the 20th of October, October 21st--there were about five Jewish people who also survived, somehow, somewhere, you know, along the line, and they were home already and we were next group, you know. And uh, as I say, we started recognizing a little committee, and we had a--we took ourselves a room in the Jewish Community Center and we started organizing and find out what's going on with the rest of 'em and if there is anybody coming home. We started collecting a little food here and there, you know, in order to make it easier for the others who are coming, coming in. And uh, which was a very, very fulfilling, you know, it was a good feeling to know that we are free again and we are able to help people and so on--which was a very good feeling for all of us. And uh, by the end of the year, around the end of December we had quite a few people, a few hundred people that came back and uh, we were all like one family, you know. We were all together again. Some of them knew how to cook and, you know.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn