Hermina Vlasopolos - April 9, 1984
Life Before the War
Mm-hm.
And uh, I was happy when I arrived in Chernowitz and I was with my grandmother because at least there was something stable for me, you know, and uh, I went back to, to college and then I got the job as a teacher. And uh, thing uh, things changed. I was uh, when I was already in Oradea already, you know, it was, in Hungarian it was called Nagyvárad and in German when it was Austria it was also Grosswardein. Um, I uh, I was also in a boar...it, it was a boarding school. Now, school was connected with the boarding institute and I lived there. I mean, I was there and another colleague of mine. The other teachers were not uh, you know, didn't live in school. But not having family there I was happy, you know, to have my room there and to have the meals with the kids and so on. And uh, and they closed the schools. I mean, they took them, they took actually away the schools from the Jews, the Jewish schools. And uh, I started to have, you know, the uh, students uh, at home. Well, this was until--I arrived there in '42, and uh, in '44 I met, I mean, I, I, I made friends, you know, and uh, I uh, I had quite, quite a lot of friends and I met good friends. And uh, all of us lived under--I don't know, you know, it was better in Hungary than it was in Romania at the time. Because in Hungary Horthy was--a region of Hungary was still able to-- many people said that his wife was uh, was Jewish, you know, and that he still able, you know, to impose uh, his, his point of view to the government. And it was better for the Jews. So when--actually in 19--I mean, I was in Oradea in '42. I, I--the change, when they gave away Transylvania caught me there. And I called my, my aunt, I called my family. I didn't have parents and I didn't know what to do. If I did come with the exchange of population or not. Of course, they had a three-day exchange of population. They said, "My God, what are you going to do? You are"--you know, I was twenty-two...
Mm-hm.
...and, uh--wait, it cannot be that it will be, last only three days because there are so many people who, Hungarian who lived in, you know, in the...
Mm-hm.
...southern part of Transylvania because when the northern part was ceded uh, wanted to come back to, to the part which became Hungary. The, the Romanians who lived in the northern part of Transylvania wanted to go in the southern part, you know, which became Romania. And people were, you know, if you can imagine it, it's a, a mob, it's not uh, you know, organized, the exchange of population. So people were traveling on the roof of the trains, you know, and the, holding on the steps and so on. So they told me, "For the moment it's bad over here so stay there." But after three days the borders were really locked. And mostly for the Jewish people, no question about. So nobody was able to go back and forth. And uh, I remained there, you know. The situation worsened, because at the time when, when I called them up and asked them, I was still in school and I was teaching. It worsened and uh, like everybody, you know, I uh, I had to adapt to the, to the situation. It was impossible to find another job. And to give you an example, first of all, all the jobs were like this: Ethnic origin required.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn