This is me, Gabor Lazar, when I was young. The photo was taken in the 1950s.
I graduated from the Medical University in Marosvasarhely in 1953, with honors.
In 2003 we had the 50th anniversary class reunion at the university; I got a golden diploma, they gave it to those who were alive.
There were 120 of us who graduated that year, there were only 39 of us still alive.
Doctors, pharmacists. And we had the 55th anniversary high school reunion in 2002.
I took the state examination in 1953, and then the placements followed.
They held a general assembly, but before that they called me into the Rector’s Office, Dr. Andrasovszky was the rector of the university, he was a neurosurgeon.
He started to ask me about where I wanted to work. Well, I didn’t know at all what to say.
He then said, ‘Our party needs comrade Lazar here, in Marosvasarhely, in an institute, at the Blood Collection and Storage Centre.’
Well, I answered, if this is it, alright, it’s fine with me.’ ‘Please be so kind as to confirm this in the afternoon, at the assembly.’ And he said, ‘Congratulations for your degree with honors.’
Those of us who received such a red certificate with honors could choose our place of work.
But why did I get to the Blood Collection and Storage Center? Because a few Securitate-men were referred there, and I don’t know what type of blood-plasma they were given, that a little water from the Maros river had poured into it; the blood-plasma was infected, because it was collected using primitive means, with the pump mounted on the water pipes, and all the Securitate-men had shivers.
I don’t know about anybody who had died, but they carried out a serious investigation among the doctors, and many left.
There weren’t enough workers, they needed young people.
That’s how I became the consulting doctor for three years at the Blood Collection and Storage Center in Marosvasarhely.
In the meantime I was sent to Bucharest in 1954, to the hematological centre; it's called the Institutul de Hematologie si Transfuzie [Hematological and Blood Transfusion Institute].
I got my qualification in blood transfusion; I was the first physician in Marosvasarhely who had a certificate in this. Nobody wanted to go to this course.
My brother was working there, my mother was there, so I presented myself. I went there, finished the course and got a qualification. I came back to Marosvasarhely, and I lived there until 1956.
