This is Academy member Miltiade Filipescu, head of the Paleontology Department at the University, born in 1901, on the steps of the Geology Institute on Kiseleff Dr., myself and my fellow-student, after we came back, in 1957 or 1958. She's the fellow-student from Leningrad, a Jewish girl, Gertrude Rado, a lecturer at the University. We went to the same college and we both left for Leningrad.
I could tell you many stories about my student days. God, so many things happened in Russia! My life was filled with events. Mr. Macovei, a professor, ended up loving me. After I came back, he started calling me 'Russian girl!' Not Mira, not Tudor, not anything else. Even if we were in the corridor and there were students watching, he still called me 'Russian girl'. I adored him too. He set the direction, to say so. When I came back from the USSR, I possessed three great disadvantages: I was a Party member, I was Jewish, and I had studied in Russia. I had to overcome these three handicaps. It took me more than one year or two. After four or five years, my colleagues finally realized what kind of person I was; and I started to enjoy some appreciation from the students too. Then my life continued in a nice way.
I spent 35 years in the same department, between 1948 and 1983. I think this says a lot. I didn't have to change my workplace, I didn't have any conflicts. I was the only Jew in the entire faculty. I didn't try to hide it. It would have been foolish to pretend I was Romanian just because my husband was. They knew I was Jewish, but didn't mind. Mr. Macovei was followed by another Academy member, Murgeanu, who loved me too. Then came the third head of the department, Theodor Joja; he also loved me. They were all fond of me, they protected me, and they prevented any tendency of anti-Semitic manifestations towards me. I couldn't say they all loved Jews, because I would be lying. But if some of them were anti-Semites, I never felt it. I only had a problem once. The Romanian Geology lecture was free, and Mr. Joja said 'Let's give it to Mira Tudor'. It was a very difficult and rather boring lecture. In general, geology is not a fun subject. A lecturer - God forgive him, for I did - rose against this suggestion: 'Why would she of all people hold the lecture on Romanian Geology?' He meant that a Jew didn't fit the profile. Poor Dragos had it coming - they all were against him. Ionel Motas, who was my assistant, told me about it: 'Dragos had better swallowed his tongue than speak his mind.' I held the lecture in honorable conditions.
