24 - Under Stalinist Occupation

Summary

On the day of the historic act of August 23, 1944, I was busy with the entrance exam for the experimental technical school for the factories.

At around seven in the evening I was urgently called to the office of engineer C. Manciu, technical director of the factories, who told me of his conversation with engineer Alex Popp, director general of the company based in Bucharest. Our common friend told him the news of the arrests of Marshal Antonescu, Council of Ministers Vice President Mihai Antonescu, General Pantazi from the Ministry of War, and General Vasiliu from the interior minister, who were former classmates with the marshal and were considered his most devoted men. At ten that night I listened to the king's address on the radio, as well as to the lineup of the new ministry. I clinked a glass of wine with engineer Manciu to celebrate.

Three or four days later, Popp arrived in Reşita to take security measures for the factory against the retreating German armies, which had already occupied the Anina mines and threatened to destroy them on Hitler's orders. Fortunately, contact could be made with V. Poboran, mine director and professor at Timişoara Polytechnic, later dean of the School of Mining in Petroşani—thanks to a secret line which the Germans had not intercepted. Poboran was their prisoner, but he had enough tact to convince the Germans not to destroy his mines. Eng. Popp told us of the enthusiasm with which the population received the news that we were out of the war against the Soviet Union, as well as the German air attack on the capital, even though General Gerstenberg gave his word of honor to the king that he would order his troops to retreat as long as our army didn't attack them. However, they attacked anyway, in spite of the word given by the general. In fact, they attacked at Hitler's insane order. German soldiers, however, put up a lackluster fight, even though they were many and better armed. They were aware they were losing the war and that Hitler was insane. What worried us was that the Russian army in Moscow imprisoned fifty thousand Romanian officers and soldiers, even though they had turned against the Germans and forced them to retreat.