Preisler Froim
The Forced Labor
The fate of those who went through the experience of forced labor, was different from case to case.
In 1941, Preisler Froim was living with his family in Ploiești. At the beginning of July, like all Jewish men aged between 18 and 60, he was imprisoned in one of the Jewish community's buildings. On the night of July 12 to July 13, they were gathered at the recruitment center and sent on foot to the Teiș camp, near Tȃrgoviște. Froim remembered that:
"When I was in the camp, I was taken out to work daily to the most humiliating activities, having to endure the mockery and curses of the population."
On August 27, 1941, he was among the Jews sent to the labor detachment in Găești, which was worse than in the camp. He stayed here until December 16, 1941, when the Dâmbovița Recruitment Circle sent him to the Buzău Territorial Circle. The Jews from the Ploiești oil area were conditioned to be released from the camp by leaving the respective region. This is how Froim Preisler came to have the mandatory residence in Buzău, although he had no one in the town and nothing to support himself. He had to submit forced labor here too.
On May 23, 1942, he was sent with the 4th Road Battalion to Bessarabia, to Tarutino. Here he broke stone and built roads until October. The next destination for Froim was Saba, in Cetatea Albă County, where he worked until April 20, 1943. The Saba Gendarmerie arrested him and sent him to the Cetatea Albă prison.
Why ?
In 1941, while he was in a forced labor battalion at Găești, his sick wife was in Ploiești. She could not submit personally the effects required of every Jew for the war effort. The person sent by the wife kept those things and falsified the proof of deposit. That's how, Froim Preisler ended up being tried and sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of 20,000 lei. He was transferred from Saba, Cetatea Albă to Rudului prison in Ploiești, and after five months he was amnestied. Froim returned to forced labor in Bessarabia, where he remained until August 23, 1944.