Hermina Vlasopolos - April 9, 1984
Fate of Fiancé
Yeah, yeah. Uh, when you went to Rajimar, what happened to your fiancé?
He uh, he, he had died. I mean, I, I met his brother and uh, the fact was that this man, you know, whom I came on the train uh, it, it is absolutely unbelievable not, not Mikos, I mean the one who was the musician. It was another one who was a, a lawyer. And he said, well I was--we had in our prison camp a man from Oradea and he told me the name, you know, of my fiancé. And he said, he, "I assure you that he's okay. He's at home. You'll find him there when you go home." When I go, I went there, he, he wasn't there. And with his brother I went to the Russian--I don't know, they had there, you know, organization...
Yeah.
...and so on--and they uh, they didn't tell me anything. And only after five years because uh, I, I was really--mostly because those men told me that he was alive, you know.
Right, right.
Uh, they told me that he died because he learned how to pilot an airplane in, in Russia.
Yeah.
Now the Russians, you know, used those, those people because they were Anti-Fascists fighters. You know, it was this uh, I mean, this organization of anti-Fascist fighters. And uh, he uh, he said that he has to go home earlier than the others. And he got into a plane and he got shot down.
Oh.
I mean, we heard this from one of his comrades. And it was only five years after that. Officially we never heard anything, but the guy told us that he wa...he wanted to go with him and he got drunk. You know, it was after the war and everybody. And then he said, "Well, it, it was not meant for me to die." Because then they heard that this airplane was shot down, over, already almost over Romania, where the Germans were retiring then. Because they, they came--he told me that he would be, he would be home earlier because he, he left, I probably will find him home. And uh, it was only then that I--it was also a friend of mine who kept on telling me that you cannot wait forever.
Yeah. FL And I said, I have to wait until I know what, because, you know...
Sure.
...I, I became a normal person again. And uh, he uh, then I heard that he died. But nobody--only one brother who was not in camp, I mean uh, remained. And he was married and his wife didn't come back and his parents didn't come back. And he really was also quite--I don't know. I, I didn't see him because I went to Bucharest and then he, he moved to another part of the country. He remarried. Then I left and I don't know anything about...
Okay.
...about him anymore. But from my parents, his family I think there were forty people.
From your fiancé's family?
Yes. There were aunts and uncles and cousins and grandmother. He had a grandmother who was eighty-four and uh, of course, probably she died first.
Sure.
And a brother who was only thirteen. And I don't think they uh, they let him surv...
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