Author’s Note
I fell in love with reading historical fiction in the summer of 2013 and as soon as I began toying around with a story idea in my head, I immediately knew it had to be set in the country where my husband was born and grew up. Romania has a rich history and I wanted to dive into researching it, number one, because I love research (I’m a nerd like that), and number two, I wanted to learn more about the land he came from (and our son’s heritage). There’s so much written about most other European countries in WWII, but barely anything about Romania, which was both the breadbasket and oil well for the Germans during WWII. Romania was one of the few European countries not occupied by Hitler. Instead, its dictator, Ion Antonescu, allied with him. Romania also has the sad distinction of being the only country apart from Germany to set up its own concentration camps, and had the second largest number of holocaust casualties because of this. While the concentration camps didn’t have gas chambers, they were so poorly organized and run, disease and starvation killed hundreds of thousands of occupants anyway (the final numbers are estimated between 300,000-400,000 Jewish people and 30,000 Roma).
While many Jewish people migrated away from Romania after the atrocities of war, the Roma had nowhere to go. The Roma have been persecuted throughout Europe for their entire existence. Scholars believe they were originally brought to Europe as slaves from India (not as long believed, from Egypt—from which the term ‘gypsy’ came). Their wandering lifestyle has been partially enforced because they were chased out of every place they attempted to settle. A distrust of outsiders and clannish cultural structure has reinforced this roving lifestyle. The Roma are currently Europe’s largest ethnic minority and prejudice against them continues rampant to this day, not only in Romania, but throughout Europe. In many places, it’s simply taken as the norm that gypsies are criminals and thieves. When I’ve taken up this topic with some Europeans, they’ve exclaimed to me, “But you don’t live here! My cousin was robbed by one, they really are dirty criminals!” It’s language that‘s reminiscent of that which has been applied to our own minorities here in America, about people also brought to our nation as slaves. If I oversimplify the conflict, I apologize.
Here are more informed people discussing the situation, (if interested in more resources, also check out the Bibliography, after the Glossary):
- CNN News report: https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/21/world/europe/roma-discrimination/
- The Plight of the Roma, Europe’s Unwanted People: https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/europe-failing-to-protect-roma-from-discrimination-and-poverty-a-942057.html
- A fabulous, nuanced book that intimately explores the Roma existence: Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey, by Isabel Fonseca
There’s so much beauty and pain in Romania’s history. Over a period of only a few years, kings, dictators, and prime ministers rose and fell and then still more rose and fell. Tumultuous doesn’t even begin to describe it. Against this backdrop, my novel (which eventually I split into two because it got so long!) almost plotted itself.
Acknowledgments
This was an absolute passion project for me start to finish and there are so many people to thank for supporting me along the way.
First of all, my husband, Dragoș. I mean, people thank their husbands in these things, but when I say I couldn’t have done this without his support, I mean I literally could not have done it. Between helping me deal with my chronic health problems while also taking care of our son, he was also a sounding board when I ran into plot knots, he helped me with tons of tidbits about Romania, and we spent hours discussing (and arguing! ha) history. Then he proofread both books within two and a half weeks. So I mean it when I say, these books couldn’t have been written without his support! Not only that, but he didn’t look at me crazy when all of the sudden I was jumping around, ‘Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I can’t stop reading these amazing historical epics! I want to write a giant historical epic instead of another young adult book. Like GIANT, honey, I mean the 700 or 800 pages kind of giant!!!’ He was just like, that’s great babe. And he meant it. Because that’s the variety of kick-ass man I married.
Next, thank you to my amazing writer’s group who helped me so incredibly much with figuring out what the hell I was doing with this story. You helped me as I stumbled through an extremely ugly first draft while I fought to ‘get’ who the characters were. Especially Li Boyd, Anne Brown, Lauren Peck, Jacqueline West, and also Kerstin March and Heather Zenzen, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!
Finally, thank you to some fabulous folks who beta read both books (while they were still ONE 800 pg megabook!): Mihaela Alexandra Ceaușel, Anthonee Alvarez (you’ve read every book I’ve ever written, even the unpublished ones—you are my ultimate cheerleader! *mwah*), Whitney Brace, Valerie Cummins, Kristin Leigh Jones (your critique was so helpful!), and Karina Larson. You guys’ enthusiasm was so heartening and really, really helped through some tough times that followed as I was editing and pushing to get the books out. You helped me to continue believing in this project and Tsura and Mihai’s story, I cannot thank you enough.
And finally, thank you, thank you to A. E. Murphy for teaching me formatting in my hour of need. You rock socks, lady!
For more about Heather and upcoming book news, check out:
www.facebook.com/HeatherAnastasiu
www.heatheranastasiu.com
www.twitter.com/h_anastasiu
www.heatheranastasiu.blogspot.com
Glossary
(terms are translated Romanian words unless specified otherwise)
GENERAL TERMINOLOGY
Bulletin de Identitate – direct translation: ‘bulletin of identification,’ i.e., identification pamphlet or ID
casă de piatră – direct translation: ‘house of stone.’ Common phrase of well-wishes said to a bride and groom at their wedding. It indicates hopes for a strong and long-lasting marriage.
da – both Romanian and Russian word for ‘yes’
domnul – address for males, equivalent of Mr.
doamna/doamnă – address for married women, equivalent of Mrs. (changes depending on whether you are directly addressing a woman or simply talking about them)
drabarni – a wise, often older Roma medicine woman who uses herbs and other medicinal/spiritual practices as a healer
Einsatzgruppen – German death squads
gagii / gagiu / gagica – plural/male/female forms of term for non-Roma persons (this is the terminology in Romania. It varies depending on what country a person is in.)
gendarme – Romanian military police
goy – Yiddish term for non-Jewish person
‘la mulți ani!’ – direct translation: ‘to many years,’ the Romanian phrase used to mean Happy New Years or Happy Birthday or even just, congratulations.
lei – Romanian currency
Roma – an itinerant, traveling people often referred to as ‘gypsies’ (though that term has often been used as a slur and can be offensive).
Romani – the language of the Roma people (though the word ‘Romani’ can also be used to refer to the people themselves). The dialect varies wildly depending on where in the world a particular caravan is located.
trăsură – horse and buggy taxi popular in this time period since petrol was in short supply
viața – life
vitsa – Romani term for clan, family, or tribe
yakira – Yiddish term for my ‘dear’ or ‘precious’
FOODS
ciorbă – sour soup. The dumpling soup Tsura makes is different from ciorbă because it’s not sour.
mămăligă – a boiled corn-based dish very similar to polenta
mici – spiced meat, shaped like half-sized sausages, often served with mustard
cozonac – a sweet bread
orez cu lapte – rice boiled with milk, sugared.
sarmale – Romanian dish of cooked cabbage wrapped rolls of meat, rice, and spices
tort de
biscuiţi – Romanian desert. Direct translation is ‘biscuit cake.’ Actual desert is made with whip cream, cocoa, and slightly sweetened crushed crackers, shaped in a dome. This dessert isn’t actually as popular in Romania but it’s my husband’s favorite :)
țuică – traditional Romanian liquor, hard alcohol, most often made from plums
salată de vinete – eggplant salad
tobă – a food where meat scraps of all kind are stuffed into a sheep’s bladder, then cooked, sliced, and served.
Bibliography
Cioran, Emil. Trans. Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston. On the Heights of Despair. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Deletant, Dennis. Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and his Regime, Romania, 1940 -1944. London, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Fonseca, Isabel. Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey. New York: Random House, 1995.
Giurescu, Dinu C. and Popescu, Eugenia. Romania in the Second World War: 1939-1945. New York Columbia University Press, 2000.
Giurescu, Dinu C. Romania's Communist Takeover: the Rădescu Government. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Hancock, Ian. We Are the Romani People. Cambridge, Great Britain: University of Hertforshire Press.
Ioanid, Radu. The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944. Lanham, MD: Ivan R. Dee Publishing, 2008.
Kaminsky, Sarah. Adolfo Kaminsky: Une Vie de Faussaire. Paris, France: Calmann-Lévy. 2009.
Manning, Olivia. The Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy. New York: The New York Review of Books, 1981.
Porter, Ivor. Operation Autonomous: With S.O.E. in Wartime Romania. London, England: Bloomsbury Reader, 2012.
Sebastian, Mihail. Trans. Patrick Camiller. Journal 1935-1944: The Fascist Years. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1998.
Smith-Bendell, Maggie. Rabbit Stew and a Penny or Two: A Gypsy family’s Hard and Happy Times on the Road in the 1950’s. London, England: Abacus, 2009.
Waldeck, R. G. Athene Palace: Hitler’s ‘New Order’ Comes to Rumania. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1942.
Walsh, Mikey. Gypsy Boy: My Life in the Secret World of the Romany Gypsies. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2009.
Yoors, Jan. The Gypsies. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1967.
Various. Roumanian Fairy Tales. Project Gutenberg Ebook. 2007.
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