Rodica and Oscar Roseanu

Rodica and Oscar Roseanu in 1953, in the Sureanu Mountains in Jiu Valley. As newlyweds, we used to spend our vacations in the vicinity of Petrosani.

My wife, Rodica Roseanu [nee Teodoru] was born in Craiova, in 1926. We got married in 1951, in Bucharest. My name is Oscar Roseanu [changed in 1947 from Oszkar Rosenfeld]. I was born in Petrosani, on 2nd May 1923. I went to college in Bucharest and started a new life. I graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Chemistry of the University of Bucharest.

There's a story behind everything. I received a vacation ticket to Sovata [Ed. note: Spa located in the center of Romania, in Mures County]. I came across a former fellow-student; he was there with his wife and with a young lady who was to become my wife. We were planning to go on a trip in an open bus ? it was a delight to ride in one of those things. My future wife was being courted by an accountant from the Ministry of Light Industry. He didn't let her out of his sight and he invited her to join us in the trip to Borsec. When we got on the bus, I sat next to her; there wasn?t any room left for the dear accountant, so he had to sit at the back? We began to talk and we hit it off. During the trip, we were together all the time and the accountant was left aside. I invited my mother to spend a few days in Borsec with me. I introduced the girl to her and my mother liked her from the start. I told her that I would be delighted if she would make a stop in Petrosani on her way to Craiova, so that my father could meet her too. Then it was her turn to ask me to make a stop in Craiova on my way to Bucharest, so that she could introduce me to her family. Things went very fast. When she came to Bucharest, I picked her up from the station. We got on a taxi and this is where I proposed to her.

After we got married, we led a modest life. My wife was still a student when we got married. Our child must have been 2 years old or so when Rodica took the admission exam at the Faculty of Philosophy; the kid was walking in the halls of the faculty that day. We spent each vacation in Petrosani, at my parents'. They filled our backpacks with food and we went hiking. We went to Straja, near Lupeni, and to Surieni. We once walked for 9 hours - we made long trips. We went to Parang many times - I lost count. Both my wife and I enjoyed hiking in the mountains. It was a true hobby.

Rodica worked in education her entire life. In 1955 she was assigned to the Academy of Economic Sciences, where she worked at the Marxism-Leninism department, but not for long. She was a tutor, then a university assistant, but they fired her in 1957, on racial grounds. They got rid of all the Jews - it was their way of 'duly addressing' the 'ethnic problem'. Of course, they didn't say it, but that was the hidden meaning. She worked at School no.64, then at some other school, and then she got transferred to the 'Mihai Viteazul' High School, where she worked until she retired, in 1983.

At the education section, my responsibilities included endowing the existing schools and establishing the locations for the new schools. It is with pleasure that I remember how I used to organize school camps. As long as I worked there, I organized all the camps around Bucharest, including a large camp in Snagov. It was a real adventure. At the opposite end of the lake, towards Gruiu [Ed. note: a commune near Bucharest], lay the former CFR pool; the place was deserted, but I can't remember why. We chose it for our location! There were still some shower cabins and a sort of terrace. We turned the cabins into dormitories that could accommodate 3-4 kids in each room. But who had heard of a camp without tents? We needed some tents to make the place look like a real camp! But where could we find tents? We first went to the Ministry of Agriculture; they had tents, but they needed them for agricultural works through the entire summer. We found out that the Securitate had military tents. Where's that? In Constanta. We got on a small truck and went to Constanta. They had border tents. 'And how do you plan to carry them?' - 'We came in a small truck!' - 'You must be kidding. One single tent weighs 80 kilograms!' The tents were huge; they had windows, doors, and scaffolding. We found some trucks at the public transportation company, but they wouldn't let us go all the way to Bucharest. Eventually, we persuaded them. The axles had a hard time coping with the iron structures. When we tried to install the tents we realized no one knew how. Teachers and foremen just stood there and didn't know what to do. I phoned to Constanta. 'If you want us to show you how to do it, you have to come over here!' So I went to Constanta again and the guy drew a diagram. Before handing it to me, he asked: 'But what's in it for me?' This is how things went. I had to give him wine and things like that to make him show me the diagram. I came back to Bucharest and had my people work for I don't know how long. I arranged with a scene decorator from the Opera to have some large drawings with scenes from 'Capra cu trei iezi' [Ed. note: 'The goat with three cubs', a famous Romanian tale written by Ion Creanga.] and 'The Sleeping Beauty' installed in the woods, attached to the trees. The children walked in the forest and came across the goat and its three cubs. A whole story!