Tag #129507 - Interview #84078 (Roseanu Oscar)

One day the minister of education was summoned at the Politburo. Someone had ‘told on me’ and had depicted me in positive terms, so the minister was ordered to find me a position with the State control. I worked at the State Control Commission for 8 years, until 1960. That was a repressive mechanism. All our reports began with: ‘The school’s management failed to…’ No good words there. I was in charge with inspecting high schools and universities. I reported to the minister in matters concerning the higher education and to the deputy minister in matters concerning the high school education. There was a hierarchy that had to be followed.

There was a furniture factory in Arad. They made some extraordinary pieces of sculpted furniture! 11 general managers from the ministry had placed an order there. One of my teams was making an inspection in Arad and they called me: ‘Could you come over here? There’s something you should see!’ The managers had only paid the production costs, claiming the furniture had been manufactured by some school. They had some pupils and teachers from the vocational school accompany the furniture as it traveled to Bucharest by train. Then they had them assemble the furniture at their places, without offering them a glass of water. I informed the management of the ministry – Murgulescu was the minister at the time. He was summoned by the State Control Commission and was asked to dismiss all the 11 managers. He did that. One of them was transferred to the University; another went to some other place and so on. I personally knew one of them; his name was Borca and he had been the head of the education section in Timisoara, while I was at the Canal. He said: ‘I will pursue this Roseanu guy for as long as I live! I won’t let him get away with it!’ Meanwhile the State Control was dissolved. They sought to provide honorable positions for us.