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My name is Andreea Galateanu, I am 15 years old and I study at ô Vasile Alecsandriö High School.
I am a volunteer within the MyStory project.
The thing that impressed me most when we talk about this lady is her work strength,
althought she was not accepted first at the Medicine Faculty she followed after that the Languages Faculty,
and so she never gave up and that is very impressing.
I invite you to watch this film because it can be an inspirational story for you.
Miss Vornicu has worked a lot, tormented a lot, but at the end she got the results she hoped for.
She even mentioned that she was very lucky with knowing English and also I believe that we are very lucky
to be able to study things about her due to the fact that the communist era is over,
and I can truly say that she is a wonderful women and I have lots of things to learn from her.
For most Romanian people the 50s represented harsh communist repression.
Jails were crammed with political prisoners and those still free were hiding in the mountains,
defending themselves with guns and waiting for the arrival of the Americans.
From 1949 the state had begun seizing the private agricultural properties using the Soviet model.
At the same time, the SovRoms were formed: Romanian
Soviet institutions through which Romanian natural
resources were practically stolen, taken out of the country.
City life was also dramatically changed: the education system was adapted to the Soviet one,
between 1949-1958 French was taken out of the school curricula,
English was taught in Bucharest only, scientific atheism replaced religion and socialist realism became
became the dominant way of thinking for the "New Citizen".
Areta Voroniuc had graduated from the University in Bucharest,
the Department of Philology, but finding a job suitable for her studies was still an issue.
After years of suffering and endurance, determination helped Professor Areta Voroniuc overcome the challenges of the communist regime.
How should we name this story ?
I thought we could call it a stolen life, from two points of view,
what life stole from me and what I stole from life,
but I really don't like the word to steal very much.
English it would be snatched,
I snatched something from life.
I was the second child, the second daughter.
Before my parents were expecting boys.
My parents, I think never told me,
I never felt that they would have treated me differently
because I was yet another girl in the family,
they had a boy right after.
But what made me believe they wanted a boy,
was the fact that they gave me this name,
this name is exactly on the date I was born, Areta.
And besides that, I later found out that Areta was the name of an apprentice, not a female apprentice.
First of all as a station worker, a unqualified laborer, you'll see.
When were you a station worker?
Well in 1953 in Iasi station.
I didn't really work right on the station, but they gave a position in the ... it was like a bribe.
A gentlemen, I can't say relative, he was married to the sister
of a wife of a older person in my family.
And because both my parents went to prison, for political reasons,
because they were considered well-off, their house and land were taken,
and my mom, my poor mother, she had to stay in summer kitchen,
which was with the stables and she was arrested and taken to Targsor.
You have to understand that,
I don't know if you can understand what it's like to not have
any sort of preoccupation for doctrines,
for politics, even then,
I hated none of the people that did us harm and,
mind you, the party secretaries who took my parents to jail and who took their properties,
they were related to us, a cousin of mine, a niece of my dad's,
from my dad's sister's family,
they were communists and they had these ideas...
and they were the ones that condemned my father to the cell, for nothing really, for no reason.
Because my dad had nothing to do with politics, he didn't own much land,
he only had 15 hectares bought from a ranch as it was then in the countryside because
in our village there were people who owned 50 hectares and weren't arrested.
I always felt sorry that I didn't talk very often with my dad,
ask him, when he lived here, near me, and in the period when I was here,
I was always busy, very in demand.
I'm sorry that I never got to talk to him about some issues.
We didn't keep in contact, I don't know how, I was young, lacked judgment, I don't know,
how it came to be , I wasů my sister on the other hand, because they arrested my mom,
they took everything from her, and my sister when she finished her university studies, that's why I said that we had very different paths in life,
she finished university, she took 3 exams and could choose where she wanted to attend,
a year before me, but I was rejected even with good grades, I was rejected , so it was differentů
and my brother he couldn't attend any university so he finished high school and worked as an accountant
for a agricultural company I don't know the name of the town where they grow a lot of garlic in Moldova.
You were telling us about your sister
That she took my mother to Comanesti, that's where she was taken from,
from my sister's and you can imagine how distressed she was.
She visited my mom in prison.
After they were done with her and let her finally go, this was before é'54,
this was until é'53, so for 3 years it lasted.
My father was arrested first and taken to Botosani,
he was kept there and mistreated, because she wouldn't... I have it somewhere,
the judge's decision, he was taken to Bucharest and then to the Channel.
I don't know if he was there as well, I think he was also taken to Aiud
but i can't remember for sure.
That's why I said that I didn't talk to him much, I don't know why,
maybe because he didn't want to talk, I think I tried,
at least that's how I remember it, but he wouldn't talk about what happened.
My father, after he came back, he started working,
he was an extraordinary person, very fit, he lived in the country side,
my grandparents had, what do you call them, bees,ů hives of bees,
he was a fit man, he didn't smoke or drink,
in the Channel I know that they were given some cigarettes every day
and he would trade them for bread and that's how he lasted, that I know.
2 years I studied at the university in Iasi and 2 in Bucharest,
they were founding the English department here, but after 2 years when I was still a student,
they cut down on the number of departments and there was only one left in Bucharest.
This was in what year ?
Well, if I finished high school in '48, so I was a student in 48, 49, 49-50. So in the year '50.
And they let me stay in the dorm, I don't know for how long,
until they gave orders to evacuate all the children of well-off families. I managed to continue to live there,
without them knowing, because none of my classmates said a word about my family origin.
It was the Matei Voievod dorm, I think they lost us or they didn't want toů I didn't have a meal card.
When lunch was over and they gave the students the supplement, the girls would tell me "they are giving a supplement"
and I would go and have something from there, usually a supplement was desert,
a type of grain with milk, so to say and I don't know what else.
That's how I got through university.
But I was happy in Bucharest and I had teachers like Leon Levitchi , an extraordinary person,
Miss Cartianu , again an extraordinary person and I was very happy to be around themů
Why were you expelled?
Because I was a child of well-off parents.
It happened so, that this order came when I had already passed my last exam of the 4th year,
the last year, so I was done and still, they expelled me.
I wasn't given the right toů they took my right to take my final diploma exam.
I worked in a bureau of payment, and after that, I actually looked through the papers today,
that I graduated from the Cashier School of the railway,
which I attended because they would not promote me otherwise,
they would say "What's the use of philology ?" the director said "What's the use of philology ?"
and so I went and took cashier classes there and I also took my husband to attend those classes, and we worked in shifts,
I was always travelling to Barlad, they even gave us an apartment there, my son was 7 then, and I was lucky that my parents took care of him.
I did night shifts and day shifts in Vaslui, then I was moved to Tg Frumos,
I also worked in Podul Iloaie and then I was transferred to the Railway Station in Iasi,
in the sales department, I worked on the transportation documents.
At some point, they called me from the education institute when English classes
were introduced in the curriculum in '63.
So I had graduated in '52 and until '63 I had never taught a class.
I see that my university diploma, so I was expelled after finishing,
5 years it took for them to revoke the decision and in '57
I took my exam , maybe in '56 because my diploma has a signature that is dated in '57.
They took me in , I started teaching in a schoolů no. 21,
I think, it was called the Roman Room, there I taught for the first time, then I went to Sadoveanu,
then to high school no. 4.
And I continued teaching in both places.
I told you about how I passed through university, I worked a lot, I worked.
First of all I though it was a feat that I could teach to students .
I think I taught thousands of students.
It's a fascinating paper!
Yes, yes.
I enjoyed the poetry and the cosmology, you're analysis seems correct.
Please give me a copy !
I didn't give her a copy .
But you know the story behind this ?
So I gave the paper in , it was typed on the typewriter of my host, a couple of old people, it was ruined,
the tape wasn't as it should have been, nothingů I'm very proud of thisů
Obviously, obviously !
And aaaaaaů when they brought out our papers, the room filled up with people,
not like in the linguistic department, but they came from all faculties, medicine, architecture,
to these linguistic courses.
Andů so they bring out the papersů.
The best one, the one I liked the most is that of Miss Voroniuc. When I heardů I jumped on my feet!
It was my luck , my life's biggest fortune that I studied English
and that I didn't get accepted to a medicine program.
If I would have beenů who know what kind of difficulties I would have encountered there, and I wouldn't have...
the journey to America, all the journeys. Working with students is wonderful, working with young people.
Apart from winning a scholarship for America and that I was able to go there,
because it was an enormous feat for me.
I told you that I came with 1000 dollars, apart from my diploma and the materials that I needed to sustain my doctorate,
because I didn't present it , I gave out copies.
I was invited to many congresses and during one of them,
the 12th in '77 where there were 2000 linguists invited , noů it's very important to me,
these are the letters I exchanged with Searle, you'll see how interested he was in my paper.
He always told me "Come to Vienna , bring both your papers, by any means",
I think that's what he says. Yes that's how it wasů during that 12th congress when Searleů
I didn't meet him in America I met him in Vienna, so during that congress there was a group of language philosophers,
we all had to sent in papers, 70 members were invited, I put my name in for the group, Searle asked us to sent in our papers.
It says hereů
Yes yes yesů And I couldn't sent them to everyone, because here in Romania you couldn't send things andů
I see it says here
Yes yesů that I sent it on a boat, not by plane ,
and Searle picked out 10 out of the 70 papers because that's all they had time for during the congress.
And among the 10, was my paper as well, so this was an important event,
a happy moment, no one in the department has ever seen these papers, these letters.
I wasn't allowed to finish my studies, to get my diploma, I couldn't getů
I have legal papers, I looked through them today, which I sent to ask for English classes
and they would reply no and no. now people have a choice, I didn't.
Free time , I don't know if that truly exists, free time that is indeed free.
You are happy when you can do something for someone else, and it is very true,
if you only do things for yourselfů
But when you do things for others you are very happyů Down !
This is meů what else ?
adaptare in limba engleza ADA FLORESCU