Selected text
When the legionaries [9] started the ‘rebeliune’ [rebellion in Romanian] on 22nd-23rdJanuary 1941, the authorities considered them rebels, and anywhere there was any disorder, they didn’t hesitate. The gendarmerie from Torda also shot a man dead during the rebellion, at the haymarket. There was a square on the current road towards the Torda Gorge where they shot a man in the head for I don’t know what reason. As far as I remember his name was Coman.
There weren’t too many legionaries in Torda then, but they tried to do everything against the Jews. They hung printed publications on the stores: ‘Atentiune, magazin jidovesc!’ [Attention, Jewish store!]. They tortured some people only because they had a beard and payes. There were some anti-Semitic manifestations. When we went to school, there was always a group of pupils from the apprentice school, coming from or going, and they used to beat us everyday because we were Jews.
After liberation one of them became my friend and I asked him, ‘Hey you, why did you beat me up everyday ?’ He answered, ‘That was the custom then.’ They had an educator who was an earnest legionary, he made them report how many Jews they had beaten up, and so they had to beat us everyday. So he wasn’t hostile at all, but he used to do this. His name was Ioan Ros, and in the end we became friends. But he became a district attorney, then a public prosecutor of Sebes and Szaszvaros, and later the deputy public prosecutor of Deva, and finally the Secretarul Sfatului Regional Deva [Secretary of the regional council from Deva].
There weren’t too many legionaries in Torda then, but they tried to do everything against the Jews. They hung printed publications on the stores: ‘Atentiune, magazin jidovesc!’ [Attention, Jewish store!]. They tortured some people only because they had a beard and payes. There were some anti-Semitic manifestations. When we went to school, there was always a group of pupils from the apprentice school, coming from or going, and they used to beat us everyday because we were Jews.
After liberation one of them became my friend and I asked him, ‘Hey you, why did you beat me up everyday ?’ He answered, ‘That was the custom then.’ They had an educator who was an earnest legionary, he made them report how many Jews they had beaten up, and so they had to beat us everyday. So he wasn’t hostile at all, but he used to do this. His name was Ioan Ros, and in the end we became friends. But he became a district attorney, then a public prosecutor of Sebes and Szaszvaros, and later the deputy public prosecutor of Deva, and finally the Secretarul Sfatului Regional Deva [Secretary of the regional council from Deva].
Period
Location
Torda
Romania
Interview
Jozsef Farkas