She was separated from her mother at the age of only 7 years. Raised among strangers, she managed to meet, just over five years, with her father, but only briefly. She lost her home, family, faith in people. For goods seized, the State has paid 36 lei.

Nadejda Mindrescu was deported together with her mother in 1949. Their house has been destroyed, so that when they returned, were housed together with other deportees in a common housing. Today, she is living in a moldy apartment, without possibility to ever repair it.

“She was taken to cut forests”

Nadejda was deported when she was only 7 years old. Her father had left the world of the righteous before knowing through which horrors would his family go. Eldest sister managed to avoid deportation, because she was already married and had a different name. She remembers that period as a dream. When they arrived in Tobolsk, Tyumen region, mother and daughter were separated. Deportees did not lead an easy life, being forced to work in the toughest conditions. So that, the mother of the little Nadejda “was taken further, to cut forests”, reports the woman, who, at the time, was placed in a children’s home.

Sometimes, mother managed to visit her daughter, but not as often as she would have liked. “The poor her, was coming through forests. It was not often, but I remember those moments”, says Nadezhda with a sad smile. “We, the children, were also walking through the woods. We were picking frozen berries and eating them. Noone needes us, so we took care of each other”, recalls Nadezhda Mindrescu. They returned in 1954, when she was already in fifth grade. Returned to their home, they realized that they have no house, it being demolished in their absence. They settle down, along with several other women in a home for those who were deported.

Separated during the deportation, the mother and daughter even at home could not enjoy too much of each other. Shortly after they returned, Nadejda’s mother died. Coming tired from work, she threw on the fire coals to warm and layd next to her daughter. “The stove was old … mother suffocated from smoke. I escaped miraculously. People found me. Three days I could not recover, then I woke up. Doctors checked me and saved me”, she recounts. Left alone, the young woman went to work in the kolkhoz, then, along with other young, grafted vines. Subsequently married. Mother of four children, began to care for them.

Dream childhood house

Almost all her life, Nadezhda was obsessed with the image of her childhood house, full, as she had left it when was deported and had not seen it such, than in the dream. For several years, however, her childhood home disappeared from her dreams. “I do not know why, but I do not dream it anymore. Neither the shed, nor the fence, nor the vine beside it”, says Nadezhda sadly. “Maybe because of the problems I have with the apartment”, she added. Being deprived of her home since childhood, she can neither enjoy the current home. “The rooff is dripping. When it rains, water flows on my walls, but I have no money to make repairs. Everything rotted in the apartment”, she laments.

The children have formed their own families and have their concerns. “How can they help? One requires surgery, another is a single parent”, says Nadezhda Mindrescu. She asked for help from the authorities. She wrote letters to the President, the Ministry of Labour, Social Protection and Family, to City Hall. From everywhere, she gets the same answer. She is refused because her apartment is privatized. “Current legislation states that privatized housing repairs and maintenance are done by their owners”, is the answer from town hall, referring to art. 20 of the Law on housing privatization from 10.03.1993.

She was not helped neither for the cold season. “Directorate of Social Assistance and Family Protection Center District reviewed your application and decided that your family has no right to benefit from social and / or help for the cold season, whereas, from those indicated by you in the request, family welfare index is 91,5 bridge, which exceeds the eligibility score of 90 points, set by section 29 of the Regulation on the setting and payment of social aid no. 1167 of 16.10.2008”, is the answer of Social Inspection . So, Nadejda Mindrescu was refused because the index exceeded the limit of welfare by 1.5 points. She says, however, that no one came to her home to see her living conditions. Even the above answer of Social Inspection proves this fact.

36.000, without zeros

She receives a pension of 985 lei. “How can they believe that this money are enough? You have to pay the bills, but also feed with something”, she laments. Nor as a former deported is not much helped. Receives annual aid worth 500 lei. And the reward for lost home, which she received in the early ’90s, is more a mockery, than the restitution of the property taken by force and then destroyed. The woman knocked on several doors hoping to be done justice. Finally, in July 1993, the Straseni district Executive Committee decided to be given “financial compensation for restitution of property illegally seized in connection with the deportation of citizens in 1949, in the amount of 36,000 rubles”.

Money, itself, has acquired in June 1994. Has obtained the same figure, only without zeros. Practically overnight, wealth of Nadejda Mindrescu, from 36,000 rubles, turned to 36 lei. “Some people have obtained 7,000 rubles, others 2000. Yet after currency exchange (passing to leu as the national currency, no), some received 90 lei. Sure that the amount is not fair. For the person who received 7,000 rubles, which, overnight turned into 7 lei, the amount does not cover even half of his losses”, explains Valentina Sturza, president of the Association of Former Political Prisoners and Deportees from Moldova.

She repeatedly appealed to the authorities to change the law. “In the law was written that if the person has obtained a small amount as the restitution of confiscated goods, these people can not submit documents for return of property a second time. I hope that the Government will adopt a new law, that would help those who are still alive”, says Valentina Sturza. “Personally, I went through the courts for about 10 years. I do not include the years I gathered all the documents. At the end, I was returned 1% of the amount that I was supposed to get”, she adds. Nadejda Mindrescu promises not to give up until will get justice. So far, however, she remains with those 36 lei.

Olga Bulat