Overview
- Interview Summary
- Stan Văduva, born on February 7, 1923, discusses returning to Romania after being deported; how the journey lasted eight months, from March 1 until October; how the return home was extremely difficult because of the lack of food; being deported and how the police issued papers for them that contained a list of things they were allowed to take with them; how all animals and goods were taken from them when they arrived at the Tighina customs post; how approximately 60 families were deported in big cars to the Bug River, where they were held in a cave for three months; carrying out forced labor after they were transferred to a Kolkhoz; how a quarter of the people died while staying in the cave and 25 percent died on the way back to Romania; how at the Kolkhozes, where they were taken after the three months spent in the cave, the locals were Russians, but the sector was led by a Romanian Lieutenant Major; how the Russians repeatedly tried to kill the Roma, but they were prevented by the leader of the sector, because the Roma had been brought to the Kolkhozes in order to work; how the Roma who stole animals were shot by the Russian police; witnessing these executions from a distance of 200-300 meters; how when the Roma were taken into the cave, the Jews remained at the surface; how the Jews were forced to dig pits, then aligned and shot by approximately 20 Russians; seeing the execution from a distance; how 100 to 200 Jews were shot; the difficulties of the three months spent in the cave; drinking dirty water and eating grass and even their own shirts; how after three months they were transported to the Kolkhozes in wagons; how not all corpses were buried; how seven members of his family were deported, but only three returned to Romania; and how he lost everything he owned through the deportation and was never reimbursed for the damages.
- Interviewee
- Stan Vaduva
- Date
-
interview:
2004 September 25
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation
Physical Details
- Language
- Romanian
- Extent
-
1 videocassette (DVCAM) : sound, color ; 1/4 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Collectivization of agriculture--Ukraine. Forced labor--Ukraine. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Romania--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--Romania. Jews--Persecutions--Romania. Mass burials. Mass murder--Ukraine. Police--Romania. Police--Soviet Union. Romani Genocide, 1939-1945--Romania. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Romania. World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Romanian. Men--Personal narratives. Romanies--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Romania--Armed Forces. Southern Bug River (Ukraine) Tighina (Romania)
- Personal Name
- Văduva, Stan, 1923-
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Nathan Beyrak, project director for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch, coordinated the interview with Stan Vaduva in Romania for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Romania Roma Documentation Project on September 25, 2004. The interview was received by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Branch in May 2005.
- Funding Note
- The production of this interview was made possible by Jeff and Toby Herr.
The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. - Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:00:53
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn517715
Additional Resources
Time Coded Notes (2)
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Pavel Zgonea, born in Zimnicea, Romania, describes how he suffered a lot when Antonescu deported Romanies in September 1942; being taken with his family to Tighina, Galați County, then Poarta Albă, Tiraspol, Rezenaia, Odessa, and Ochakiv; how they were kept for two months in Kabulga, where there was a military base for hydroplanes; being taken to the shores of the Bug River after two months; working with Jews on the construction of a bridge; how one day as they were working, four of the Jews from his team disappeared never to be seen again; how at another place he worked there were more Jews, dozens of whom were taken one day by the soldiers, after which he heard gun shots but did not see anything; working in fields in four different places doing agricultural work, while Romanian guards watched over them and beat them sometimes; how they mainly ate boiled wheat or boiled rice and sometimes even grass; his appreciation of communism because he had the certainty of a job, a home to live in with his family, and food to put on the table, while before World War II, he worked and lived with his family in the woods and did not have a stable home; how the main reason they were taken and deported was because they did not have homes; how only 20 out of the initial 72 people deported made it back home by the end of the war; how most of them died because of the dire conditions, hunger, and lice; being only 17 years old when he was taken; returning to Romania at the age of 19; how the only good thing was that he learned the Russian language; the ages of the Jews he worked with as being around 16 to 17; incidents in which a guard would come and take 20 people with him and never bring them back; the rumors that followed each time workers were taken; returning to his country in 1944 and being told that they were no longer welcome; the journey back from Transnistria (Dniester Moldovan Republic) and the kind Romanian soldiers, who traveled with them, shared their food, and did not make any distinctions; and how those who died did not die because of the war, nor because they were shot, but because of the hunger, the cold, and the wretched conditions.
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