Tag #120885 - Interview #87387 (Rifca Segal)

In 1977 I wanted to go to Israel myself. My husband was more fearful than me: “What if the Securitate calls us for an inquiry?” I said: “If they call us, fine, let them take away our jobs.” I was a chief accountant, I would have been the one they would have demoted. And even if they fired me, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. I was an accountant. But they would have kicked him out of the educational system for good. And one day I got mad, I didn’t go home after work, I went to the Public Garden, which is very beautiful. My husband phoned at my workplace, he phoned my friends, I was nowhere to be found. He suspected something, and he came to look for me in the garden. And he saw me, he came and sat beside me. I didn’t want to talk to him. But we didn’t have arguments. I can say it actually was an ideal marriage. And he said: “Tomorrow we go and we draw the paperwork to be granted permission to go to Israel.” And then I said: “We had to get to this point, me not returning home from work?” “Fine. What if the Securitate calls us in for an inquiry?” We were lucky, I believe it was a once-in-10-million chance. They didn’t call us in before we left, nor after we returned. It was enough for them to call you there and ask you: “Whom did you meet there? What did you talk about?” For it was a matter of state treason. We had such a blind luck. They probably gathered information about us, they knew what sort of people we were. We were both fearful by nature. Oh my, had they called us in, I think I would have gone insane. They didn’t call us in, neither me, nor my husband.

We stayed there for a month. But a nephew of mine – the son of Itic, my husband’s brother – was getting married 10 days after our residence permit expired. And you could ask to prolong it. My husband and I: “Oh my, they will say we defected, that we aren’t coming back. My mother is there.” My mother was still alive. “The Securitate will call her in for an interrogation. They will torture her.” My husband: “No, we’re not staying for the wedding.” It was his nephew. I said: “I want to stay for the wedding. What is 10 more days…” And that’s when I telephoned my director, and told him: “File a request in my name, to prolong our residence permit, a leave of absence without pay for 10 days.” And he filed the request. When I returned, the Securitate didn’t call us in, or anything like that. But my director told me: “Why did you telephone me? They called me in, they asked me what you told me.” And we had made a mistake, for we had greatly wronged him. For they [the Securitate] intercepted everything that came from abroad. And they thought we were communicating using I don’t know what code. Oh dear, how it was in those days!