*
FOUR remarkable survivors of the Holocaust were in Glasgow recently, seeing life outside of eastern Europe for the first time. -------------
Released after two years, including time spent later in a Russian labour camp, Ladislau weighed just over five stones, and on returning to Targu Mures he discovered his mother and almost the entire Jewish community had been murdered.
Over the decades they managed to rise just above the starvation line.
Glasgow businessman David Bishop, said: "It all came about because a friend of ours, Ethne Woldman, who worked in local government, went out to Romania in 1999 as part of East Renfrewshire's local orphanage charity trip.
"It was a mixture of pride and self-determination," David explained. "They vowed on surviving the concentration camps they would never be dictated to by anyone ever again.
Now David and many others from Jewish Care Scotland travel every three months to Romania.
Hours after arriving in Glasgow, four Holocaust survivors and their young volunteer interpreter sat rather incongrously on a mini-bus taking them from the airport to David's home in Whitecraigs.
He said: "You can't feel anger when you know there are people who care.
The Targu Mures Holocaust survivors will speak at St Ninian's High School, Giffnock at 7.30pm on Wednesday, and a documentary film will be shown. *
TIMESFILE
* *
*
Brian Beacom (writing in The Evening Times), discovers how men from poverty-ravaged Romania came to visit a peaceful corner of East Renfrewshire.
Ladislau Grun will never forget these numbers ... 72045.
Nor his father's ... 72046.
These figures became their identity for two years.
And so every day he repeats those numbers to himself, determined not to forget the horrific circumstances that ruined his life.
Ladislau was a happy 14-year-old schoolboy until the day in 1944 when he was herded onto a cattle train heading for the German concentration camps, with his mother, father and sister and the entire 10,000-strong Jewish community of Targu Mures.
And while he had already suffered anti-semitism growing up - the sign at the local swimming pool read 'No Jews: they will dirty the water', and outside the doctor's surgery a notice read 'No dogs or Jews' - nothing could have prepared him for what he encountered at Auschwitz.
The few women who'd survived had been sterilised by the Nazis - in the Jewish faith the family bloodline is passed on through the mothers.
However, the tragedy wasn't to end there.
Ladislau and the 500-odd survivors had no homes, no jobs, and had to re-build their lives in a corrupt eastern bloc.
Their lives were a hand-to-mouth existence, living in tiny, squalid apartments with single-ring stoves that failed to protect the human body from the ravages of -20¼ below winters.
The Targu Mures Romanians are so poor they buy bread in the market by the slice.
Until now. By a strange, incredible quirk of fate, the entire Targu Mures Jewish community of 250 people are now being looked after by the Jewish community in Glasgow.
It's a remarkable story of how so much tragedy and terrific human compassion can befall a single group of people.
"Coincidentally, she discovered the tiny Jewish community and learned of their horrific tale.
"When she came back, clearly distressed, a few of us talked about it and decided to try and help."
David and other members of the Jewish community travelled to Romania to see the situation for themselves.
"It's almost impossible to describe the misery that greeted us in Targu Mures," he recalled.
"Some of these people were living in shacks with corrugated roofs. We had to help them."
David began knocking on friends' doors, asking for cash donations and setting up fund-raisers for the new Targu Mures Trust.
However, on returning to Romania with supplies of medicine, food and plans to help re-build the community, David and co met with very strong opposition - from the likes of Ladislau Grun.
"As a result, they firmly refused our help. But gradually, after we had returned several times, they accepted."
"It's a commitment," said Sharon Barron. "You give your heart to these people because you know it's the right thing to do."
Gradually, over the past two years, the Glasgow and Targu Mures communities have grown closer.
"These people are now like family," added David. "That's why it's wonderful to be able to bring them to Scotland."
As they passed Asda and Ibrox their eyeballs bulged at the sight of the relatively wondrous buildings before them. Yet, they retained a quiet dignity.
Back at David's house, where they were all clearly amazed by the lawn, Ladislau reveals more of that dignity when he stresses he doesn't feel anger at all for the life he's had to endure.
"And I have managed to rebuild my life. I married and have two children.
"But at the same time we should never forget. Most from Auschwitz couldn't talk about it without crying. But I resolved to talk, not to forget.
"I will never forget how my father saved my life when he told the Germans I was 17 and that I was a carpenter, someone who could be of use to them.
"I won't forget that they murdered my mother because they thought she was an old woman, her hair having turned grey on the train to Dachau.
"And I won't forget my number ... 72045.
"People need to know about that number, and thanks to David and his friends in Glasgow, even more people will know it."
During the rule of dictator Ion Antonescu, between 1941 and 1944, Romania was allied with Nazi Germany.
Western historians say that in 1941-42, more than a quarter of a million Jews from Romania and from territories under Romanian occupation were killed.
In 1944 thousands of Romanian Jews were sold to the Nazis and sent to work in death camps.
The majority of the Jewish community - survivors of Auschwitz and Dachau - are now aged between 70 and 90.
It's estimated that there are around 60 communities like Targu Mures dotted around Romania, for which there is no help.
*
*
