Part III. Europe

16. RUMANIA, VANISHING EDEN

THE night was cold. The general mood was a grim one. As the sun rose we docked at the small port of Ackerman. There we were met by Germans who were to take care of the seven big barges full of Volksdeutsche. The Rumanian officials watched our debarkation but took no part in it.

All of us, in the course of several hours, were taken to a movie house, in front of which smoke was already rising from two field kitchens; the people who had arrived before us were wandering around armed with spoons and dishes.

Having piled our baggage in the foyer of the theatre and eaten some German rations, Igor, Zina, and I went out into the streets, leaving Nina and her grandmother to guard our belongings as usual. We found a small square, where we seated ourselves on a bench and began to discuss our situation. It could be summed up as follows:

We had left Russia and were now in Rumania.

We did not know Rumanian, except for a couple of hundred words.

All our resources were in German marks, which the Rumanians did not want to change into their lei. The official rate of exchange was one to sixty, but on the black market, as we had learned immediately, marks did not bring more than 1o per cent of their nominal value.

We had no official right to live in Rumania. We were there thanks only to the Germans, and we would have to take our cue from them whether we wanted to or not.

To go on with the Volksdeutsche shipment was highly undesirable. Safe in my pocket I had a paper which I had received from the German kommandatura of Odessa stating that we had permission to proceed to the Austrian town of Graz. Why had I named Graz, when I had been asked where I wanted to go, I don’t know. I did not want to go to Germany proper, and the story that I had relatives in Graz seemed to slip from my lips. The lieutenant who was questioning me said, ‘This is very pleasant; I’m from Graz too. What street do your relatives live in?’

‘On Adolf Hitler Platz,’ I said, looking him straight in the eye and only blushing slightly. I still don’t know whether there was a square named for Adolf Hitler in Graz, but the lieutenant did not say anything more and wrote out the document.

Now, looking back on this incident after a span of years, I think that perhaps it was not an accident that I named Graz as my destination. If so, a happy one. It happened that at that time my future wife was there. I did not know her or have the slightest inkling of her existence at the time. But that’s the way it happened.

It meant that I would have to part with my dear Aunt Shura and her daughter, who were tied to the Volksdeutsche by Tamara’s marriage and did not want to leave their chance countrymen. Yet I had to set out to find the local German kommandatura. It was located in a small house and was in complete chaos. The commandant, a fat captain and two corporals, his assistants, had just arrived that morning. They were busy carrying boxes of papers into their new offices under the contemptuous glances of passing Rumanians. Pulling out a packet of all kinds of papers, I explained to the commandant that we needed one more document, which would enable us to travel through Rumania without risk of being stopped by the local police.

‘Are you sure that I have the right to issue such a document?’ he asked me.

‘Of course! A document issued by a German Army commandant on Rumanian territory will be binding on the local authorities.’

‘But what do I have to write in it?’

I began to explain, but he interrupted me.

‘I see that you know more about being a commandant than I do. This is the first time I’ve been appointed to the job. So write out whatever is necessary yourself – I don’t even have a typewriter – and bring it to me; I’ll sign it.’

In order to take full advantage of this arrangement, I found a lawyer’s office where they were willing to let me use a typewriter and typed out a Marschbefehl in language which was forceful but not enough so to arouse the commandant’s suspicions. He signed it almost without looking and stamped it. After leaving his office I hesitated for a while and then went back to the same typewriter and added on the top of the document ‘Wehrmachtsgefolge. Reisst in zivil’. This meant that I was in some way connected with the German Army without actually being military, and that I was travelling in civilian clothes. The reason for this was very simple, and we reaped its benefits immediately: in a couple of hours Igor and I were dragging a bag full of German rations home from the port. From then on we no longer had to worry about the food problem as long as we were travelling in German-occupied Europe.

It was becoming obvious that we had nothing more to do in Ackerman; that the Dniester River, which separated us from Russia, was not an effective barrier to the advancing Red Army; and that it was best for us to exit as soon as possible – first to Bucharest. After that we would see.

Railroad communications were restricted to one line only. The other, through Kishinev, was already under fire from advance Soviet units. There was not much time left.

Having moved to the station, we took our places on the platform in the evening, although the train would not leave until the next morning. This was necessary because there was an enormous crowd there, mostly composed of local Bessarabian residents, and there was not much chance of our finding a place on the train. We bought tickets, however. Unlike the Germans, the Rumanians did not give up their railroad profits, in spite of the war.

On the third day of this journey we pulled into the North Station in Bucharest and climbed out of the train, vastly relieved to feel solid ground under our feet. We checked our baggage and before long found a decent and inexpensive hotel which was willing to rent one big room to us all.

After a little rest and sleep we went out to explore the city. The impression it made on us was stupendous. We walked around, staring at everything, and couldn’t believe our eyes.

The wonderful wide, clean streets, lined with big, good-looking houses, the endless chain of opulent store windows, the well-dressed people on the streets, all this was new and did not resemble Poland or Odessa or anything we had seen in Russia before the war.

The same idea came to all of us at once: we had to buy what we needed and clothe ourselves properly; all of us, in spite of the relatively good life we had led in Odessa, looked like tramps by European standards. Having found, without any special difficulty, one of the places where illegal money changing took place, we changed German marks into Rumanian lei and began to occupy ourselves purchasing clothes.

I did not buy very much, but my capital nevertheless was reduced by about one-third. However, a new suitcase had made its appearance in my life, filled with new underwear, a spare suit, a new felt hat, and a pair of shoes. Since we intended to go on to Germany, we also purchased some articles which we thought could not be had there: principally a large amount of toilet soap, bacon, and cigarettes. These proved to be a wise acquisition, and later on we thanked our fate for the chance which had thrown us into a country where such treasures were available.

By the time we had finished shopping amid the opulence of Rumania, my companions, and especially the ladies, had become stubborn and categorically announced that they preferred remaining in blessed Rumania to going to the National Socialist Reich. Many other Russians who had fled to Bucharest from Odessa came to the same decision, especially those with a little money. I had to spend hours trying to convince my friends that after a while all the local blessings would go to the devil, because the Soviets would take Rumania in the near future and the same ‘paradise’ we had recently quitted would be created here.

Not many agreed with me, but I finally managed to convince the members of our little group by telling them straight out that I was going under all circumstances and without delay. If they wanted to, they could stay without me.

The day that we finally decided to leave was the day of the first bombing of Bucharest by American planes. This was the first, but, unfortunately, not the last American bombardment that we were to witness. It produced a deep impression on us, and still more on the Rumanians. The station and the railroad yards were the target, but many bombs fell in the centre of the city. When we climbed out of our cellar the streets we had recently admired for their smart look were blocked with ruins.

We ran to the station where all our baggage was stored. It only vaguely resembled the place we had arrived at a few days before. More than half of it had been smashed to bits, including the baggage checkroom. Excavations had already begun, however, and to our joy it turned out that the corner of the room where our baggage was stored had come through with the least damage. We did not even bother to go back to the hotel. We crowded into a truck and went to a small station beyond the city, where communications were still intact, thus managing to get away before a mass of people began to flee the capital.

We reached Timisoara, near the Serbian border, where we had to change trains.

At a small border post the Rumanian border officials took us all off the train on the excuse that we did not have entrance or exit visas for Rumania. We were put in the station under the guard of a sentry. The officials told us that we would be sent back to the Timisoara jail until ‘the matter was cleared up’. The German military documents which we possessed were declared invalid by the border guard officer. We expected the most unfortunate consequences and the night that we spent on the border was one of the least cheerful in quite a while, although we had become more or less accustomed to unpleasant experiences.

The danger was a very real one. From time to time Rumanian soldiers came into the room in which we were sitting, forcing us, unknown to their officer, to open our baggage for a ‘search’ and trying to steal things. There was no possibility of resisting and many of our belongings later turned out to be missing.

In the morning I went out on to the station platform. A train from Timisoara, carrying a full load of Germans, had just come in. While it was being checked I went up to a German major who was pacing up and down the platform and explained our situation, asking his help. He was interested and indignant over what I had to say. He was particularly angry that the Rumanians did not respect the German military documents I had with me.

Beckoning to me to accompany him, he strode into the office of the commander of the Rumanian border guard detachment and began to raise a row.

‘How dare you act like hooligans, you scoundrels!’ he yelled. ‘So you won’t obey the German Army any more! You’re a bunch of bastards and not allies; you’re cowards and traitors!’

The Rumanian officer, who had jumped up at the German’s first words, stood at attention with his palms flat against the seams of his trousers, trying to stammer out an answer in broken German.

‘Silence!’ the major shouted. ‘You will release these people immediately and put them on this train or I’ll have your post shot to cinders!’

Several other Germans had appeared at the door, attracted by the shouting. They were whispering among themselves, obviously sympathetic with the major.

The Rumanian was forced to capitulate. He called three soldiers and ordered them to load our baggage on the train and release us. The German major, already climbing back into his car, continued to curse and wave the revolver which he had pulled out during their onesided conversation.

The train was half empty and we had very comfortable accommodation. It was bound for Serbia.

A Serbian conductor came into the train. He sold us Serbian tickets and at the same time changed our remaining Rumanian lei into Serbian dinars at a piratical rate.

The ‘independent state’ of Rumania was behind us. We were entering what used to be Yugoslavia, now occupied by the Germans.