Gavril Marcuson with Cornelia Paunescu and dr. Balla

This photo was taken in Geneva (Switzerland) at the headquarters of the World Health Organization, on 27th July 1977. From left to right: me, Gavril Marcuson, my wife, Cornelia Paunescu and dr. Balla, the manager of the World Health Organization. My name is Gavril Marcuson [the initial name, Marcussohn, was shortened to Marcuson in 1968]. I was born in Bucharest, on 28th October 1913. I graduated from the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in Bucharest in 1935. I was a researcher at the Communist Party History Institute. I had some books and articles published. I retired while I was working for the Scientific and Encyclopedic Publishing House, in 1973. My wife, Cornelia Paunescu, was a scientist and she lectured at over thirty international conventions. She was the only Romanian docent with a PhD in pediatric otolaryngology - that was her specialty. As a physician, she attended the Korean War [Ed. note: 25th June 1950-27th July 1953] against the Americans and was the personal physician of Kim Il Sung [Ed. note: (1912-1994), president of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from 1948]. There were doctors from all the other socialist countries there - East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, China. One day Kim Il Sung got sick and he asked who the best doctor was. So my wife treated him, and Kim Il Sung invited us to North Korea twice. We went many places [together]: England, East Germany, Italy, Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Turkey.