REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

280
Remembrance in Time
to Siberia !!!» From the first and second cart, I again heard a few known women’s voices,
who desperately cried, knowing I was Court judge : «Mister Remus, save us, save us,
mister Remus !» What was happening, who and what was this death convoy, I realized on
the spot and in terror. There were the very Transylvanian Saxons from my village Şomărtin.
They had been arrested from their houses and households in the very afternoon of the
previous day (10 th of January 1945), all harnesses with horses and carriers from the locality
were requisitioned for transportation to the station Făgăraş, and by 1 o’clock in the evening,
in the 1 st of January 1945, the convoy set in motion, making cca 50 heavy kilometres in
snow and frost under – 10 ° C, to Făgăraş. […] In the same form, there were organized, in
the night of 10/11 th of January, convoys of deported persons from the 16 localities of the
county. They were all directed to the station CFR Făgăraş to the purpose of their boarding
for transportation to the Soviet Union. Another drama will continue in the station Făgăraş.
The frost beneath – 10 ° C is maintained, the sky is dark and snowflakes lightly fall. The
convoys with deported persons flow towards the plateau near the station, where the new
construction of the CFR station Făgăraş is placed. The transport carts returned home, and the
carriers, also Transylvanian Saxons, bid farewell to those who left.
In the afternoon of the 11 th of January 1945, there, on the plateau of the station, a
political camp outdoors was improvised, approximately summing up 5000 persons [?],
considering that from the 16 villages, approximately 200-300 persons had been arrested
[?] from every locality, men, women and even youth beneath 18 years old. This unhappy
gathering was guarded by an ad-hoc guardianship constituted of Romanian gendarmes
guided by Russian militaries, of course NKVD-ists, and by agents of the State Safety. The
deported persons had been brought, but the freight wagons destined to transportation had
not yet arrived. They served to the war transportations of the Romanian and Soviet
armies. […] On this plateau, in terrible conditions of cold and frost, outdoors (the army
had sent insufficient tents), in a total lack of hygiene and without water, without toilets,
without food, not even hot teas, those Transylvanian Saxons had been kept a few days
until the arrival of the wagons. As the freight wagons arrived, their sets loaded with
prisoners were formed and headed towards USSR. I later found out, from the
Transylvanian Saxons in the village that, during the long route of 2-3 weeks, in frost,
misery and physical [exhaustion], many deported persons got sick and, in default of
medical care, died. In the CFR stations from Sibiu, Făgăraş, Braşov, raids and police
filters were effectuated in the night of 11/12 th of January, as well as in the following days,
to catch the escapists and runaways. Many of them were caught through these raids, too.
After that night of 11/12 th of January 1945, similar to the «Night of Saint
Bartholomew», going to my parents, I immediately perceived the disastrous
consequences on my village Şomărtin, following the German ethnics’ deportation. From
some houses, parents and major children had been taken, the households being forsaken.
In other houses, only old men had remained, helpless in most cases, or only minor
children, taken willy-nilly into the supervision of the relatives or of the neighbours. The
stables in most Transylvanian Saxon households had remained full of cattle, pigs, fowl.
They had to be fed, watered, daily cleaned twice. There was no longer somebody and
something to do that, as the thefts of fodder and cereals from the unguarded barns, from
penthouses or from the field had begun. Those suspected of practicing these new living
sources were the native gypsies, the poor Romanians and various foreigners who had
started to wander with no justification through the Transylvanian Saxon villages. When,