Stalin’s death
Hello, my name is Raluca and I am a 
volunteer within the My Story project. 
Mrs Ionescu Ruxandra's memories 
and testimonials about the 1950s".
Uncle Emil served time in jail, but Victor 
didn’t because he did not fight in the war.
As to the cousins, Virgil, Eugen 
also did time, all mother’s cousins.
Bubu too … at least four or five of them. 
Bubu, Virgil and Eugen, they were all jailed,
Bubu for a longer time, the others less. 
Let me think now, when Bubu 
ran away to escape arrest,
he got help from a Hungarian woman, she was 
his sweetheart and kept him in hiding for a while. 
But then they got him and put his away.
Mother’s brother-in-law also offered 
to hide him, and an uncle who was married
to one of mother’s sisters, 
aunt Otilia, he was a shoemaker.
He kept him in hiding for a time, 
and they put him in jail for this. 
Aaa ... there were some cousins from my 
father’s family as well, Tibi and a couple of others … 
I’m telling you, some 5-6 people from
 our family were put in jail in those times:
uncle Emil, Bubu, Virgil, Eugen, aunt 
Nuti Capata’s Emi whom Bubu suspected
had turned him in after the beatings, plus the brothers:
 Tiberiu, who lived on the other side of the hill,
they had been kulaks, the father was in the 
peasant’s party, and they were all locked up.
Two or more brothers, some 7 people 
overall in the family were put in jail.
All those who helped me and did 
things for me, I’d say some 7-8 people.
Of course, all the families suffered 
in those days … a lot of them suffered.
Hard times … There were those Soviet experts, 
they were called commissars,
who came over and took control of the sovroms,
the forests, sovrom wood, sovrom this,
 sovrom that … sending Romanian wheat to Russia 
only to be returned to us later as Soviet help.
Well, when Stalin died … in ’53, was it? it was autumn 
and they took us all to those rallies in Union Square
and we stayed there … some of the 
more gullible ones even cried.
And as we were heading home, 
mother says : «Oh, praised be the Lord!»
I know it’s not exactly Christian to rejoice over 
anyone’s death, but as they say, «Good riddance!» 
I still remember how they staged it all, they took 
us there to shout out loud but we didn’t and there 
were those who pushed us to shout, they told 
us to shout «The Great Soviet Union helps us», 
but instead we shouted «sea and salt, sea and 
salt…» and when we said this we knew 
what it really meant, where the help actually came from. 
And whenever mother organised a family reunion: 
«Listen all, keep your mouth shut 
or else we are in big trouble.»
We used to sing the Tri-colour [Romania’s 
national anthem] in secret in our house,
the royal anthem, Wake up Romanian, 
Romanian battalions cross the Carpathians …
it was mother who taught us, we did not
 know them all, we only knew fragments.
« I know three colours in this world»,
 I already mentioned the anthem, Hora Unirii,
we knew parts of these and used to 
sing them in the house with mother.
And she would say, You are aware that 
if we get caught, it’s the end of us all … 
So, this was the «sea and salt» story, 
we all went to the annual parades and people 
would shout «USSR bastion of peace!» 
and I and my bother would say 
«USSR baton of peace!», we would never 
have shouted what was expected of us.
When I was a student there was another delicate moment.
In my first year I did not attend 
any Russian language courses at all.
And I had failed this same 
course when I was in high school
I simply could not stand the language, that’s all.
traducere si adaptare
Stefan Colibaba
