chapter fifteen

Being a Romanian

Give us this day our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11)

In September of 1943, Ileana kissed Stefan, Minola, and Sandi goodbye and left them with friends in Brasov to attend Romanian schools, while she returned to Sonnberg with Niki, Magi, and Herzi. She hired a doctor and a nurse for the hospital at Sonnberg, and spent most of the fall and winter of 1943 traveling around the Reich.

Living in a country at war is never safe, and Ileana had her share of scares and narrow escapes even before she began her work for the soldiers; but with her increased travel, she encountered far more risk than she’d ever experienced before. Additionally, with the tide of the war changing in the Allies’ favor, the bombing raids into Nazi territory increased in frequency and intensity.

She learned to travel with hand luggage only and was always prepared if a station had been bombed out of existence. She never wandered far from the train on its stops. If the air raid siren sounded, the train would leave the station as quickly as possible in order to avoid being blown to bits; if you weren’t on it, so much the worse for you!

She grew accustomed to the train stopping in the middle of nowhere, day or night, and having to jump out, whatever the time of year or weather, to lie in the fields by the tracks, cowering under what little cover was available,

while planes streaked overhead and bombs exploded nearby.  

By 1944, five years of war were grating on everyone. Shortages were worse, rationing was tightened, bombings increased, and repairs were slow to nonexistent, since all available resources, both materials and manpower, were dedicated to the war effort. People were required to take in refugees whose homes had been destroyed, and Sonnberg was no exception. Tempers were short, and squabbles, both serious and trivial, were frequent.

In addition, the hospital, while successful, had its own problems. Addiction to morphine was common, and many of the men were depressed over their injuries, anxious about their future, and in constant pain, all of which added to the stress of the situation. Despite all the treatment and aid the staff could give, some men died, which affected everyone.

The longer Ileana remained in Austria, the more certain she became that the family needed to return to Romania. In early March, 1944, Ileana took the younger children to Romania by her usual route—train from Vienna to Hungary and through Hungary into Romania. Her intention was to leave the three younger ones with their older siblings, while she returned to Austria to wrap up loose ends. Then she would pack up Sonnberg and return for good. However, just after she arrived in Romania, Hitler invaded Hungary and the border snapped shut, trapping her in her homeland with many things unfinished.

Expecting a stay of only a few weeks, Ileana and her family moved into the gatehouse at the foot of Bran Castle. The castle itself, never meant as a full-time residence, was unheated and impossible to live in during the winters.

Once the children were settled, she looked to her people to give help where they needed it most. Hordes of refugees poured into and through the country from Bessarabia and the easternmost portions of Romania, mostly by train. The railway pressed anything available into service. Passenger cars, freight cars, and cattle boxes overcrowded with desperate, hungry, shocked people moved through Brasov at all hours. A Red Cross canteen in the station distributed tea, soup, and bread to the crowds. One cold, sunny morning in late March, Ileana pushed through the soldiers, women and children, officials and stray dogs crowding the old, worn platforms and waiting rooms. She shouldered her way into the can teen, where she met a tall fair-haired woman who looked as if she had no time for pampered princesses who couldn’t scrub a dirty pot or lift a heavy kettle.

Ileana, still painfully shy, quailed under this direct and dismissive glare. “I felt small and incompetent,” she wrote, “while outside I felt as though my hands and feet were suddenly abnormally large and completely awkward,” but she managed to stammer out a desire to help.

Mrs. Podgoreanu directed her to the canteen window, to dispense tea to the troop train just pulling into the station.

The next trains proved Ileana’s mettle. The cars were packed with dirty, tired, and hungry people who had grabbed whatever belongings they could as they fled. Ileana scrambled through the crowded cars, arms laden with baskets of bread, noting the people who were ill or injured. She struggled past a cow standing next to a handsome bronze lamp, and laughed at a hen nesting in a Louis XV chair. On the line furthest from the station platform, on a train from Jassy, she climbed into a cattle car, where she found “a woman in labor, an old woman attending her, and the two of them surrounded by the rest of the family as well as by a cow, a few pigs and some annoyed and cackling hens.” The baby girl was born and baptized in the station, with Ileana as godmother.

That same day, Ileana was stopped on the platform by an old friend, General Nicolae Tatranu. He was looking for a place to house a dispensary for the refugees. Would Domnitza be willing to organize it, in cooperation with the head of the military hospital downtown? Ileana agreed, and they found an ideal spot—a closed restaurant next to the station.

While the dispensary was being organized and staffed, she continued to hand out the milk, soup, and tea, jostling with starving crowds who in their need forgot all human charity. Ileana ran across old friends and acquaintances at the station—many whom she’d known in Jassy when she was a refugee. One of them, her childhood friend Iona Perticari, arrived near Pascha. Ileana, overjoyed her friend had survived, found Iona and her family a place in Bran, along with other refugees. But not all of the heartache ended so well.

Imagine This

Ileana steps out from the canteen. The evening is quiet, the sky clear, its color that dark bluey-black that occurs just before dark. It’s pleasant, and she breathes deeply, enjoying the crisp air. A man dodging through the crowds attracts her attention.

“Stop him! He’s a thief, he’s stolen my bag,” yells a second man as he bursts through a group of people, scattering them. He catches up to the first, and snatches at the suitcase, eyes wide, face tight with desperation. People stop them and gather around.

Ileana listens as they argue. The first man, his suit ragged but shoes shining, sounds a bit too bluff and scornful to Ileana’s ear. The second man, in a worn suit, with a frayed collar and old, stained tie, is by contrast almost hysterical. His voice sounds higher than an opera soprano’s, and his words tumble over themselves, he speaks so quickly.

She edges closer as a gendarme shoulders his way through the crowd. He listens to the claims and counterclaims. Something obviously doesn’t sound right to him either, for he instructs both men to come to the police station.

Ileana trails along, her suspicions aroused, wanting to help if she can.

“It’s simple,” says the gendarme, finally. “Tell us what’s in the suitcase, we’ll open it and see who’s right.”

The second man pales even further. “No!” he barks. “I—I c-can’t tell you.”

“He’s lying, you see,” says the first man.

It isn’t right, Ileana thinks. The first man is too bluff, too full of bravado, and the second—what could be in the case that he wouldn’t want anyone to know?

The officer gestures to Ileana, and they leave the room. “It’s odd, Domnitza,” he says.

She nods. “Yes. I think the suitcase belongs to the man with the frayed collar, but why would he be so frightened?”

The gendarme waves a hand and laughs. “The case is full of contraband. The problem is how to get him to prove the case is his, so that we can give it back to him and charge the other fellow.”

“Let me try,” says Ileana. She re-enters the room and draws the shabby man aside. “We do want to help. We think the case is yours,” she says gently, “but unless you tell us what’s in it, we’ll have to assume that the case really is his.”

The man in the shabby suit turns his head away, but not before Ileana sees the shine of tears. He caresses the case with one finger, shakes his head.

After more persuasion, the man finally gives her the key to the case.

The gendarme opens the bag, and she, the officer and the thief gasp and draw back in horror. The owner turns away, strangling a sob. Curled up as if asleep, clad in a ragged gray suit, lies the body of a little boy, no more than two, Ileana thinks. It is the man’s son. He died on the train. Rather than abandon him or bury him where they would never return, the man and his wife decided to take the body with them so they might visit his grave. Ileana and the police officer trade glances.

“Will you, Domnitza?” he asks. Ileana nods. She makes arrangements for the burial, takes the man’s name and destination address, and promises to send photos of the gravesite when the boy is buried. Then she

sees the man back onto the train just as it pulls out of the station.

* * * * * *

ILEANA SPLIT HER TIME between the train station and the military hospital, where she worked as a nurse. Finally, in May, the border reopened and she was able to make a rushed trip to Sonnberg. There she tied up the loose ends of her work and was able to spend some time with Anton, who was home on a quick leave.