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Escaping Transylvania to the World

From the Romanian Gulag to Old and New Cultures - Memoirs

By Dr Olga M. Lazin

How the University Really Worked in Romania

In 1963 when I was born in Transylvania, the “golden age” of socialism was in full “progress”.

A mythical space, Transylvania is the place that gave me my roots and brains. In 1963, the Northern part of

Romania. Magdalena has given birth to me in one of the most pristine, oxygenated part of town, the

beautiful Satu-Mare. The city of Satu Mare was undergoing catastrophic transformations, as it was forcefully

modernized, and people from the villages were forced to work in huge, socialistic factories. Along the Somes

river, the tiny village of Vetis, where my ancestors on my father’s side were born, is now a heavily populated

colorful and diverse grew into a lovely place. On my mother’s side, Bixad, in the Oas region of Romania is still a

beautiful traditional village, with houses spread far apart, not all jammed together. My mother was “osanca”, as

they would ethnically distinguish her in the old days.

I was born to a family of middle-class folks Eugene and Magdalena. I was the first child,

and right after me came my brother, Alexandru in 1965. I remember being happy having

a brother. At age three, my mother Magdalena was transferred by her employer

(The Logging Company in Viseul de Sus, Maramures County) to Sighet, in Maramures

County. Thus, my parents and I moved to the Transylvanian town of Sighet, where I grew

up like Alice in Wooden land, in a pristine region behind the mountain of Gutinul.

Transylvania was an ancient forest, where vampires and wolverines were lurking at the

cover of the dark and cold winter nights.

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I never feared the unknown, as I was already accustomed to “strigoi,” and

vampire stories ever since I was a baby! All these weird mythological animals were part of

my ecosystem, so to say. I grew up fearless with my brother, Alex, whom

I felt I had to constantly protect from other belligerent boys in the neighborhood of Zahana,

as it was called the cluster of houses built by in the sixties and seventies, in Hungarian style.

Sighet was surrounded by beautiful green mountains, and three rivers: Mara, Tisa and Iza.

On the one hand, I was friends with the children of intellectuals, as well as also lovely Romanian, Hungarian, and Gipsy children to whom I taught the Romanian language as early

We were Ruthenians; that is a strong gene pool made up of Ukrainian, Romanian and Hungarian

Genes.

On the other hand, my family had a difficult life because my parents were always working until

late hours at night. My younger brother Alex and I read while waiting for mother, Magdalena,

to turn off our lights even as she continued into the wee hours her accounting work

at home. She was compounding the lengths and width of the wooden logs that were being

exported to Russia year by year.

During the day, Magdalena let us play all day long to our heart’s content. So unique,

and we felt so free exploring nature in Sighet. When I entered primary school, I learned

that Sighet was officially named Sighetu Marma ieiț (on Romania’s northwest border facing

Ukraine’s southwestern border with Romania and Hungary).

Transylvania belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary (Transylvania) as part of the Austrian-Hungarian

Empire[.After World War I, in 1918 Transylvania became part of Romania again. In 1940 Northern

Transylvania reverted to Hungary as a result of the Second Vienna Award, but Romanian queen Maria

reclaimed it after the end of World War II.i

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All of Romania was seized for its oil by Nazi Germany (1940-1944), “liberated” by the “Soviet Union” (1944-

1947), and “re-liberated” to become the Popular republic of Romania (under USSR remote control) as the Cold

War

was beginning to freeze the Iron Curtain into to place.

The first “president,” Gheorghiu-Dej (1965) ruled as puppet of Moscow, but when he died, his Sec Gen of the

Communist Party of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, was elected as the second “president” (1965-1989), shifting

his savage dictatorship into a harsher “nationalistic Gulag” than known in the USSR. At the end of 1994 the

Russian military organized “presidential” elections of “people’s committees” in the region.ii The end of the war

occupied some formerly Romanian northeastern territories occupied by the Soviet Union, with Red Army units

stationed on Romanian soil. In 1947 Romania forcibly became a People's Republic (1947–1965).

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My parents in 1963: Eugen & Magda: she was pregnant with me here.

For two decades I neither understood the dimensions of tragic situation of Transylvania (located in northeast

Romania on the Ukrainian border), nor did I understand that I would have to escape the Gulag of Romania by

the skin of my teeth.

I had to risk my life to leave my country. Generals and sports Olympians were defecting.

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Nadia Comaneci has left in 1988, one year before Ceausescu was toppled.

Opposition to the regime was building up painstakingly slow, and communist idiots

wanted Ceausescu replaced. The Russian KGB school at work, soviet agents like Iliescu

were ready to take his place. Now these were the vampires coming out like vermins to

manipulate the population into believing they were “change”.

The Front of national salvation was building up to substitute the dictator’s fascist clique.

For peoples of the world Transylvania seems to be a far-away place, where most people know the werewolves

and vampires have been rumored to roam & lurk in nature. In the imagination of people everywhere, whose

beliefs are soaked in mystical folklore, even today it is hardly possible to have a rational conversation on any

subject matter. Most occupying forces never understood either the culture of the Romanian people or the

distinct culture of Transylvania. The immense diversity of the ethnicities and cultures.

Naturally I am a bi-national citizen, but without belonging to any of the two countries. My Ruthenian roots are

strong, and I rejoice every time I am remembering the pretty pristine landscapes of Sighet and Satu Mare

where I was born.

Summoning my unconsciousness to write this autobiographical piece, I need to re-accustom myself to thinking

of the distinct cultures of the region.

Once in general school I excelled in Romanian and American Languages.

I had to choose between English and Russian, and I opted for English in the 5th grade.

The population consisted of Romanians, Hungarians (particularly Székelys), Ukrainians, and Germans. Even

the Securitate, the eminence grey of Transylvania, had to learn several languages in order to surveil people on

the phones, etc. These people were educated by the Soviets in Russian surveillance techniques and bloody

procedures.

All these languages are still being spoken on the Territory of Maramures County, including Rroma, or the

Gypsy language, Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Ruthenian.

I always liked and loved the Romanian language, so I decided to become a Professor of Romanian Language

and Literature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanians

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As I have previously mentioned, n 1973, at age 10 as a fifth grader, I had to make a fateful decision about my

choice of foreign-language study: Russian or English. The pressure was on

us to take up Russian, this proving that we were all students loyal to the Dictator Nicole Ceausescu’s “Socialist”

Government (read Romanian Communist Government allied with Moscow), but consciously I detested the

whole Romanian system and its alliance with the Russians.

I never liked the Russian language; even today it rings hollow to me, reminds me of the

barking of a toothless dog.

Although I wanted to learn English in my early years, I did not then know how fateful that

choice would be until 1991, when at almost 27 years of age, I met Jim Wilkie who had been advised by his

brother Richard to include my town of Sighet in his journey to assess the how Eastern Europe was faring after

the fall of the “Berlin Wall,” short for the long wall that kept the people of Communist countries locked and

unable to escape.

In the meantime, growing up in Sighet with a population of only 30,000 people, we were proud to recognize

Ely Wiesel (born 1928) as our most prominent citizen long before he won the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. He

helped us get past the terrible history of Sighet Communist Prison where “enemies of the state” were confined

until “death due to natural cause.” The Jewish population has been decimated in Sighet in the fifties.

In my early years I had a hard time understanding how the green and flowered valley of Sighet (elevation

1,000 feet, on the Tisa River at the foot of our forested Carpathian Mountains) could be so beautiful, yet we

lived under the terribly cruel eye of the Securitate to protect the wretched Dictator Nicolae “Ceausescu,”iii is

the modern spelling of the Dictator’s name; and he ruled from 1965 to his execution in 1989 as the harshest

leader of all the countries behind Russia’s Wall against Western Europe.

Oddly enough, in the Transylvania of the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, supposedly I was living the “Golden

Age of Romanian Socialism,” but even to myself as a young student; I could see that the promised “full

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progress” was clearly a lie. Most adults agreed but feared to speak so bluntly. Repetitive folk songs were

praising the father and the mother of the nation, and on TV, we could only watch the first couple running

around in China, Russia, and other socialist countries to make alliances, and keep up appearances for 40 years!

In Northern Transylvania we had only one TV Channel, and that was the norm. The Hungarian channel was

completely blocked out by the government, so that no real news reaches our ears.

In the meantime, without rarely granted permission, we were forbidden to meet and visit with foreigners,

especially those who spoke English and who wanted to hear from us about Sighet

and its nearby wooden hamlets of the Maramures Province, where I have my first memories.

The region is ethnically diverse, with a stimulating climate ranging from very hot summers and very cold

winters. Geographically, we lived in the valleys and Mountains of Gutinul through which the rivers of Iza and

Tisa flow. Geographically, the beautiful forested Tisa River is the natural border with Southern Ukraine.

As folklore has it in the West, vampires are native to Transylvania. We had vampires, werewolves, and

wolverines, but all the mythological characters were actually members of the Communist Party, which

everyone had to join--except for me because with my knowledge, I was considered a security risk!

Fortunately, when in 1982 I entered the University Babes Boljay, in Cluj-Napoca, to earn my

M.A. in 1990, for my sociology classes, I decided to conduct my field research project into the rural life of the

North of Romania, recording the folklore (especially myths) invented and

passed down by rural folks (including small merchants, farmers, fisherman, loggers) had had

used that lore to help them survive for centuries.

Further, much of my research conducted among the outlying farmers, delved deeply into Transylvania

Folklore, which prepared me well to understand Communist Party Lore.

Thus, for the second time, my fateful choice of a field research project, the Elitelore project

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had further prepared me, unknowingly, for my future with Jim Wilkie.

We were constantly studying the elites, and were interviewing them on everything

they were doing. Revolutionaries, Professors, civic society leaders were the best subjects

of our research.

Once I had been admitted to the Babes Bolyai University, which was called “the heart and brain of

Transylvania,” I also further expanded and deepened deep studies in American language and literature. Also, I

studied Romanian language and literature in the Department of Philology. The Bolyai University Is considered

the best University in Transylvania.

Upon beginning my mentoring for other students, I was happy to find a sense of freedom. Reading and writing

comprehension were my forté during my four years at Cluj. I had always dreamt of being a professor and a

writer and seemed to be off to a great start.

But I soon realized that our professors opened the day by reading the mounds of new Decrees just signed by

Ceausescu. Thus, I began laughing, and other students join me in mocking the wooden language of Central

Planning’s attempt to befuddle us with words from a wooden language, totally bent toward twisting our brains

into confused submission. Professors and Securitate officers were acting as sweaty bureaucrats trying to teach

us how to sharpen our mental images. Not one professor asked us, “What do each of you really think of all this

Ceausescu propaganda of decrees harming the educational process?”

Professors had their favorite students and made sure they pointed this out in class, stifling any competition as

they show openly their favoritism or nepotism.

When I reached the age of 22 in1985, I started to be argumentative, criticizing professors, especially the

history professor who only knew only the History of the Romanian Communist Party.

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The Russians, via the KGB, had been directing Romanian politicians since 1945, and pressured Romanian

students to dig useless trenches as well forced women-students to shot Russian weapons, and learn to

disassemble and assemble the AK47.

Meanwhile in my University Cluj the atmosphere was dreadful in classes. Restrictions were plentiful and

absurd. Speech was not free; one couldn’t discuss issues freely in class, or make any real analysis or debate.

One had to regurgitate what the professors were telling us. Modern economics led by and read whatever was

there in the old books stacked in the communist library. Until I escaped Romania in 1992, I learned that the so-

called economics classes we took taught nothing about money, credit, and such terms as GDP. The Marxian

economics involved only fuzzy nonsensical slogans such as

“We Romanians have to fight-off the ‘running dogs of capitalism,” without the word “capitalism” ever being

defined except in unrealistic theory laced with epithets.

Even as an English major, I was not permitted to speak with foreigners in English --answering one question

was a crime, according to the tendentious Security Decrees. Abortion was a crime punishable for up to 20

years in prison. Doctors performing it ended up in jail, and so did the pregnant women. Punishments were

ridiculous—the Anti-Abortion Law lasted for 40 years, until 1990.

Furthermore, if my uncle from Canada visited us, we were all under surveillance, the entire family. Even today,

in 2017 one has to report to the police to declare if any visitor of family comes from the USA (or Canada, for

some bizarre security reason). Well, after 25 years, not much has changed in poor Romania.

THE INFLUENCE OF RECENT ROMANIAN HISTORY

In the meantime, the History of Transylvania weighed heavily on population of Romania,

with constant change in the emerging political map always have left “citizens” always lost

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about who was really in charge.

Thus, Transylvania was originally part of the Dacia Kingdom between 82 BC until the Roman conquest in 106

AD. The capital of Dacia was destroyed by the Romans, so that a new as

capital would serve the Roman Province of Dacia, which lasted until 350 ADS, by which time

the Romans felt so hated that it behooved them withdraw back to Rome.

During the late 9th century, western Transylvania was conquered by the Hungarian Army to later become

part of the Kingdom of Hungary and in 1570 to devolve into the Principality of Transylvania. During most of

the 16th and 17th centuries, the Principality became an Ottoman Empire vassal state, confusingly also

governed by the Habsburg Empire. After 1711

Transylvania was consolidated solely into the Hapsburg Empire and Transylvanian princes were replaced with

Habsburg imperial governors. After 1867, Transylvania ceased to have separate status and was incorporated

into the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.iv After World War I, Transylvania

reverted in 1918 to be part of Romania. In 1940 Northern Transylvania again became governed by Hungary

and then Germany, but Romanian queen Maria successfully reclaimed it after the end of World War II.

The year 1940 was important for Romania because if was seized for its oil by Nazi Germany (1940-1944),

“liberated” by the “Soviet Union” (1944-1947), and finally “re-liberated” to

become the Popular republic of Romania (under USSR remote control), as the Cold War was beginning to

freeze the Iron Curtain into place.

At the end of World War II while the USSR and its Red Army were the occupying powers in

all Romania, in 1947 Romania forcibly and ironically became a “People’s Republic”

(1947–1989), after the rise of the Iron Curtain.

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The first “president,” Gheorghiu-Dej (1947) ruled as puppet of Moscow, but when he died, his Secretary

General of the Communist Party of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, was elected as the second “president” (1965-

1989), shifting his savage dictatorship into a harsher Romanian

“Gulag” than known in the USSR. Thousands of Romanians have vanished overnight.

For two decades, I neither understood the dimensions of tragic history of Transylvania, nor

did I yet realize that I would have to escape the Gulag of Romania, even if by the “skin of my teeth.”

For peoples of the world Transylvania seems to be a faraway place, where most people know

the werewolves and vampires have been “seen” to in the imagination of Transylvanians, whose

beliefs was soaked in mystical folklore. Even today it is hardly possible to have a rational conversation with

most the Transylvanian folk on any subject without recourse to try to

understand where their distorted imagination has befuddled them.

The population has consisted of Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, and some Ukrainians. These

languages are still being spoken in Romania’s Maramures province, but because I always liked and loved

Romanian language, I decided to become a Professor of Romanian Language

and Literature. I also precociously fell in love with my English Professor, Spaczai.

MY BACKDROP TO THE FALL OF CEAUSESCU

I later told Jim how I had been admitted in 1982 to the Babes-Bolyai University, in Cluj-Napoca at the heart of

Transylvania, I focused especially on Linguistics. Unfortunately, there I found that the professors, who were

under the control of sweaty-stinking Securitate officers, had to read dozens of new Decrees issued every day as

they sought to control every one of our daily actions—all in the name of protecting the Ceausescu government

—which was selling the country’s food supplies to Russia in order to pay down Roman’s official debt with

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exports. Those Securitate officers ate well and ominously watched us virtually starve. They said, be calm, like

your parents in the face of their starvation. Secu’ officers were the vampires and the wolverines that I was

talking about in my first paragraph. They are surveillance officers, and this is what they do: inform on innocent

people, place all types of microphones under people’s tables and beds, and that have fun as perverted this may

sound in almost every home in Sighet, Maramures County. They report on you, and this earns them a living.

Thus, I furiously called out in my classes that our very existence was being compromised by Ceausescu's

abandonment of the population, which was ordered to, as Lenin famously said, “work, work, and work.”

To protect myself as best I could, I turned to humor, seeking to ridicule Ceausescu’s “national paradise.” But

when I encouraged my classmates to laugh at the propaganda embedded in the wooden language of the

national bureaucracy, I soon fell under the heavy scrutiny of university authorities, who were furious that I

trying to expose the fact that all classes had been organized to befuddle the student body into confused

submission. Indeed, each professor had favorite students to help drown out legitimate questions and stifle any

competing analysis—the university lived under nepotism, favoritism, the threat of rape (virtual and real) by

the Securitate officers, and open bribery by the professors--choose your garden variety.

My 1986 Attempt To Flee The Jail Named Romania

By 1986, at age 23, I had decided to flee Romania—an illegal act because Ceausescu did not

want anyone (especially women of child-bearing age) to escape his plan to building his “ideal socialist

industries” on farms and ranches as well as in the cities. In June, I made my way to

the border of Yugoslavia and paid a smuggler to evade the Romanian security forces that were preventing the

“nations workers” from escaping. The smuggler, who took me across the border, turned out to be working for

Romanian Border Police. Thus, soon after crossing into

Yugoslavia, he turned his wagon around and I was again in Romania again when I realized

what had happened too late. I had been “sold” to Ceausescu’s minions for a wagonload of

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salt and 20 Liters of gasoline. Iosif Broztito, the President of socialist Yougoslavia had this type of deal with

Nicolae Ceausescu in the1980s.

Thousands were returned for this kind of draconian exchange.

That failed escape from Romania led me to a 10-month prison sentence in Timisoara Prison, wherein the block

cells were maintained so cold (supposedly to eliminate bacteria and viruses) that it made all of us inmates sick

with the cold and the flu.

Bed blankets in the were less warming than one Kleenex tissue. Moreover, there were no

pillows, and the concrete slab where inmates slept was a “back-breaker.” The lights were on 24 hours a day,

blinding all of us, and there was constant observation. Every hour one was a

wakened to be counted for, and sneaking up on people, under the guise of watching out for suicides. But

everyone could be clearly seen by the guards, and there was no need to

sleep-deprive inmates. There was also someone in the higher echelon ripping off the

food budget to siphon money to themselves while serving inmates only baby carrots and spicy beans.

Almost every family in Romanian civil society had at least one member who had been

imprisoned for trying to open the political system by denouncing the Ceausescu dictatorship. These inmates

were openly called “Political Prisoners,” and I was one of them.

Political Prisoners were not permitted to work outside the prison walls in the fields because

our crime had been the political decision to repudiate Ceausescu’s “vampiristic system.”

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“CHANGE IN THE AIR”

Once free in 1987, I could return to my University to finally complete my M.A. in 1990.

Further in 1987, at the age of 24, I met the Family patriarch Nicolae Pipas,v who directed for the Communist

government the walled Regional Art Museum in a quiet part of Sighet. When he realized that I was a Professor

of the English and Romania Languages, and one of the few university’s highly educated persons in the region, I

began to serve as interpreter/guide to visiting foreign Ambassadors permitted to travel in Romania. They

wanted to see the Museum with its magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, and rare historical pottery

and coins. Thus,

I soon found myself interpreting and translating for visiting English-Speaking Ambassadors

from many countries who wished to know Transylvania, especially my village Sighet and its

Merry Cemetery famous worldwide for it tombstones in the form of wood sculpture of

the butcher, the baker, candlestick maker, and all professions.

Although my first languages were Romanian and Hungarian, I could also translate into French

and Italian. Indeed, at that time I was teaching Latin in the Rural School System of my Maramures Province.

Ceausescu and his clique has starved us to death, and all food was rationalized.

A piece of bread for each individual, an d1 liter of oil per month, as well as salami was

distributed to the people ligned up for days in front of the empty-shelved stores. And the time

for distributing food was also set arbitrarily by the communist Party.

By 1989, Ceausescu realized that his end was near, and he sought to gain support by pardoning his political

prisoners (such as myself) who had tried to escape the horrendous conditions in the country. Hence,

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university students and some labor unions joined forces and quite quickly after the fall of the Berlin Wall

forced Ceausescu and his draconian wife Elena to flee. They were caught and executed on Christmas Day, 1989,

by the military that at the last moment joined the Revolution.

‘As my friends and I (along with most of the population) cheered the fall of the failed, rotten Romanian

“dictatorship of the proletariat,” my dear mother acted differently. She was so

confused by the propaganda of the only “leader” she knew much about that she wept for Ceausescu, not fully

realizing that he was the one who had wrongly had be arrested and put me

in prison.

The students started a rebellion in Bucharest. People in Timisoara started the revolution via civil disobedience.

For a week and so there were bloody fights in Bucharest and Timisoara, young

People trying to get rid of Ceausescu’s regime. So finally, Iliescu another monster took over

and under the pretext of filling the vacuum of power he self-appointed himself president.

He stole the revolution with his acolytes, and over 1000 people were dead in the streets.

With Ceausescu gone, in 1990 I was able to secure a passport to ready myself to leave Romania by gaining

visas for Germany and France. The question remained, how to get there by land without a visa to Austria—my

region had no air connection to the outside world.

There was only one airport in the country, in Bucharest.

I decided toleave with Professor jim Wilkie and Jim Platler in September 17, 1990.

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Jim has filled out all the paperwork to hire me, and I gratefully accepted to work for

PROFMEX.

Thus, we set out on that September 18th to visit one of the most socially and economically interesting and

beautiful parts of Romania by going up thought the green forested Carpathian Mountains via the beautiful

Prislop Pass, stopping to visit small farming families in their folkloric clothing of which they were justifiably

proud to wear on a daily basis. Farther east in Romania, on the scenic roads, we visited the monasteries of

Moldova, the town of Cimpulung Moldovenesc, Suceava, and then the Monasteries in Sucevita and Agapia. The

gorgeous forested mountain road eventually led to Lacul Rosu and the lake country. Then we took the long

scenic mountain road to Cluj Napoca to visit my prestigious University.

As I briefed Jim about Romania, he was briefing me about factors in comparing national economies. For

example, he told me about how he had reunited in Prague on September 15th with Richard Beesen, his former

UCLA student and friend, to hear about his role in London as Manager of Deutsche Bank’s New Accounts in

Russia and Eastern Europe. Richard had become famous for inviting Banking Officials and national Treasury

Ministries to deposit their financial reserves on deposit in his bank in London. But because his clients did not

understand anything about “interest payments” on deposited funds, they did not ask for nor did they gain any

interest payments. Also, because most Western Banks were not sure that these new “capitalists” could be “fully

trusted” for correct management of their deposits, his Deutsche Bank collected large fees (and paid no interest

to keep the Eastern Europe “bank reserves safe.” This was all very eye opening for me.

Jim and I had realized early on that we had a close affinity as we analyzed the situation of Romania, and he

said, “Call me Jim.” (In contrast I called Professor James Platler “JP.”) As we traveled to observe the situation of

the people in different parts of the country, Jim and I formed a deep bond of observing and analyzing; thus,

both of us realized this brief interlude had to continue for the long term in order to achieve our goals.

NEXT STOPS, BUDAPEST, SALZBURG, MUNICH,

BORDEAUX (FOR ME), AND LOS ANGELES (FOR JIM)

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As a Romanian, I had the right to enter Hungary, and we did so bypassing the miles of vehicles waiting to

cross the border for the long drive to Budapest. There Prof. James Platler finally relaxed after the long drives

and often poor hotels and hotels—he said that he finally found unbroken civilization again.

Once we arrived in Budapest, Professor James Platler, who had told Jim privately that from the outset of our

trip that he thought that I was a “Spy” (planted on us by the Romanian Securitate to monitor our many

“foreign” inquiries during our travel through Romania’s north country), announced that his concern about me

had vanished as we realized the extent of my knowledge and research abilities. In his mind, I had to be a Spy

because I had obtained access to special private dining rooms and quarter in some fine hotels, as well as

invitations for wonderful lunches at some Monasteries, where miraculously I made immediate friends with

each Mother Superior. But by the time we reached Budapest, he realized that at my University I had learned

the Elite skills needed to survive safely and comfortably in Eastern Europe.

My problem was to enter Austria, where I had no visa. But Jim passed his UCLA business card through to

the Consul General of Austria in Budapest, and quickly we found ourselves whisked from the back of the long

line to the front and right into a meeting with the Consul General himself. He was pleased to hear about the

research of our UCLA Team, but said that I did have a visa. Jim then told them that I only needed a three-day

transit visa to reach Germany, the visa for which he could see in my passport.

With entry to Austria solved, we were on the road to the Hotel Kobentzl and Graz, which overlook Salzburg, all

the way analyzing the comparative economic and social situations of Austria, Hungary, and Romania.

We spent most of our time down the mountain from Kobentzl to the valley, before returning to our sweeping

Hotel view of Salzburg City. Meanwhile I was deepening my questions about capital is leveraged to undertake

big private projects. As we took photos over from on high looking down on the many bridges of Salzburg and

Jim was explaining how the developed world operated by using finances, credit, and interest to help economies

grow.

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Finally, we left Salzburg to enter Germany and Munich, where our quick look into Oktoberfest found us among

nasty drunken louts each of whom seemingly had hand four hands: one to chug-a-lug beer; one to smoke foul

smelling cigarettes; one to quaff horrible-bleeding-raw sausages; and one to punch someone in the face. From

what we saw, Oktoberfest was a place for nasty males seeking to “get smashed on beer” and then smash

another male to break his nose. Thus, we fled for our lives as the brutes began to threaten anyone who looked

at them.

Even though the “English-Speaking USA” had been supposedly always threatening to invade Romania,

I continued to study English language and literature. That I chose to study English even though the act alone

brought suspicion on me because all society was taught to believe since 1945 that we were fighting off the

Great USA.vi America was officially seen as

a threat to Romania and its allies under Russia’s COMECON,vii all of which I became only fully aware as I grew

older and had to buy the English Course textbooks on the risky, expensive Black Market, in Timisoara, 4 hours

drive from Cluj.

In the meantime, without rarely granted permission, we were forbidden to meet and visit with foreigners,

especially those who spoke English and who wanted to hear from us about Sighet


The region is ethnically diverse, with a stimulating climate ranging from very hot summers

and very cold winters. Geographically, we lived in the valleys and Mountains of Gutinul

through which the rivers of Iza and Tisa flow. Geographically, the beautiful forested Tisa

River is the natural border with Southern Ukraine. Mara is another river I explored in my

Youth with my brother, Alex.

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My mother Magdalena decided, when I was 3, to move from Satu-Mare to the Sighet, Maramures county. For

me this change was welcome, and I grew up in the Maramures region, where I have I have my first memories.

The region was much nicer, ethnically more diverse, better climate, and more geographic diversity, with the

Mountains of Gutinul and the rivers of Iza and Tisa, as Tisa was the natural border with the Ukraine.


wolverines, but all the mythological characters were actually members of the Communist Party and infamous

security officers, which everyone had to join--except for me because with my knowledge, I was considered a

security risk! I actually refused to join the bloody red party, and so did one of my girl colleagues, Michaela

Pascu-Arvedson, who lives in Malmo, Sweden now. Non-alignment meant we were the black sheep of the class.


M.A. in 1990, for my sociology classes, I decided to conduct my field research project into the rural life of the

North of Romania, recording the folklore (especially myths) invented and




Folklore, which prepared me well to understand Communist Party Lore, and unjustified secret security

surveillance.

Thus, for the second time, my fateful choice of a field research project had further prepared me, unknowingly,

for my future with Jim Wilkie.

Once I had been admitted to the Babes Boljay University, which was called “the heart and brain of

Transylvania,” I also further expanded and deepened deep studies in American

20

Lazín, p.

language and literature. Also, I had studied Romanian language and literature in the Department of Philology.

The Bolyai University is still considered to this day









us how to sharpen our mental images. Not one professor asked us, “What do each of you really think of all this














21

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economics involved only fuzzy nonsensical slogans such as “We Romanians have to fight-off the ‘running dogs

of capitalism,” without the word “capitalism” ever being defined except in unrealistic theory laced with

epithets.

Even as an English major, I not permitted to speak with foreigners in English --answering one question was a

crime, according to the tendentious Security Decrees. Abortion was a crime punishable for up to 20 years in

prison. Doctors performing it ended up in jail, and so did the pregnant women. Punishments were ridiculous—

the Anti-Abortion Law lasted for 40 years, until 1990.




As I said previously, my childhood was marked by fights as I had to protect my little brother Alexandru. In

high school, I was known as the student-poet, the class poet, and I won some pretty prizes for my poems in

General School, coordinated closely with Ileana Zubascu Cristescu; my Romanian Language Professor. I am still

in touch with her to this day.

My mother has been my best mentor and role model, a Taurus lady with a big heart and soul, honest and loving

forever. Here she is in Sinaia, 2000, one year before she died of a massive heart attack in September 2001.

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I had another flashback coming to me. The academia was infested with egregious communists.

I was admitted to the University in Cluj in 1982, in the heart of Transylvania, namely the American Language

and Literature and Romanian Language And Literature Department of Philology. The professors, started

reading the mounds of new Decrees every day, which made me laugh, and staff of the university was

suspicious of me not believing their “expose” in the classrooms. Professors were

trying to befuddle us with words from a wooden language, totally bent toward twisting our brains into

confused submission. During my college years, Professors, and Securitate officers were acting as sweaty

bureaucrats, uneducated idiots trying to tell us what to think. Not one professor asked us, “What do you really

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think, all of you?” Each professor had their favorite students and made sure they pointed it out in class, stifling

any competition, and showed openly their favoritism or nepotism.

When I reached 22 years, I started being argumentative, and started criticizing professors, esp. the history

professor. I was getting so sick at academics yelling at us, and being forced to do the military service as a

woman in the academia. After all, Americans were coming to take away our socialist country.

We couldn’t t buy books in English, and I was an English major.

We couldn’t talk to foreigners, and the atmosphere was dreadful in classes. Speech was not free; one couldn’t

argue in class, or make any real analysis or debate. You had to regurgitate what they were telling you, and read

whatever was there in the old books stacked in the communist library. I was an English major, but could not

get the books in English necessary for the Exams. They did not exist. Talking to foreigners in English or

answering one question was a crime, according to a stupid decree. Abortion was a crime for 20 years. Doctors

performing it ended up in jail, and so did the pregnant women. 5 years jail for an abortion. If my uncle from

Canada visited us, we were all under surveillance, the entire family. Even today, in 2014 one has to go and

declare if you have family visiting from the USA or CANADA for some bizarre security reasons. Well even after

26 years, not much has changed in poor Romania. The Securitate is still doing surveillances of Romania’s

“enemies” and even ramped up surveillance now using NATO funds to control people in key positions of

government, be it local, municipal, or at federal level.

Now, writing this, it all came back to my mind’s eye: I was a professor of Romanian and English in Sighetu

Marmatiei, Maramures County, at School #2 for 6 years. Teaching English and American languages and

grammar was my favorite thing, and my goal was to move to the West. So I settled in Tisa with my then-

husband, Valerian Pipas.

It was very exacting commuting all the time from Tisa where I lived in our private Museum (Pipas Museum of

Art) to Sighet by bus. I also taught Latin and English to people just to make ends meet. Salaries were dismal for

intellectuals. So, finally I had it, and decided to leave in 1986. We were caught on the border and sent back in

1984. Ceausescu, the “father” of the nation pardoned all border violations in 1983, as prisons were full with

civil society activists.

The jail was so cold in Timisoara to keep the bacterias and viruses that it made everybody sick internally with

the cold and the flue. Most of civil society was imprisoned, for trying to open the system, and denounce the

Ceausescu dictatorship. The blanket was as warm as a kleenex tissue. Moreover there were no pillows, and the

concrete slab where inmates slept was a back-breaker. The lights were on 24 hours a day, blinding all of us,

and there was constant observation. Every hour one was awakened to be counted. All under the guise of

24

Lazín, p.

watching out for suicides. But everyone could be clearly seen by the guards, and there was no need to sleep-

deprive inmates, as they were doing. There was also someone in the higher echelon ripping off the food bill.

They served only baby carrots, and spicy beans. Prisoners were forced to labor in the fields and sorting out

what was left of pigs to be

Exported, to pay off Romania’s debt to the IMF. Yes, that was Ceausescu’s dream. Famishing the

Nation, sacrificing entire generations of people, just to pay off the debt. I remember studying with

no lights, only a candle for exams, and not having eggs or meat for years. In 1984 my father sold his house for a

pig. Peasants had to give up parts of their products to the state. Taxes were paid in food.

The sadest years of my life: 1984 to 89.

My poor mother Magdalena, was so confused by the propaganda, that she started crying when I was freed from

jail, additionally she was feeling very emotional after the death of the nation’s father, Ceausescu. Nicolae

together with Elena were shot execution style by his opponent, socialist, KGB educated Ion Iliescu, who stole

the revolution from the young people of the University Square in Bucharest.

My endurance had limits. Fed up with all the restrictions, and full of frustrations, I hit the border with

Yugoslavia.

I have been unfairly jailed as I tried to leave the country in 1986.

I was ready to give up my life, just to escape people in an impossible country, with impossible leadership.

It has become unlivable for many people. In 1989, Ceausescu finally pardoned everybody who tried to escape

the horrendous conditions in the country.

The first act of freedom I have performed it was to secure a passport for myself. And got married to Valerian

Pipas, a famous violinist from Virismort, Tisa in Maramures county. Otherwise the consulate would not have

given me the visas. Conditions were one had to be married, and own a house. Truly I enjoyed being married to

a musician; he played the violin and I danced tango and Csardas in weekends.}

I have been teaching English in Sighet, Tisa, and Giulesti, as well as Camara for another 10 years. Conditions

were absolutely horrific; no heating in schools, no teaching material, and constant harassment from colleagues

of being informed on.

25

Lazín, p.

After I finally left Romania, when an execution squad shot Ceausescu in December 26, 1989 for Christmas.

Nice gift to the Romanian people.

When the regime changed in 1990, I was free to get a passport, and Organized Conferences and Seminars at

the University of Babes-Bolyai, in the heart of Transylvania. I was mostly writing on destatification and

privatization of Romanian companies. 51% of MARA, the textiles company I researched was finally sold to the

Germans. The opening up of Romani has finally begun.

It was on a rainy September 17th day, in Sighet. Shortly after, I have met American professors from UCLA, who

were doing a study on the effects of the Cold War in post-socialist countries. My observations were very

valuable to Dr Wilkie who then asked me to guide the academic group through Eastern Europe. They were

traveling in a German Opel (a U.S. made car). I took them to the Museum of my friend, D-ra Mihaly de Apsa, in

my hometown, Sighet.

She was the last descendant of a fine lineage of Romanian revolutionaries fighting for the unification of

Romania in 1918; Mihaly de Apsa. James was enchanted to have met her, alive in her pretty museum of

“Pasoptisti.”

Together, we went to the Merry Cemetery, and it was dusk by the time Dr James Wilkie from the University of

Los Angeles, California, arrived in Sighet at the Marmatia Hotel. His book was about cycles of statism in

Socialist countries. He has written over 30 books on economic development.

I’ll start by explaining the places I went in 1991, on one of the most beautiful part of Romania, through Pasul

Prislop. We went Around Romania, visited the monasteries of Moldova, C-lung Moldovenesc, Suceava, Sucevita

and Agapia monasteries. Then we went to Lacul Rosu. We took the scenic road to Cluj Napoca, where I was

trying to get the plane in order to fly out to Paris, in France. I had all the visas. But there was no flight. No

airport and I was not going to go through Bucharest, but via HUNGARY.

Nobody took credit cards, so Jim had to take out a lot of cash, so that we can travel safely.

Seeing how The Professor cared, I fell in love with Jim Wilkie.

I was deeply in love with James Wilkie, whom has hired me as a guide.

He said: “call me Jim”. We finally left for Budapest after the airport visit in Cluj Napoca.

26

Lazín, p.

We got through Budapest, finally, and then got out towards Austria and Germany.

Our colleague, Dr James Platler was worried that I was a spy, as we received special private rooms, and great

Hotel deals, plus good lunches at the Monastery, where I was a good friend with Mother Superior.

I was just happy to be a guide in many countries.


wolverines, but all the mythological characters were actually members of the Communist Party, which

everyone had to join--except for me because with my knowledge, I was considered a security risk!

Fortunately, when in 1982 I entered the University Babes Boljay, in Cluj-Napoca, to earn my M.A. in 1990, for

my sociology classes, I decided to conduct my field research project into the rural life of the North of Romania,

recording the folklore (especially myths) invented and passed down by rural folks (including small merchants,

farmers, fisherman, loggers) had had used that lore to help them survive for centuries.


Folklore, which prepared me well to understand Communist Party Lore.

Thus, for the second time, my fateful choice of a field research project had further prepared me, unknowingly,

for my future with Jim Wilkie.

Once I had been admitted to the Babes Boljay University, which was called “the heart and brain of

Transylvania,” I also further expanded and deepened deep studies in American language and literature. Also I

studied Romanian language and literature in the Department of Philology. The Bolyai University Is considered





27

Lazín, p.





us how to sharpen our mental images. Not one professor asked us,

“What do each of you really think of all this Ceausescu propaganda of decrees harming the educational

process?”













economics involved only fuzzy nonsensical slogans such as “We Romanians have to fight-off the ‘running dogs

of capitalism,” without the word “capitalism” ever being defined except in unrealistic theory laced with

epithets.

Even as an English major, I not permitted to speak with foreigners in English --answering one’s question was a

crime, according to the tendentious Security Decrees. Abortion was a crime punishable for up to 5 years in

prison. Doctors caught performing it ended up in jail, and so did the pregnant women. Over 10.000 women

died trying to perform abortions on themselves, or botched it, not knowing how to escape having children that

they had no means to raise in a country rife with complete hunger.

Even today, Romania has the highest rate of orphans in the whole world.

28

Lazín, p.

Punishments were ridiculous—the Anti-Abortion Law lasted for 40 years, until 1990.




With Ceausescu finally gone, after 40 years of dictatorship, in 1990 I was able to secure a passport in order to

ready myself to leave Romania by gaining visas for Germany and France. I had a lovely family in Bordeaux,

namely Saint-Denise-de-Pile, who invited me over to

Bordeaux, the Godrie family, so I pursued this wonderful opportunity, and decided to visit them in Saint-Denis-

De-Pile. I spoke impeccable French. I corresponded for years with Muguette Godrie, my beloved friend who

sponsored my stay in France.

Meanwhile, the question remained, how to get there by land without a visa to Austria— as my isolated region

of Transylvania had no air connection to the outside world til late in 1990.

I succeeded to finally extract myself from that virtual prison, and we had to do it by car. Pumped up and having

all the visas in my passport, I took off with Jim on September 16, 1990 in an Opel, which remains my favorite

car to this day. They ended manufacturing of the Opel in 1990.


In the meantime, the History of Transylvania weighed heavily on population of Romania, with constant change

in the emerging political map always have left “citizens” always lost about who was really in charge.

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Lazín, p.

Thus, Transylvania was originally part of the Dacia Kingdom between 82 BC until the Roman conquest in 106

AD. The capital of Dacia was destroyed by the Romans, so that a new as capital would serve the Roman

Province of Dacia, which lasted until 350 AD, by which time the Romans felt so hated that it behooved them to

withdraw back to Rome.

During the late 9th century, western Transylvania was conquered by the Hungarian Army to later become part

of the Kingdom of Hungary and in 1570 to devolve into the Principality of Transylvania. During most of the

16th and 17th centuries, the Principality became an Ottoman Empire vassal state, confusingly also governed

by the Habsburg Empire. After 1711 Transylvania was consolidated solely into the Hapsburg Empire and

Transylvanian princes were replaced with Habsburg imperial governors. After 1867, Transylvania ceased to

have separate status and was incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Austro-Hungarian

Empire.viii After World War I, Transylvania reverted in 1918 to be part of Romania. In 1940 Northern

Transylvania again became governed by Hungary and then Germany, but Romanian queen Maria successfully

reclaimed it after the end of World War II.

The year 1940 was important for Romania because if was seized for its oil by Nazi Germany (1940-1944),

“liberated” by the “Soviet Union” (1944-1947), and finally “re-liberated” to become the Popular republic of

Romania (under USSR remote control), as the Cold War was beginning to freeze the Iron Curtain into place.

At the end of World War II while the USSR and its Red Army were the occupying powers in all Romania, in

1947 Romania forcibly and ironically became a “People’s Republic” (1947–1989), after the rise of the Iron

Curtain.

The first “president,” Gheorghiu-Dej (1947) ruled as puppet of Moscow, but when he died, his Secretary

General of the Communist Party of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, was elected as the second “president” (1965-

1989), shifting his savage dictatorship into a harsher Romanian “Gulag” than known in the USSR.

For two decades I neither understood the dimensions of tragic history of Transylvania, nor did I yet realize

that I would have to escape the Gulag of Romania, even if by the “skin of my teeth.”

For peoples of the world Transylvania seems to be a far-away place, where most people know the werewolves

and vampires have been “seen” to in the imagination of Transylvanians, whose beliefs was soaked in mystical

folklore. Even today it is hardly possible to have a rational conversation with most the Transylvanian folk on

any subject without recourse to try to understand where their distorted imagination has befuddled them.

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The population has consisted of Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, and some Ukrainians. These

languages are still being spoken in Romania’s Maramures province, but because I always liked and loved the

Romanian language, I decided to become a Professor of Romanian Language and Literature, as well as

American Language and Civilization.


I later told Jim how I had been admitted in 1982 to the Babes-Bolyai University, in Cluj-Napoca at the heart of


under the control of sweaty-stinking Securitate officers, had to read dozens of new Decrees issued every day as

they sought to control every one of our daily actions—all in the name of protecting the Ceausescu government

—which was selling the country’s food supplies to Russia in order to pay down Roman’s official debt with

exports. Those Securitate officers ate well and ominously watched us virtually starve. They said, be calm, like

your parents in the face of their starvation.

Thus, I furiously called out in my classes that our very existence was being compromised by Ceausescu's

abandonment of the population, which was ordered to, as Lenin famously said, “work, work, and work.”

To protect myself as best I could, I turned to humor, seeking to ridicule Ceausescu’s “national paradise.” But

when I encouraged my classmates to laugh at the propaganda embedded in the wooden language of the

national bureaucracy, I soon fell under the heavy scrutiny of university authorities, who were furious that I

trying to expose the fact that all classes had been organized to befuddle the student body into confused



the Securitate officers, and open bribery by the professors--choose your garden variety.

Knowing My Real value And Having A Spine

By 1986, at age 23, I had decided to flee Romania—an illegal act because Ceausescu did not want anyone

(especially women of child-bearing age) to escape his plan to building his “ideal socialist industries” on farms

and ranches as well as in the cities. In June I made my way to the border of Yugoslavia and paid a smuggler to

evade the Romanian security forces that were preventing the “nations

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Lazín, p.

workers” from escaping. The smuggler, who took me across the border, turned out to be working for

Romanian Border Police. Thus, soon after crossing into Yugoslavia, he turned his wagon around and I was

again in Romania again when I realized what had happened too late. I had been “sold” to Ceausescu’s minions

for a wagonload of salt and 20 Liters of gasoline. Thousands were returned for this kind of draconian

exchange.

That failed escape from Romania led me to a 10-month prison sentence in Timisoara Prison, wherein the block

cells were maintained so cold (supposedly to eliminate bacteria and viruses) that it made all of us inmates sick

with the cold and the flu.

Bed blankets in the were less warming than one Kleenex tissue. Moreover, there were no pillows, and the

concrete slab where inmates slept was a “back-breaker.” The lights were on 24 hours a day, blinding all of us,

and there was constant observation. Every hour one was awakened to be counted for, and sneaking up on

people, under the guise of watching out for suicides. But everyone could be clearly seen by the guards, and

there was no need to sleep-deprive inmates. There was also someone in the higher echelon ripping off the food

budget to siphon money to themselves while serving inmates only baby carrots and spicy beans.

Almost every family in Romanian civil society had at least one member who had been imprisoned for trying to

open the political system by denouncing the Ceausescu dictatorship. These inmates were openly called

“Political Prisoners,” and I was one of them.

Political Prisoners were not permitted to work outside the prison walls in the fields because our crime had

been the political decision to repudiate Ceausescu’s “fantastic system.”

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Lazín, p.

OUT OF PRISON IN 1987 TO FIND ROMANIA FACING DISASTER And FAMINE



Further in 1987, at the age of 24, I met the Family patriarch Nicolae Pipas,ix who directed for the Communist

government the walled Regional Art Museum in a quiet part of Sighet. When he realized that I was a Professor

of the English and Romania Languages, and one of the few university’s highly educated persons in the region, I

began to serve as interpreter/guide to visiting foreign Ambassadors permitted to travel in Romania. They

wanted to see the Museum with its magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, and rare historical pottery

and coins. Thus, I soon found myself interpreting and translating for visiting English-Speaking Ambassadors

from many countries who wished to know Transylvania, especially my village Sighet and its Merry Cemetery

famous worldwide for it tombstones in the form of wood sculpture of the butcher, the baker, candlestick

maker, and all professions.

Although my first languages were Romanian and Hungarian, I could also translate into French and Italian.

Indeed at that time I was teaching Latin in the Rural School System of my Maramures Province.

By 1989, Ceausescu realized that his end was near, and he sought to gain support by pardoning his political

prisoners (such as myself) who had tried to escape the horrendous conditions in the country. Hence,

university students and some labor unions joined forces and quite quickly after the fall of the Berlin Wall

forced Ceausescu and his draconian wife Elena to flee. They were caught and executed on Christmas Day, 1989,

by the military that at the last moment joined the Revolution.

‘As my friends and I (along with most of the population) cheered the fall of the failed, rotten Romanian

“dictatorship of the proletariat,” my dear mother acted differently. She was so confused by the

propaganda of the only “leader” she knew much about that she wept for Ceausescu, not fully realizing that he

was the one who had wrongly had be arrested and put me in prison.

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With Ceausescu gone, in 1990 I was able to secure a passport to ready myself to leave Romania by gaining

visas for Germany and France. The question remained, how to get there by land without a visa to Austria—my

region had no air connection to the outside world.

MY FATEFUL 1991 MEETING IN SIGHET WITH JIM WILKIE

Almost age 27 in 1991, I was in the right place at the right time when UCLA Professor Jim Wilkie arrived in

Sighet September 17th, 1990, together with Professor James Platler (his friend and driver). They came as part of their

trip to assess the impact of the 1989 Fall of Iron Curtain--which had imprisoned all Romanians and made it a

crime to try to escape from Romania. The two Americans had already visited “East” Germany, Czechia,x and

Slovakia (soon to break their union, each becoming independent), and Poland, where English speakers could

provide guidance.

In Romania the UCLA Team found itself at a loss as few of the people who they encountered could speak

English and none of them could analyze or articulate how the System of Government and society functioned

before and after 1989.

When we met, Jim immediately contractedxi with me to advise them as well as guide them through

Eastern Europe. They were pleased to hear the my outline of Transylvanian and Romanian history (see above),

with which I explained how constant national boundary change meant that Transylvanians and Romanians

were never able to develop either honest civil government or active civic society. Little did I know that the

concepts of “Civic” and “Civil” Society were of utmost importance to Jim? As I would find out later, Jim and I

had been conducting compatible research for years and would lead me to my

PHD Dissertation and two books written with Jim. xii All these works distinguish between the concepts of Civil

Society (which represents national and local governmental activity) and Civic Society (which involves active

private citizens (who organize non-governmental initiatives to develop model projects

beyond the ability of official bureaucrats to even comprehend, including the influence needed to monitor and

expose the failures and successes of governmental activity).

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Lazín, p.

But before we left in September 18, 1991, to visit Romania and Hungary, I had to find a substitute for my new

class teaching American English and History in Sighet—I left a friend, Johnny Popescu, to become my

permanent substitute. Only then could our newly expanded Team set off under my guidance.

Thus, we set out on that September 18th to visit one of the most socially and economically interesting and

beautiful parts of Romania by going up thought the green forested Carpathian Mountains via the beautiful

Prislop Pass, stopping to visit small farming families in their folkloric clothing of which they were justifiably

proud to wear on a daily basis. Farther east in Romania, on the scenic roads, we visited the monasteries of

Moldova, the town of Cimpulung Moldovenesc, Suceava, and then the Monasteries in Sucevita and Agapia. The

gorgeous forested mountain road eventually led to Lacul Rosu and the lake country. Then we took the long

scenic mountain road to Cluj Napoca to visit my prestigious University.

As I briefed Jim about Romania, he was briefing me about factors in comparing national economies. For

example, he told me about how he had reunited in Prague on September 15th with Richard Beesen, his former

UCLA student and friend, to hear about his role in London as Manager of Deutsche Bank’s New Accounts in

Russia and Eastern Europe. Richard had become famous for inviting Banking Officials and national Treasury

Ministries to deposit their financial reserves on deposit in his bank in London. But

because his clients did not understand anything about “interest payments” on deposited funds, they did not

ask for nor did they gain any interest payments. Also, because most Western Banks were not sure that

these new “capitalists” could be “fully trusted” for correct management of their deposits, his Deutsche Bank

collected large fees (and paid no interest to keep the Eastern Europe “bank reserves safe.” This was all very

eye opening for me.

Jim and I had realized early on that we had a close affinity as we analyzed the situation of Romania, and he

said, “Call me Jim.” (In contrast I called Professor James Platler “JP.”) As we traveled to observe the situation of

the people in different parts of the country, Jim and I formed a deep bond of observing and analyzing; thus

both of us realized this brief interlude had to continue for the long term in order to achieve our goals.



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As a Romanian, I had the right to enter Hungary, and we did so bypassing the miles of vehicles waiting to

cross the border for the long drive to Budapest. There Prof. James Platler finally relaxed after the long drives

and often poor hotels and monasteries —he said that he finally found unbroken civilization again. I was

astounded to hear that. I made everything possible for them to have the best lodging and food in Moldova and

Maramures county. Obviously, my friends had different standards than us, Romanians.

Once we arrived in Budapest, Professor James Platler, who had told Jim privately that from the outset of our

trip that he thought that I was a “Spy” (planted on us by the Romanian Securitate to monitor our many

“foreign” inquiries during our travel through Romania’s north country), announced that his concern about me

had vanished as we realized the extent of my knowledge and research abilities. In his mind, I had to be a Spy

because I had obtained access to special private dining rooms and quarter in some fine hotels, as well as

invitations for wonderful lunches at some Monasteries, where miraculously I made immediate friends with

each Mother Superior. But by the time we reached Budapest, he realized that at my University I had learned

the Elite skills needed to survive safely and comfortably in Eastern Europe.

My problem was to enter Austria, where I had no visa. But Jim passed his UCLA business card through to the

Consul General of Austria in Budapest, and quickly we found ourselves whisked from the back of the long line

to the front and right into a meeting with the Consul General himself. He was pleased to hear about the

research of our UCLA Team, but said that I did have a visa. Jim then told them that I only needed a three-day

transit visa to reach Germany, the visa for which he could see in my passport.

With entry to Austria solved, we were on the road to the Hotel Kobentzl and Graz, which overlook Salzburg, all

the way analyzing the comparative economic and social situations of Austria, Hungary, and Romania.

We spent most of our time down the mountain from Kobentzl to the valley, before returning to our sweeping

Hotel view of Salzburg City. Meanwhile I was deepening my questions about capital is leveraged to undertake

big private projects. As we took photos over from on high looking down on the many bridges of Salzburg and

Jim was explaining how the developed world operated by using finances, credit, and interest to help economies

grow.

Finally we left Salzburg to enter Germany and Munich, where our quick look into Oktoberfest found us among

nasty drunken louts each of whom seemingly had hand four hands: one to chug-a-lug beer; one to smoke foul

smelling cigarettes; one to quaff horrible-bleeding-raw sausages; and one to punch someone in the face. From

what we saw, Oktoberfest was a place for nasty males seeking to “get smashed on beer” and then smash

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another male to break his nose. Thus, we fled for our lives as the brutes began to threaten anyone who looked

at them.

Then on September 30th, I took the plane from Munich to Paris to take a bus to Bordeaux to meet the French

family, the daughter of which, in her visit in 1990 to the Museum in Sighet, had invited me to obtain a French

visa and move to stay with her on the lovely family farm outside Bordeaux.

Jim (and JP) also left the same day for Jim to arrive in time to go from the airplane to open and begin teaching

his Fall Quarter class at UCLA. But he promised to call daily and return to join me again in ten weeks.

In the meantime, I made a trip to Paris to request political asylum in France, but a grey-faced judge rejected my

request, saying that the petitioner must file with the help of a lawyer.

To complicate matters in Bordeaux, the French Security Agent there was investigating me, a lone woman, as a

possible spy sent by Romania to “monitor activities at the Port of Bordeaux. When he told that, if I pleased him

in unmentionable ways, he would not deport me to Romania but arrange my legal status in France so that I

could live him. I immediately told Jim on his next telephone call.

To resolve the above problem, Jim called his Paris friend Gérard Chaliand, a former visiting professor at

UCLA, whose real job involved traveling the world for French Security to report on his professorial travels that

took him to all continents. Gérard immediately called French Security to report on the illegal approach to me

by their Agent in Bordeaux. That same day the Agent came to apologize profusely to me in the best manner

that he could muster in his pitiful condition. He begged me not to have him fired for his proposition to me. I

could see him looking at me in truly puzzled way that implicitly said: “Who are you? How did I make such a

grave mistake in deciding that you, a lone Romanian woman, could not have any power to reach my bosses in

Paris?” I took pity on him and told him that if he minded manners and watched from affair to be sure that I was

always safe, he would not be fired.

JIM RETURNS TO EUROPE IN DECEMBER, 1991:

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HIS PLAN FOR ADVISING EASTERN EUROPEAN CIVIC SOCIETY ABOUT HOW TO GAIN GRANTS FROM U.S.

FOUNDATIONS (NPPOs),xiii WHICH HOLD THE WORLD’S LARGEST POOL OF NGO DEVELOPMENT FUNDS

Even though it was December 11, 1991, when Jim returned, France was in the midst what some in America

call an “Indian Fall,” warm with colorful fall leaves still on the trees. It was a beautifully bright

“fall day” when we left Bordeaux the next day to spend some days visiting the Loire River with its many castles

and incredible views.

Even during our photography of the Loire region, Jim began to outline his New Plan (now our plan) to wit:

PROFMEX Plan to Help Eastern European “Foundations”

Therefore, some Romanian and Mexican NGOs become legally eligible to gain grants from U.S. Tax

Exempt Foundations following our advice on how to do it, best practices we could teach other leaders about:

and so The U.S. Model for Philanthropy was born.

“The U.S.-Mexico Model for Philanthropy.”

Indeed, Jim told me that recently when he had been in Mexico City, he received an invitation to meet with

Manuel Alonso Muñoz, Executive Director of Mexico’s National Lottery,xiv who, when he heard about Jim’s U.S.-

Mexico Model, invited him to meet at the Lottery’s historically famous ornate building. After an extended

briefing by Jim, Manuel told him that he had already called his own good friend Ronald G. Hellman, Professor of

Sociology in the Graduate School at the City University of New York, to ask him for an evaluation of Jim and his

Mexico-U.S. Model for Philanthropy. Ironically, it was only then when he realized that Ron was (and is today)

Jim’s PROFMEX Vice-President for Strategic Planning. With that news and Jim’s stellar briefing, Lic. Alonso

asked if the Lottery could make a series of generous grants to PROFMEX in order to help fund the expansion of

Jim’s Model to Eastern Europe,xv putting Mexico into an innovative new light.

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Mexico And The World, I got the idea! Evrika, so the brilliant idea to bring together experts from all the world

to Mexico, to have a debate was born. The Conference I was always dreaming about was beginning to shape

up, and soon things all lined up for us to organize a bi-lateral Conference in Morelia, the State of Michoacán.

The Governor was more than happy to receive us in Michoacán. So we worked together with Manuel Alonso to

get people down there. The hardest part was to get the financing for it.

Manuel Alonso was appreciative of the fact that Jim, while serving as Consultant to the U.S. Council on

Foundations, had become involved since 1990 with his Model for helping Mexican Foundations (including, for

example, charities, human rights organizations, hospitals, universities, biospheres, etc.) to help them re-write

their constitution and by-laws to be compatible with the U.S. tax requirement that they mirror U.S. Not-for-

Private Profit Organizations (NPPOs).

The question of “mirroring” involved Jim’s explanation that:

As NPPOs, U.S. Foundations are legally responsible for controlling expenditure of funds granted to

organizations that do not mirror the U.S. foundations do not want to be involved in the day-to-day activities of

its grantees. Indeed, “ they want to transfer expenditure responsibility” (including misuse or illegal use of

grant funds) to the recipient foundation to which they grant funds but can only do so if the grant recipient

organization is deemed to have an “equivalent” legal structure to that of the U.S. donor foundation.

Here is the background, according to Jim: xvi “In order to facilitate the U.S. philanthropic activity needed during

the 1970s and 1980s to help speed world development, the U.S. Secretary of Treasury and the IRS formulated

provisions that resulted in changing and/or interpreting the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) to freely permit U.S.

foundations to grant funds abroad, if they meet the following special proviso:

U.S. NPPOs can themselves make a legal “determination” that the foreign organization receiving the U.S. grant

be “determined” to be “equivalent” to an NPPO described in Section 501(c)(3)xvii of the U.S. Internal Revenue

Code.”

Further, Jim pointed out that, “while this proviso has worked well for big U.S. grant-making

foundations that place costly offices and staff around the world (such as Rockefeller and Ford Foundations), it

has worked less well for foundations that have had to send their lawyers to meet with their legal counterparts

in prospective ‘equivalent organizations, the legal cost of making such a determination often reaching $25,000

[or, by 2016, much, much more] for each new organization to

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receive funds from the U.S. NPPO. If that determination is favorable, the U.S. NPPO can transfer funds to the

equivalent organization, just as it can to any other approved U.S. NPPO, and along with the transfer of funds to

the recipient organization goes the transfer of responsibility over how the funds are spent.”

Transfer of ‘Expenditure Responsibility’ from the

U.S. Donor NPPO to the Foreign Recipient NPPO.

The ability of U.S. NPPOs to avoid costly expenditure responsibility, as Jim told, is one of the factors that have

helped make American grant-making foundations so important in the world. Thus, U.S. NPPOs have been enabled to

avoid becoming ensnarled in accounting processes and audits, which are better done by the foreign organization that

receives and administers the U.S. NPPO grant of funds.

In this manner, said Jim, the U.S. NPPO is free to focus its energy on evaluating the substance of its grant

programs. The ability of grant-making foundations to transfer Expenditure Responsibility to other NPPOs is

the main reason that they generally prefer (and require) that their funds be granted only to approved

organizations rather than to individuals or to non-approved organizations.

The above views, Jim said, do not mean that U.S. NPPOs are unable to grant funds to an organization that is not

equivalent to a U.S. NPPO (or make grants to individual scholars, artists, or writers either at home or abroad),

but to do so adds a complication to the grant-making process. Rather than passing on the Expenditure

Responsibility (as the U.S. NPPO does when it makes grants to another NPPO or U.S. equivalent), the

Expenditure Responsibility remains with the donor NPPO when it makes a grant to an organization that is not

an NPPO (or its U.S. equivalent) or to an individual.

In the unlikely case where the donor NPPO retains Expenditure Responsibility, then, Jim told me in my

interview with him on September 17, 1991, the donor foundation has to concern itself with costly financial

oversight involved, which may problematic whether of in or outside the USA.

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ON TO PARIS AND THE WORLD TO MEET WITH NPPO LEADERS ABOUT NEW

FOUNDATIONS

Jim and I arrived in Paris on December 15, 1991, to meet with Jim’s contacts at the American

Embassy, who heard about our research and suggested that Jim meet also with their counterparts at the U.S.

Embassy in Mexico City. They agreed to help begin to our new Plan to expand to Eastern Europe and Russia

Jim’s successful Model for Tax-Free Flow of Nonprofit Funds, the example being what he negotiated (with the

U.S. Council on Foundations and the U.S. and Mexican Treasury Departments), as analyzed above.

It is important for me to say here that George Soros and his decentralized donations to his 41 semi-

autonomous “national foundations”xviii (exemplified in Romania, Hungary, and Russia) have been built

following the IRS proviso and regulations discussed above. Also, Soros’ “National Foundations” require that

national Government charter the independent role as NGOs.

In contrast, the flowering of thousands of small independent “Foundations” in Eastern Europe since

1989 has grown from groups looking for funds from the many U.S. Foundations that do not have the

Soros/New York link with its Foundations in many nations, all of which operate in Soros’ closed loop. Few of

these new Foundations have the Soros knowledge and financial resources to set up the By-Laws and Legal

Status needed for the thousands of Foundations desiring to tap into funding by the U.S. Foundations.xix

However, since 2013, Soros’ has organized an office to work with shared Global Funds (for food, migration,

etc.) outside the non-Soros frameworks to help poor areas and countries to stave off crises. Recently, in 2013,

George Soros has been discredited by the Hungarian PM, Orban who has aggressively made anti-Soros

advertisement on buses in Hungary, claiming that the Hungarian American wanted Arabs, and Palestinians to

“invade” Hungary. The anti-Soros rhetoric has become increasingly nationalistic, and this is what FIDESZ, the

ruling party is preaching

Before we left Paris on December 19, 1991, we met with Gérard Chaliand to personally thank him for having

made the Bordeaux Security agent reexamine his whole approach to his life.

Further, with Gérard, we worked out a plan to arrange for me to become a U.S. resident and obtain U.S.

citizenship nine years after my arrival in Los Angeles, October 1992. He recommended that my case by

handled in In Los Angeles by one of America’s most knowledgeable and effective Migration Attorneys—

Cynthia Juárez Lange, today Managing Partner, Northern California, for the Fragomen Del Rey, Bernsen &

Loewy LLP Legal Office located in San Francisco. Cynthia is herself an academic and personable genius.

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Meanwhile in my travels with Jim in December 1991 and from March to June 1992 we met NPPO leaders in the

European Union to better understand how foundations work under unique laws in each county rather than in

any rational manner for the whole EU, we went to Marseilles, Nice, Villfranche-sur-Mer, Cap-Ferrat, Monaco,

La Rochelle, Andorra, Sevilla, Madrid, Trujillo, El Escorial, Avila (a magnificent fortress city), and Segovia.

On September 3. 1992, we arrived at the U.S. Consulate in Paris, where the U.S Consulate in Mexico had

arranged with Jim for my U.S. eligibility for residence to be issued. Also, the Mexican Consulate General in Paris

issued me my residence papers to enter and leave Mexico freely, as arranged by Jim with the Mexican Consular

Head Office in Mexico City.

Before we left Europe for the USA in October 1991, we returned to Sighet on September 7, 1992, for meetings

with Romanian Civic Activists. (Thus, I finally returned to Sighet after having “escaped” with Jim to France in

December 1991).

From March to June 1993, we met with NPPO leaders in Budapest, Sighet, and Varna (Bulgaria), Bucharest, and

St. Petersburg.

In Moscow (June 21-14, 1993), Jim appointed Professor Boris Koval (Director of the Latin American Institute

of the Russian Academy of Sciences), to be PROFMEX Representative in Russia. Koval had invited us to

Moscow and introduced us to his own Security Chief to be our translator and guide. This Security Chief was a

fascinating person who had been former head of the KGB Office in Iraq, 1979-1989.

Jim, who always wore his Mexican guayabera shirt with or without a suit, was seen to be “authentically

Mexican” in our meetings and discussions about NPPOs.

Some of our interviews focused on the successes of Soros Open Society Foundation--Russia (1987-2002).

Other meetings with civic society followed as we learn the details about the problems of the Soros

Foundations--Russia since 2003, when, under reactionary Government pressure, he was phasing out of

operation active programs. According to the Soros Foundation—Russia:xx

“When on November 30, 2015, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office classified the Soros Open Society

Foundation as an “undesirable” organization, it closed the possibility of Russian individuals and institutions

from having anything to do with any Soros initiative or programs… [Because it constituted] a threat to the

foundations of Russia’s Constitutional order and national security….

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“Prosecutors [then] launched a probe into Soros Foundation

activities….xxi [and in July 2015], after Russian senators approved

the so-called “patriotic stop-list” of 12 groups that required

immediate attention over their supposed anti-Russian activities, [the

following U.S. organizations] realized that they would soon be

banned in Russia: [the U.S.] National Endowment for Democracy; the

International Republican Institute; the National Democratic

Institute; the MacArthur Foundation, and Freedom House. Now in

2017, all Eastern European countries want Soros foundations closed

in their countries, especially the Hungarian PM, Orban Viktor, who

went so far as to describe him as a dangerous politician mixing in his

domestic “dictatorial” affairs.

The American hedge-funds mogul George Soros issued from London the following Press Release

on November 30, 2015: xxii

“Contrary to the Russian prosecutor’s allegations, the Open Society Foundations have, for more than a quarter-

century, helped to strengthen the rule of law in Russia and protect the rights of all. In the past, Russian officials

and citizens have welcomed our efforts, and we regret the changes that have led the government to reject our

support to Russian civil society and ignore the aspirations of the Russian people.

“Since 1987, Open Society has provided support to countless individuals and civil society organizations,

including in the fields of science, education, and public health. Open Society has helped finance a network of

internet centers in 33 universities around the country, helped Russian scholars to travel and study abroad,

developed curricula for early childhood education, and created a network of contemporary art centers that are

still in operation.

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“This record speaks for itself. We are honored to have worked alongside pioneering citizens, educators, and

civil society organizations that embody Russian creativity, commitment, and hope.

“We are confident that this move is a temporary aberration; the aspirations of the Russian people for a better

future cannot be suppressed and will ultimately succeed,” said George Soros, founder and chairman of the

Open Society Foundations.) Despite all efforts made by Soros and his organizations, he has been banned from

Russia.

“Once with the reset of the Cold War, in 2012, when Putin was reelected as Russia’s President, Putin’s first

movement was to ban all Soros organizations which were impeding his expansion onto Crimea.”

Catching up on Soros, he most recent assertion is that civil society is being endangered by nostalgia for communism. Read: by Jacob Grandstaff

1 C O M M E N T S

Read Part One of “George Soros’ says in Romanian Ghosts.” Part Two explains how Soros-funded NGOs and their Western allies in government push for revolution in Eastern Europe. Part Three shows how Romanian activist “ghosts” became a threat to civil

liberties and undermined their nation’s sovereignty. xxiii

Back in Mexico City for the 1994 PROFMEX Event featuring Eastern Europeans interested in the U.S.-Mexico

Model for NPPOs, we convened, July 28-29, for our meeting on “Development of Mexico as seen from the

World,” Co-sponsored by UCLA and Mexico’s Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología.

This Conference was held at Mexico City’s María Isabel Sheraton, with 70 participants from Mexico and the

United States, and which I co-organized with Jim

The following invitees from Eastern Europe came from

Hungary

Zoltan Karpati, Professor of Sociology

Romania Mihai Coman, University Dean

https://capitalresearch.org/article/george-soros-romanian-ghosts-colectiv-horror/

https://capitalresearch.org/article/george-soross-romanian-ghosts-part-two/

https://capitalresearch.org/article/george-soross-romanian-ghosts/

https://capitalresearch.org/article/george-soros-romanian-ghosts-explaining-the-democratic-society/#postComments

https://capitalresearch.org/person/jacob-grandstaff/

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Roman Romulus, Consul General in Mexico

Alexandru Lazín, PROFMEX-- England and Romania

Lia Stan, Investor from Bristol, England.

Highlights of the event came frequently as we turned our gaze from Salón A with his all-window view from

the top floor to discuss the anti-government protest marches up and down Reforma Avenue past the Angel

Monument below.

Further, our group enjoyed the invitation of Mexico’s Attorney General, Jorge Madrazo Cuéllar to visit him

at his headquarters where we personally discussed and raised questions about the street blockages of political

protest in front of our María Isabel Sheraton Hotel.

In December 1997, we continued to invite world scholars especially interested in economic matters, as

well as in the U.S.-Mexico NPPO Model to participate with us at the:

IX PROFMEX-ANUIES Conference

Hosted by Governor Víctor Manuel Tinoco Rubí

Morelia, Michoacán, México

México y el Mundo Or Mexico and the World, in December 8-13, 1997

With hundreds of participants and Attendees from all continents,

Special Guests were invited from Russia: Boris Koval, who recalled with excitement

the visit of Jim and I to Moscow in June 1993.

From China: Sengen Zhang

Hongzhu Huang

Korea: Kap-Young Jeong

Japan: Soichi Shinohara

Osamu Nishimura

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Yasuoki Takagi

Indonesia: Lepi T. Tarmidi

Argentina: Eugenio O. Valenciano

Bolivia: Antonio J. Cisneros

---------

Jim and I have been involved with many academic activities, but those are beyond the scope of my analysis

here of our role in extending PROFMEX around the globe, especially to Europe and Russia.

My courses at UCLA taken under Jim and Professors Carlos Alberto Torres, Richard Weiss, and Ivan T.

Berend led me to my M.A. in History and Latin American Studies (1996) at Unieversity of California, Los

Angeles.

And my Ph.D. in History (2001) at UCLA, and Post-Doctoral Research in the Education and

Information Department for 8 years. I completed this Fellowship in 2017.

Here is title of my first book’s author: http://www.DecentralizedGlobalization.com 2017 March 10.

The second book, La globalización se descentraliza: Libre mercado, fundaciones, sociedad cívica y gobierno

civil en las regiones del mundo (2007) Olga Magdalena Lazín. With a Prologue by James W. Wilkie.

My third book, co-authored with James W. Wilkie, contains images that reflect my travels with Jim:

La globalización se amplia (2011), or Globalization Amplifies, Olga Magdalena Lazín & James W., Preface de

Rafael Rodríguez Castañeda, was published by UCLA, in 2011 in Spanish.

These books, including Decentralized Globalization show how U.S. Tax Exempt Organization (TEO) law has

evolved to become the most important in the world owing to its flexibility. Where the laws of most countries

require prior legal authorization to launch in a new direction, the United States TEO law recognizes no such

limit.

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Thus, U.S. TEO law, unlike most other countries, is never trying to make legal what is already underway and

working in the world. For the USA and now Mexico, both Treasury Ministries together have signed the first

collaborative agreement that stands as the blueprint for global NPPOs.

With Professor Jim Wilkie, I know that much researching and writing awaits us in our projects around the

world….

Olga and Jim, Guadalajara, Mexico, International Airport, December 7, 2016 @olgalazin

Later on, Richard Beeson, who headed up Deutsche bank, London office, where he represented all EE

countries, had convinced EE countries Central banks to deposit their golden cash at Deutsche Bank, London

office. He reunited with JW in Prague, and Cracow, where the horrible polluted air blinded him.

In Budapest I obtained the Austrian visa, where I needed a transit visa.

Then we travelled to Kobentzl, overlooking Salzburg, talking about the global economy.

We even spent most of our time down Salzburg city, taking pictures, and JW was teaching me economics, how

the world of development worked: finances, credit, interest. JP had more faith in me than ever.

We continued our journey to Munich, where we celebrated Oktoberfest with the locals in Frankfurt.

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Next, I took the plane to Paris, from Munich, to fly out to Bordeaux to meet the family, which invited me to

France. Jim had to go back to Los Angeles to teach Fall Quarter, as always. He promised he would return for me

soon.

After ten weeks in Bordeaux, Jim came to visit me.

We met in Paris, and I was refused asylum in France. The national security Bureau headed by a Gris guy

(security officer) was asking me weekly why was I keeping in touch with “The American”, I quote.

Finally, Jim returned for me. It was a very wonderful fall, I Bordeaux, so we drove to see all the castles along

the Loire River.

The 1st trip was to and along the river of LOIRE; we left in September, and came back in December. Then we

went to Paris, and visited the Versailles, Champs Elysee, the Montmartre, and Montparnasse. We had

everything to ourselves, and then we went to Marseille, listening to the Pastorales, and day-dreaming through

the beautiful green lands of France.

In Marseille we stayed at the Sofitel, JW was overlooking the Bay, into the icy cold town. And we went to the

COTE Azure. We stayed at Hotel Welcome. Then rode over the serpentined Cornish roads, overlooking the

Mediterranean, Cap Ferrat, and Monaco. Then JW had to fly out to teach again, and I flew back to Bordeaux,

where I took numerous courses in European Union Regulations for the environment, and sustainability.

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In Cancún, at the tiny Iguana conservationist group

Life In Bordeaux France, 1991

Life with the nuns in Bordeaux, France, in the city of Red Wines, was finally very healing and I was in excellent

health. The mother superior took me to Toulouse Lautrec’s castle, and we swam in the Atlantic ocean. I cooked

for myself and studied Elitelore and Folklore at Université De Michelle de Montaigne, one block away from my

Doctrine Chretiéne.

I was feeling very safe with the Nuns. Jim was calling me daily, checking up on me and my health. Then I flew to

meet Jim in NICE, in 1992.

It was now another beautiful stay at WELCOME hotel overlooking the ocean, in a stupendous pictorial town

called Beaulieu sur Mer. At the Welcome Hotel, right across from the ocean scene, I saw the boats coming up

and down to the port.

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Jim came back 10 weeks later. The second time we travelled to Carcassonne, a fortified city, through Andorra

(a gambling center, in the Pyrenees’). The Principality of Andorra was rich and ostentatious with baroque

buildings. And La Rochelle, a beautiful Bay, nested in the mountains.

Then entered into Spain, toward Madrid, and stayed at Hotel Paris for a week, in the center of Madrid.

Here we enjoyed eating the charales in the main plaza. Best snack I ever had in Spain, tiny delicious fish would

make us feel satiety in a few minutes. We found charales in Morelia later in 1995.

We visited stupendous Toledo, the town of knives, which we left behind in late September, and then headed to

the town of Trujillo. In Trujillo we went and took pictures while walking on the red roofs of houses, perfectly

lined up for me to walk. I took great that I was free and nobody minded my business. Jim and I, we were only

taking care of one another.

We went up to the Devil’s Throat (a town deep in a canyon, tucked into the mountains where a monastery is

nested) to continue up in the mountains, and then went down to a walled town of Avila, to Trujillo, and

continued to Madrid. We stayed at Paris Hotel in the heart of the capital, and listened to the powerful bells of

the Catholic church in front of us. The sounds of the Church bell were strong, and it reverberated in my

vertebrae.

Then we headed toward El Escorial, the monastery, and then JW flew out of Madrid. I took the plane to France,

and in Bordeaux I joined the nuns again, and continued my studies of Folklore at the University of Bordeaux,

where I was writing about the mythical Lilith.

To paint it in a picture of words, I am flashing out the pageant, of that most extraordinary beautiful Catholic

Church, as we went down from La Rochelle, along the clean river, where we called to make reservations in a

pretty tiny hotel, ahead and we found a room with a high ceiling warm and cozy.

Out of many, Switzerland is my favorite European country; the majestic mountains and the rivers impressed

me.

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Monte Rosa’s Peak and Matterhorn were absolutely fabulous, left us breathless, and the chalet Michabell was

looking down onto Italy. The view out of the window was that of Matterhorn mountain in Zermatt, a pretty

town.

We then went out to Monte Rosa, a majestic chain of snow-covered Mountain of rare beauty.

I enjoyed the lovely scenery in Luzern, and Interlaken, with the beautiful lake with little bridges leading up to

the center, all dressed up in geranium flowers. Multicolored geraniums flowers were hanging out from each

houses’ window. The beautiful trip is to go up on a chairlift (telefericul) to wheel you up over the meadows,

seeing cattle and, magnificent glorious view of the Swiss Mountains, and the peaks. It is a very gentle and slow

trip.

At the base of the Matterhorn, in July 1994 we stayed at the very top, at the Gornergrat Hotel, in a very solitary

beautiful hotel. What a trip that was; and it gave me the perspective to figure out my future plans.

The beauty of nature and overdose of oxygen gave me clarity of mind.

I had in my mind’s eye, planned out all my life during this lovely trip. I knew I exactly what I wanted. I

envisioned myself making research and taking my Doctoral degree at UCLA, in Los Angeles in History.

We were moving ahead with our travels and research. I decided I want to go to America with Jim. In 1991 in

summer I left France for the United States, more specifically to Los Angeles that is to UCLA, where I wanted to

get my master’s degree in History.

In L.A. I witnessed the 1992 riots. I was reading feverishly on how people have started burning buses and cabs

in East Los Angeles, as well as attacking and beating up white people in the streets. The smoke and foul air was

moving towards me in Marina del Rey.

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We found a lovely hotel, Marina Del Rey, in Marina del Rey, where I stayed for a week, and we looked for a

place to live.

I have finally escaped from the bad world into the good world. We loved each other so deeply.

I moved into Westwood and enrolled into the UCLA’s Master program in summer 2004. I graduated soon after

in 2005, but no family was present, as my mother died of a heart attack, and could never travel by plane.

I understood that I never had good communication with anyone.

I was sensitive and creative; and only Jim could appreciate me. These were my thoughts then when I was 40.

Before enrolling at UCLA, I had to visit my uncle Nicholas Lazin, who has fled to Hungary in 1947, after the

Wall was raised between the East and the West in Europe, and settled down in Oshawa, Canada. He invited me

many times to visit, Oshawa, in Toronto, Canada. This trip I took in 1993, it was wintertime in Canada, and it

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Lazín, p.

was a harsh experience staying there and getting accustomed again to cold weather. Coming out of cold

winters I spent in Transylvania, I was filled with rheumatism and arthritis.

Cold weather just does not work with me, it was as simple as that. I decided I never leave Los Angeles ever

again. My precious warm, sunny Los Angeles I have fallen in love with.

Discovering new Places And Peoples

It was a good feeling escaping Ceausescu’s tyranny and discovering the hidden side of the word. I realized how

we lived in the dark and isolation from the world, and that there was better climate in Mexico than in Romania;

and one does not be the prisoner of their own thoughts and limited spirit of the others, living the same

nightmare, as I did back in Romania.

I know the nuns in Bordeaux were free spirits and happy women, with a great sense of humor especially the

Mother Superior. We even visited Toulouse Lautrec’s castle, and spent time on the beach where the Atlantic

Ocean met the Pacific Ocean. I had spent unforgettable moments of discovery, and fraternization with the

nuns.

Because I have entered the Mexican state, in order to see the pyramids first, I tried to find a place to live also in

Mexico, and I have selected a place called El Bosque del Secreto, but it did not work out. The air is too polluted

in Teotihuacan, and around Mexico D.F. that I only visited the Pyramid of the Sun, and the pyramid of the

Moon, and hurried to find a nice place. When I finally found the house surrounded by beautiful red

bougambillas, I realized it was too isolated from town, without a car, far from the market, in one word, I felt it

was not really feasible.

As all ironies were happening in a row, when I arrived to L.A., the riots were in progress.

I was settling in marina del Rey. Then I left again to Toronto to see my uncle Nicholas, and cousin Caroline

Lazin. I started teaching History pretty soon, when I returned to UCLA.

After 2 years in the Doctoral Program in History at UCLA, I graduated in 2001, in January. After graduation I

have published my Doctoral thesis, and a second book on the bright and dark sides of

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Lazín, p.

Globalization with Dr James W Wilkie, Professor at UCLA. Our books are widely read around the world and are

used to teach Courses at College and University levels.

After 9/11 the whole world has changed. And this will be the topic for another book. A book in which I will

investigate what has changed exactly in these 22 years in Los Angeles, and how change has impacted us. Why

are we missing those good things of the past, as a collective. That is the collective memory I garnered.

http://www.profmex.org

OR

http://www.olgalazin.com


investigate what has changed exactly in these 22 years, and how. Why are we missing those things, customs of

the region of Transylvania, as a collective. That is the collective memory I cherish most.

At UCLA, with my students in History, 2014

http://www.olgalazin.com/

http://www.profmex.org/

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Lazín, p.

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/203836679/Escaping-From-Transylvania-30-FebTRANSYL?

post_id=2538457_10103066199638166#_=_

March 15, 2014, A Crucial Year for My Career

After 2 years in the Doctoral Program in History at UCLA, I graduated in 2001, in January. After graduation I

have published my Doctoral thesis, and a second book on the bright and dark sides of Globalization with Dr

James W Wilkie, Professor at UCLA. Our books are widely read around the world and are used to teach Courses

at College and University levels. To get the books we have written together with James Wilkie, download them

form:


investigate what has changed exactly in these 22 years in Los Angeles, and how change has impacted us. Why

are we missing those good things of the past, as a collective. That is the collective memory.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/203836679/Escaping-From-Transylvania-30-FebTRANSYL?post_id=2538457_10103066199638166#_=_

http://www.scribd.com/doc/203836679/Escaping-From-Transylvania-30-FebTRANSYL?post_id=2538457_10103066199638166#_=_

55

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Doing Yoga, in Cancun.

I have volunteered 200 hours with MADD in 2015.

After volunteering at MADD, for 200 hours, I started working with Edward Olmos

(film-director in Hollywood)

The Russians, having been directing Romanian politicians since 1945, pressured the Romanians to dig

useless trenches as well as learn to disassemble and assemble the AK47! The atmosphere was dreadful in

classes. Restrictions were plentiful and absurd. Speech was not free; one couldn’t discuss issues freely in class,

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or make any real analysis or debate. One had to regurgitate what the professors were telling us. Modern

economics led by and read whatever was there in the old books stacked in the communist library. Until I

escaped Romania in 1992, I learned that the so-called economics classes we took taught nothing about money,

credit, and such terms as GDP. The Marxist economics involved only fuzzy nonsensical slogans such as “We

Romanians have to fight-off the ‘running dogs of capitalism,” without the word “capitalism” ever being defined

except in unrealistic theory laced with epithets

Even as an English major, I could not speak with to foreigners in English --answering one question was a crime,

according to the tendentious Security Decrees. Abortion was a crime punishable for up to 20 years in prison.

Doctors performing it ended up in jail, and so did the pregnant women. Punishments were ridiculous—the

Anti-Abortion Law lasted for 40 years, until 1990. Furthermore if my uncle from Canada visited us, we were all

under surveillance, the entire family. Even today, in 2016 one has to report to the police to declare if any

visitor of family comes from the USA (or Canada, for some bizarre security reason). Well after 25 years, not

much has changed in poor Romania. The influence of recent Romanian history.

In the meantime, the History of Transylvania weighed heavily on population of Romania, with constant change

in the emerging political map always have left “citizens” always lost about who was really in charge. Thus,

Transylvania was originally part of the Dacia Kingdom between 82 BC until the Roman conquest in 106 AD.

The capital of Dacia was destroyed by the Romans, so that a new capital would serve the Roman Province of

Dacia, which lasted until 350 AD, by which time the Romans felt so hated that it behooved them withdraw back

to Rome. During the late 9th century, western Transylvania was conquered by the Hungarian Army to later

become part of the Kingdom of Hungary and in 1570 to devolve into the Principality of Transylvania. During

most of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Principality became an Ottoman Empire vassal state, confusingly also

governed by the Habsburg Empire. After 1711 Transylvania was consolidated solely into the Olga Magdalena

Lazín & Wilkie: (see historia, economía y elitelore 227 )Habsburg Empire and Transylvanian princes were

replaced with Habsburg imperial governors. After 1867, Transylvania ceased to have separate status and was

incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.6 After World War I,

Transylvania reverted in 1918 to be part of Romania. In 1940 Northern Transylvania again became governed

by Hungary and then Germany, but Romanian queen Maria successfully reclaimed it after the end of World

War II. The year 1940 was important for Romania because if was seized for its oil by Nazi Germany (1940-

1944), “liberated” by the “Soviet Union” (1944-1947), and finally “re-liberated” to become the Popular

republic of Romania (under USSR remote control), as the Cold War was beginning to freeze the Iron Curtain

into place. At the end of World War II while the USSR and its Red Army were the occupying powers in all

Romania, in 1947 Romania forcibly and ironically became a “People’s Republic” (1947–1989), after the rise of

57

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the Iron Curtain. The first “president,” Gheorghiu-Dej (1947) ruled as puppet of Moscow, but when he died, his

Secretary General of the Communist Party of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, was elected as the second

“president” (1965-1989), shifting his savage dictatorship into a harsher Romanian “Gulag” than known in the

USSR. For two decades I neither understood the dimensions of tragic history of Transylvania, did I understand

that I would have to escape the Gulag of Romania by the “skin of my teeth.” For peoples of the world

Transylvania seems to be a far away place, where most people know the werewolves and vampires have been

“seen” to in the imagination of Transylvanians, whose beliefs was soaked in mystical folklore. Even today it is

hardly possible to have a rational 6 This Empire existed between 1867 and 1918. Olga Magdalena Lazín Wilkie:

historia, economía y elitelore 228 conversation with most the Transylvanian folk on any subject without

recourse to try to understand where their distorted imagination has befuddled them. The population has

consisted of Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, and some Ukrainians. These languages are still being spoken in

Romania’s Maramures province, but because I always liked and loved the Romanian language, I decided to

become a Professor of Romanian Language and Literature. My backdrop to the fall of CEAUSESCU I later told

Jim how I had been admitted in 1982 to the BabesBolyai University, in Cluj-Napoca at the heart of


under the control of sweaty Securitate officers, had to read dozens of new Decrees issued every day as they

sought to control every one of our daily actions—all in the name of protecting the Ceausescu government—

which was selling the country’s food supplies to Russia in order to pay down Roman’s official debt at our

experts. Those Securitate officers ate well and ominously watched us virtually starve.

They said, be calm like your parents in the face of starvation. Thus, I furiously called out in my classes that our

very existence was being compromised by Ceausescu's abandonment of the population, which was ordered to,

as Lenin famously said, “work, work, and work.” To protect myself as best I could, I turned to humor, seeking

to ridicule Ceausescu’s “national paradise.” But when I encouraged my classmates to laugh at the propaganda

embedded in the wooden language of the national bureaucracy, I soon fell under the heavy scrutiny of

university authorities, who were furious that I trying to expose the fact Olga Magdalena Lazín Wilkie: historia,

economía y elitelore 229 that all classes had been organized to befuddle the student body into confused



the Securitate officers, and open bribery--choose your garden variety. My 1986 flight from Romania backfires

by 1986, at age 23, I had decided to flee Romania—an illegal act because Ceausescu did not want anyone

(especially women of childbearing age) to escape his plan to building his “ideal socialist industries” on farms

and ranches as well as in the cities. In June I made my way to the border of Yugoslavia and paid a smuggler to

evade the Romanian security forces that were preventing the “nations workers” from escaping. The smuggler,

who took me across the border, turned out to be working for Romanian Border Police. Thus, soon after

58

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crossing into Yugoslavia, he turned his wagon around and I was again in Romania again when I realized what

had happened too late. I had been “sold” to Ceausescu’s minions for a wagonload of salt. That failed escape

from Romania led me to a 10-month prison sentence in Timisoara Prison, wherein the block cells were

maintained so cold (supposedly to eliminate bacteria and viruses) that it made all of us inmates sick with the

cold and the flu. Cell bed blankets were less warm than one Kleenex tissue. Moreover there were no pillow,

and the concrete slab where inmates slept was a back-breaker. The lights were on 24 hours a day, blinding all

of us, and there was constant observation. Every hour one was awakened to be counted for, and sneaking up

on people, under the guise of watching out Olga Magdalena Lazín Wilkie: historia, economía y elitelore 230 for

suicides. But everyone could be clearly seen by the guards, and there was no need to sleep-deprive inmates.

There was also someone in the higher echelon ripping off the food budget to siphon money to themselves

while serving inmates only baby carrots and spicy beans. Almost every family in Romanian civil society had at

least one member who had been imprisoned for trying to open the political system by denouncing the

Ceausescu dictatorship. These inmates were openly called “Political Prisoners,” and I was one of them. Political

Prisoners were not permitted to work outside the prison walls in the fields because our crime had been the

political decision to repudiate Ceausescu’s “fantastic system.” Out of prison in 1987 and open to change in the

air Once free in 1987, I could return to my University to finally complete my M.A. in 1990. Further in 1987, at

the age of 24, I met the Family patriarch Nicolae Pipas,7 who directed for the Communist government the

walled Regional Art Museum in a quiet part of Sighet. Being one of the few highly educated persons who spoke

English in the region, I began to serve as interpreter/guide to visiting foreign Ambassadors permitted to travel

in Romania. They wanted to see the Museum with its magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, and rare

historical pottery and coins. Thus, I soon found myself translating for visiting English-Speaking Ambassadors

from many countries who wished to know Transylvania, especially my village Sighet and its Merry Cemetery

famous worldwide 7 Upon Ceausescu’s death, the Patriarch Pipas mysteriously became the Museum’s “owner”

and then transferred title to his son Valerian Pipas, the regions most famous violinist. Olga Magdalena Lazín

Wilkie: historia, economía y elitelore 231 for it tombstones in the form of wood sculpture of the butcher, the

baker, candlestick maker, and all professions. Although my first languages were Romanian and Hungarian, I

could also translate into French and Italian. Indeed at that time I was teaching Latin in the Rural School System

of my Maramures Province. By 1989, Ceausescu realized that his end was near, and he sought to gain support

by pardoning his political prisoners (such as myself) who had tried to escape the horrendous conditions in the

country. Hence, university students and some labor unions joined forces and quite quickly after the fall of the

Berlin Wall forced Ceausescu and his draconian wife Elena to flee. They were caught and executed on

Christmas Day, 1989, by the military that at the last moment joined the Revolution. As my friends and I (along

with most of the population) cheered the fall of the failed, rotten Romanian “dictatorship of the proletariat,”

my dear mother acted differently. She was so confused by the propaganda of the only “leader” she knew much

about that she wept for Ceausescu, not fully realizing that he was the one who had wrongly had be arrested

and put me in prison.

59

Lazín, p.

My book cover conceived in 1991. Caring for the environment.

Before we left Paris on December 19, 1991, we met with Gérard Chaliand to personally thank him for having

made the Bordeaux Security agent reexamine his whole approach to his life. Further, with Gérard, we worked

out a plan to arrange for me to become a U.S. resident and obtain U.S. citizenship nine years after my arrival in

Los Angeles, October 1992. He recommended that my case by handled in In Los Angeles by one of America’s

most knowledgeable and effective Migration Attorneys—Cynthia Juárez Lange, today Managing Partner,

Northern California, for the Fragomen Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy LLP Legal Office located in San Francisco.

Cynthia is a personable genius. In our travels in December 1991 and from March to June 1992 we met NPPO

leaders in the European Union to better understand how foundations work under unique laws in each county

rather than in any rational manner for the whole EU, we went to Marseilles, Nice, Villfranche-sur-Mer, Cap-

Ferrat, Monaco, La Rochelle, Andorra, Sevilla,

Madrid, Trujillo, El Escorial, Avila, Navarro, and Segovia. On September 3. 1992, we arrived at the U.S.

Consulate in Paris, where the U.S Consulate in Mexico had arranged with Jim for my U.S. eligibility for

residence to be issued. Also, the Mexican Consulate General in Paris issued me my residence papers to enter

and leave Mexico freely, as arranged by Jim with the Mexican Consular Office in Mexico City. his profits ($13

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Lazín, p.

billon) for their activities, his personal wealth in 2016 estimated to be $25 billion. See

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/expenditures Also, for the details of Soros $930.7 million

dollar Open Society Foundations 2016 Budget, which can be found by searching online for this title.

By September 7, 1992, we were in Romania for meetings with Civic Activists in Sighet (where I finally returned

after “escaped” with Jim in December 1991). From March to June 1993, we met with NPPO leaders in

Budapest, Sighet, and Varna (Bulgaria), Bucharest, and St. Petersburg. In Moscow (June 21-14, 1993), Jim

appointed Professor Boris Koval (Director of the Latin American Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences),

to be PROFMEX Representative in Russia. Koval had invited us to Moscow and introduced us to his own

Security Chief to be our translator and guide. Thus the freaking Security Chief was a fascinating person who

had been former head of the KGB Office in Iran, 1979-1989. Jim, who always wore his Mexican guayabera shirt

with or without a suit, was seen to be “authentically Mexican”.

Starting in 2012, Putin has reset the Cold War with the United States. Now I am finally enjoying some

distancing from Eastern Europe and realize freedom was worth all the risks I took, to establish myself and live

in the United States, where I have found safety.

Our Books and work has shown how U.S. Tax Exempt Organization (TEO) Iaw has evolved to become the most

important in the world owing

to its flexibility. Where the laws of most countries require prior legal authorization to launch in a new

direction, U.S. TEO law recognizes no such limit. Thus, U.S. TEO law, unlike most other countries, is never

trying to make legal what is already underway in the world.

In developing a way to translate the U.S. legal framework in a standard way for this era of Globalization, I hope

that this work offers a basis for others to advance their own analysis of the issues presented here.

The work is organized to examine the traditional U.S. Centralized Model as developed for world philanthropy

by the Rockefeller foundation early this century. The most important variation is the Decentralized Model

established under U.S. Tax lax by the Hungarian-born George Soros, who has set up National Boards to direct

their own destiny in 31 countries.

61

Lazín, p.

Recently three new models have surfaced, and they are examined briefly in the other book, in this series: Dr

Olgas Dream Come True.

P.S. Vampirism continues anabashed in Maramures County. Good Romanians are trying to root out co-

rruption every day. The same scenario is going on here in the United States with Trumpism; the voyage

continues.

i More on diversity of cultures in Transylvania:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Transylvania

ii from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history_of_Maramure%C5%9F#Antiquity

I finally had the chance to leave the country when an execution squad shot Nicolae C. in 1989.

Obtaining visas to western countries was extremely hard in 1990, right after Ceausescu was shot. I convinced

my then-husband Valerian Pipas to come with me to Bucharest and arrange for visas for France. I also needed

transit visas through Austria

iii “Ceau escu” is the non-modern spelling of the name.ș

iv This Empire existed between 1867 and 1918.

v

viAs in the case of Oceania always being threatened by eternal war alternating between

Eurasia or East Asia,

Portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984.Cf. my article “Orwell’s 1984 and the Case Studies of Stalin

and Ceausescu

” in Elitelore Varieties (Edited by James Wilkie et al.):

http://elitelore.org/Capitulos/cap16_elitelore.pdf

http://elitelore.org/Capitulos/cap16_elitelore.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history_of_Maramure%C5%9F#Antiquity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Transylvania

vii COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) dates from the January 1949

communiqué agreed upon in

Moscow by the USSR to lead the CMEA.

viii This Empire existed between 1867 and 1918.

ix Upon Ceausescu’s death, the Patriarch Pipas mysteriously became the Museum’s “owner” and

then transferred title to his son Valerian Pipas. The family died out in 2016 of alcoholism.

x “Czechia” is rarely used in English because native English speakers too often do not know

intuitively know how to pronounce

it. The name Czechia has arisen as the short name for the Czech Republic, which emerged

with the breakup of “Czechoslovakia” in 1992.

xi Jim soon arranged for the contract to be paid from his grant funds from U.S. foundations

deposited for his projects at UCLA.

xii See (A) my 2001 Decentralized Globalization: Free Markets, U.S. Foundations, and the Rise of Civil and

Civic Society from Rockefeller’s Rise in Latin America

Eastern Europe (Los Angeles: UCLA Classic Doctoral Thesis) at

http://www.profmex.org/webjournal_listedbyvoldat.html

(B) Olga Magdalena Lazín, La Globalización Se Descentraliza: Libre Mercado, Fundaciones, Sociedad Cívica

y Gobierno Civil en las Regiones del Mundo, Prólogo

or James W. Wilkie (Guadalajara y Los Ángeles: Universidad de Guadalajara, UCLA Program on Mexico,

PROFMEX/World, Casa Juan Pablos Centro Cultural, 2007).

James W. Wilkie y Olga Magdalena Lazín, La globalización Se Amplia: Claroscuros de los Nexos Globales

(Guadalajara, Los Ángeles, México:Guadalajara,

UCLA Program on Mexico, PROFMEX/World, Casa Juan Pablos Centro Cultural, 2011:

http://www.profmex.org/mexicoandtheworld/volume17/2spring2012/Laglobalizacionseamplia.pdf

xiii Readers should be aware of a key acronym used when this paper reaches

the 1990s: NPPO stands for Not-for-Private Profit Organization (usually

a Foundation) which differs from the more familiar (Non-Profit

Organization (NPO). Outside the United States, the latter term tends to

be wrongly understood to mean no profit be accumulated and the NPO must

show a zero balance at year end. The former term (NPPO) is developed

here to stress that profits may be accumulated and invested to fund

future activities, as long as expenditures do not benefit private parties

http://profmex.org/mexicoandtheworld/volume17/2spring2012/laglobalizacionseamplia.html


(except for salaries, travel, and other justified expenses as provided in,

say, a Foundation’s by-laws.) See:

http://www.profmex.org/mexicoandtheworld/volume12/1winter07/prologoporjameswilkieOLbook.html

xiv Mexico’s National Lottery is a Government-run Public Charity and funder of new

research.

xv The Lottery grants to PROFMEX totaled $100,000 dollars.

xvi Jim Wilkie’s statement here is quoted from my formal Interview with him, September 17, 1992, in

Transylvania, based upon his experience as Consultant to the U.S. Council on Foundations. See:

Olga Magdalena Lazín, Decentralized Globalization: Free Markets,

U.S. Foundations and the Rise of Civil and Civic Society From Rockefeller’s Latin America To Soros’

Eastern Europe (Los Angeles: UCLA, Classic PHD thesis, 2001), pp. 122-125. This book was published in

2016 by PROFMEX, and it can be read freely at http://www.profmex.org/webjournal_listedbyvoldat.html

xvii“Equivalent,” as Jim noted, means that the foreign NPPO meets (A) the test of funding at least one of the

following goals” for types of projects supported Health-Education-Welfare-Human Rights-Science and Religion-

Economy-Environment-Ecology-Publication-Literature-Charity; and (B) meets the test that no part of the

foreign NPPOs expenditures benefit private persons-- except for payment of reasonable expenses to cover

salaries, services, and goods needed by the NPPO to legitimately conduct the operations chartered in its Articles

of Incorporation and By-Laws.


http://www.profmex.org/mexicoandtheworld/volume12/1winter07/prologoporjameswilkieOLbook.html

xviii Administered by NGO Civic Activists in each country but reporting to Soros

Foundation/New York City to justify each yearly budget.

xix The Soros Open Society Foundations in 44 countries benefit from the fact that Soros himself has lived up to

his commitment since1986 (to 2016 and ongoing) to donate half of his profits ($13 billon) for their activities, his

personal wealth in 2016 estimated to be $25 billion. See

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/expenditures

xx See https://www.rt.com/politics/323919-soros-foundation-recognized-as-

undesirable/

xxiIbid. Also, for the details of Soros $930.7 million dollar Open Society Foundations 2016

Budget, which can be found by searching online for this title.

xxii See: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/press-releases/russia-cracks-down-

open-society

xxiii Escaping Transylvania to the World

From the Romanian Gulag to Old and New Cultures - Memoirs

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/press-releases/russia-cracks-down-open-society

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/press-releases/russia-cracks-down-open-society

https://www.rt.com/politics/323919-soros-foundation-recognized-as-undesirable/

https://www.rt.com/politics/323919-soros-foundation-recognized-as-undesirable/

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/expenditures

By Dr Olga M. Lazin

How the University Really Worked in Romania

In 1963 when I was born in Transylvania, the “golden age” of socialism was in full “progress”.

A mythical space, Transylvania is the place that gave me my roots and brains. In 1963, the

Northern part of Romania. Magdalena has given birth to me in one of the most pristine,

oxygenated part of town, the beautiful Satu-Mare. The city of Satu Mare was undergoing

catastrophic transformations, as it was forcefully modernized, and people from the villages

were forced to work in huge, socialistic factories. Along the Somes river, the tiny village of

Vetis, where my ancestors on my father’s side were born, is now a heavily populated colorful

and diverse grew into a lovely place. On my mother’s side, Bixad, in the Oas region of Romania

is still a beautiful traditional village, with houses spread far apart, not all jammed together.

My mother was “osanca”, as they would ethnically distinguish her in the old days.

I was born to a family of middle-class folks Eugene and Magdalena. I was the first child,

and right after me came my brother, Alexandru in 1965. I remember being happy having

a brother. At age three, my mother Magdalena was transferred by her employer

(The Logging Company in Viseul de Sus, Maramures County) to Sighet, in Maramures

County. Thus, my parents and I moved to the Transylvanian town of Sighet, where I grew

up like Alice in Wooden land, in a pristine region behind the mountain of Gutinul.

Transylvania was an ancient forest, where vampires and wolverines were lurking at the

cover of the dark and cold winter nights.

I never feared the unknown, as I was already accustomed to “strigoi,” and

vampire stories ever since I was a baby! All these weird mythological animals were part of

my ecosystem, so to say. I grew up fearless with my brother, Alex, whom

I felt I had to constantly protect from other belligerent boys in the neighborhood of Zahana,

as it was called the cluster of houses built by in the sixties and seventies, in Hungarian style.

Sighet was surrounded by beautiful green mountains, and three rivers: Mara, Tisa and Iza.

On the one hand, I was friends with the children of intellectuals, as well as also lovely

Romanian, Hungarian, and Gipsy children to whom I taught the Romanian language as early

We were Ruthenians; that is a strong gene pool made up of Ukrainian, Romanian and

Hungarian

Genes.

On the other hand, my family had a difficult life because my parents were always working

until

late hours at night. My younger brother Alex and I read while waiting for mother, Magdalena,

to turn off our lights even as she continued into the wee hours her accounting work

at home. She was compounding the lengths and width of the wooden logs that were being

exported to Russia year by year.

During the day, Magdalena let us play all day long to our heart’s content. So unique,

and we felt so free exploring nature in Sighet. When I entered primary school, I learned

that Sighet was officially named Sighetu Marma iei (on Romania’s northwest border facingț

Ukraine’s southwestern border with Romania and Hungary).

Transylvania belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary (Transylvania) as part of the Austrian-

Hungarian Empire[.After World War I, in 1918 Transylvania became part of Romania again.

In 1940 Northern Transylvania reverted to Hungary as a result of the Second Vienna Award,

but Romanian queen Maria reclaimed it after the end of World War II.

All of Romania was seized for its oil by Nazi Germany (1940-1944), “liberated” by the “Soviet

Union” (1944-1947), and “re-liberated” to become the Popular republic of Romania (under

USSR remote control) as the Cold War was beginning to freeze the Iron Curtain into to place.

The first “president,” Gheorghiu-Dej (1965) ruled as puppet of Moscow, but when he died, his

Sec Gen of the Communist Party of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, was elected as the second

“president” (1965-1989), shifting his savage dictatorship into a harsher “nationalistic Gulag”

than known in the USSR. At the end of 1994 the Russian military organized “presidential”

elections of “people’s committees” in the region. The end of the war occupied some formerly

Romanian northeastern territories occupied by the Soviet Union, with Red Army units

stationed on Romanian soil. In 1947 Romania forcibly became a People's Republic (1947–

1965).

My parents in 1963: Eugen & Magda: she was pregnant with me here.

For two decades I neither understood the dimensions of tragic situation of Transylvania

(located in northeast Romania on the Ukrainian border), nor did I understand that I would

have to escape the Gulag of Romania by the skin of my teeth.

I had to risk my life to leave my country. Generals and sports Olympians were defecting.

Nadia Comaneci has left in 1988, one year before Ceausescu was toppled.

Opposition to the regime was building up painstakingly slow, and communist idiots

wanted Ceausescu replaced. The Russian KGB school at work, soviet agents like Iliescu

were ready to take his place. Now these were the vampires coming out like vermins to

manipulate the population into believing they were “change”.

The Front of national salvation was building up to substitute the dictator’s fascist clique.

For peoples of the world Transylvania seems to be a far-away place, where most people know

the werewolves and vampires have been rumored to roam & lurk in nature. In the

imagination of people everywhere, whose beliefs are soaked in mystical folklore, even today it

is hardly possible to have a rational conversation on any subject matter. Most occupying

forces never understood either the culture of the Romanian people or the distinct culture of

Transylvania. The immense diversity of the ethnicities and cultures.

Naturally I am a bi-national citizen, but without belonging to any of the two countries. My

Ruthenian roots are strong, and I rejoice every time I am remembering the pretty pristine

landscapes of Sighet and Satu Mare where I was born.

Summoning my unconsciousness to write this autobiographical piece, I need to re-accustom

myself to thinking of the distinct cultures of the region.

Once in general school I excelled in Romanian and American Languages.

I had to choose between English and Russian, and I opted for English in the 5th grade.

The population consisted of Romanians, Hungarians (particularly Székelys), Ukrainians, and

Germans. Even the Securitate, the eminence grey of Transylvania, had to learn several

languages in order to surveil people on the phones, etc. These people were educated by the

Soviets in Russian surveillance techniques and bloody procedures.

All these languages are still being spoken on the Territory of Maramures County, including

Rroma, or the Gypsy language, Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Ruthenian.

I always liked and loved the Romanian language, so I decided to become a Professor of

Romanian Language and Literature.

As I have previously mentioned, n 1973, at age 10 as a fifth grader, I had to make a fateful

decision about my choice of foreign-language study: Russian or English. The pressure was on

us to take up Russian, this proving that we were all students loyal to the Dictator Nicole

Ceausescu’s “Socialist” Government (read Romanian Communist Government allied with

Moscow), but consciously I detested the whole Romanian system and its alliance with the

Russians.

I never liked the Russian language; even today it rings hollow to me, reminds me of the

barking of a toothless dog.

Although I wanted to learn English in my early years, I did not then know how fateful that

choice would be until 1991, when at almost 27 years of age, I met Jim Wilkie who had been

advised by his brother Richard to include my town of Sighet in his journey to assess the how

Eastern Europe was faring after the fall of the “Berlin Wall,” short for the long wall that kept

the people of Communist countries locked and unable to escape.

In the meantime, growing up in Sighet with a population of only 30,000 people, we were

proud to recognize Ely Wiesel (born 1928) as our most prominent citizen long before he won

the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. He helped us get past the terrible history of Sighet Communist

Prison where “enemies of the state” were confined until “death due to natural cause.” The

Jewish population has been decimated in Sighet in the fifties.

In my early years I had a hard time understanding how the green and flowered valley of

Sighet (elevation 1,000 feet, on the Tisa River at the foot of our forested Carpathian

Mountains) could be so beautiful, yet we lived under the terribly cruel eye of the Securitate to

protect the wretched Dictator Nicolae “Ceausescu,” is the modern spelling of the Dictator’s

name; and he ruled from 1965 to his execution in 1989 as the harshest leader of all the

countries behind Russia’s Wall against Western Europe.

Oddly enough, in the Transylvania of the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, supposedly I was living

the “Golden Age of Romanian Socialism,” but even to myself as a young student; I could see

that the promised “full progress” was clearly a lie. Most adults agreed but feared to speak so

bluntly. Repetitive folk songs were praising the father and the mother of the nation, and on

TV, we could only watch the first couple running around in China, Russia, and other socialist

countries to make alliances, and keep up appearances for 40 years! In Northern Transylvania

we had only one TV Channel, and that was the norm. The Hungarian channel was completely

blocked out by the government, so that no real news reaches our ears.

In the meantime, without rarely granted permission, we were forbidden to meet and visit

with foreigners, especially those who spoke English and who wanted to hear from us about

Sighet





River is the natural border with Southern Ukraine.

As folklore has it in the West, vampires are native to Transylvania. We had vampires,

werewolves, and wolverines, but all the mythological characters were actually members of

the Communist Party, which everyone had to join--except for me because with my knowledge,

I was considered a security risk!


M.A. in 1990, for my sociology classes, I decided to conduct my field research project into the

rural life of the North of Romania, recording the folklore (especially myths) invented and



Further, much of my research conducted among the outlying farmers, delved deeply into

Transylvania Folklore, which prepared me well to understand Communist Party Lore.

Thus, for the second time, my fateful choice of a field research project, the Elitelore project

had further prepared me, unknowingly, for my future with Jim Wilkie.

We were constantly studying the elites, and were interviewing them on everything

they were doing. Revolutionaries, Professors, civic society leaders were the best subjects

of our research.

Once I had been admitted to the Babes Bolyai University, which was called “the heart and

brain of Transylvania,” I also further expanded and deepened deep studies in American

language and literature. Also, I studied Romanian language and literature in the Department

of Philology. The Bolyai University Is considered the best University in Transylvania.

Upon beginning my mentoring for other students, I was happy to find a sense of freedom.

Reading and writing comprehension were my forté during my four years at Cluj. I had always

dreamt of being a professor and a writer and seemed to be off to a great start.

But I soon realized that our professors opened the day by reading the mounds of new Decrees

just signed by Ceausescu. Thus, I began laughing, and other students join me in mocking the

wooden language of Central Planning’s attempt to befuddle us with words from a wooden

language, totally bent toward twisting our brains into confused submission. Professors and

Securitate officers were acting as sweaty bureaucrats trying to teach us how to sharpen our

mental images. Not one professor asked us, “What do each of you really think of all this


Professors had their favorite students and made sure they pointed this out in class, stifling

any competition as they show openly their favoritism or nepotism.

When I reached the age of 22 in1985, I started to be argumentative, criticizing professors,

especially the history professor who only knew only the History of the Romanian Communist

Party.

The Russians, via the KGB, had been directing Romanian politicians since 1945, and pressured

Romanian students to dig useless trenches as well forced women-students to shot Russian

weapons, and learn to disassemble and assemble the AK47.

Meanwhile in my University Cluj the atmosphere was dreadful in classes. Restrictions were

plentiful and absurd. Speech was not free; one couldn’t discuss issues freely in class, or make

any real analysis or debate. One had to regurgitate what the professors were telling us.

Modern economics led by and read whatever was there in the old books stacked in the

communist library. Until I escaped Romania in 1992, I learned that the so-called economics

classes we took taught nothing about money, credit, and such terms as GDP. The Marxian

economics involved only fuzzy nonsensical slogans such as

“We Romanians have to fight-off the ‘running dogs of capitalism,” without the word

“capitalism” ever being defined except in unrealistic theory laced with epithets.

Even as an English major, I was not permitted to speak with foreigners in English --

answering one question was a crime, according to the tendentious Security Decrees. Abortion

was a crime punishable for up to 20 years in prison. Doctors performing it ended up in jail,

and so did the pregnant women. Punishments were ridiculous—the Anti-Abortion Law lasted

for 40 years, until 1990.

Furthermore, if my uncle from Canada visited us, we were all under surveillance, the entire

family. Even today, in 2017 one has to report to the police to declare if any visitor of family

comes from the USA (or Canada, for some bizarre security reason). Well, after 25 years, not

much has changed in poor Romania.




about who was really in charge.

Thus, Transylvania was originally part of the Dacia Kingdom between 82 BC until the Roman

conquest in 106 AD. The capital of Dacia was destroyed by the Romans, so that a new as

capital would serve the Roman Province of Dacia, which lasted until 350 ADS, by which time

the Romans felt so hated that it behooved them withdraw back to Rome.

During the late 9th century, western Transylvania was conquered by the Hungarian Army

to later become part of the Kingdom of Hungary and in 1570 to devolve into the Principality

of Transylvania. During most of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Principality became an

Ottoman Empire vassal state, confusingly also governed by the Habsburg Empire. After 1711

Transylvania was consolidated solely into the Hapsburg Empire and Transylvanian princes

were replaced with Habsburg imperial governors. After 1867, Transylvania ceased to have

separate status and was incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Austro-

Hungarian Empire. After World War I, Transylvania reverted in 1918 to be part of Romania.

In 1940 Northern Transylvania again became governed by Hungary and then Germany, but

Romanian queen Maria successfully reclaimed it after the end of World War II.

The year 1940 was important for Romania because if was seized for its oil by Nazi Germany

(1940-1944), “liberated” by the “Soviet Union” (1944-1947), and finally “re-liberated” to

become the Popular republic of Romania (under USSR remote control), as the Cold War was

beginning to freeze the Iron Curtain into place.

At the end of World War II while the USSR and its Red Army were the occupying powers in

all Romania, in 1947 Romania forcibly and ironically became a “People’s Republic”

(1947–1989), after the rise of the Iron Curtain.


Secretary General of the Communist Party of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, was elected as the

second “president” (1965-1989), shifting his savage dictatorship into a harsher Romanian

“Gulag” than known in the USSR. Thousands of Romanians have vanished overnight.

For two decades, I neither understood the dimensions of tragic history of Transylvania, nor

did I yet realize that I would have to escape the Gulag of Romania, even if by the “skin of my

teeth.”

For peoples of the world Transylvania seems to be a faraway place, where most people know

the werewolves and vampires have been “seen” to in the imagination of Transylvanians,

whose

beliefs was soaked in mystical folklore. Even today it is hardly possible to have a rational

conversation with most the Transylvanian folk on any subject without recourse to try to

understand where their distorted imagination has befuddled them.

The population has consisted of Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, and some

Ukrainians. These languages are still being spoken in Romania’s Maramures province, but

because I always liked and loved Romanian language, I decided to become a Professor of

Romanian Language

and Literature. I also precociously fell in love with my English Professor, Spaczai.


I later told Jim how I had been admitted in 1982 to the Babes-Bolyai University, in Cluj-

Napoca at the heart of Transylvania, I focused especially on Linguistics. Unfortunately, there I

found that the professors, who were under the control of sweaty-stinking Securitate officers,

had to read dozens of new Decrees issued every day as they sought to control every one of our

daily actions—all in the name of protecting the Ceausescu government—which was selling

the country’s food supplies to Russia in order to pay down Roman’s official debt with exports.

Those Securitate officers ate well and ominously watched us virtually starve. They said, be

calm, like your parents in the face of their starvation. Secu’ officers were the vampires and

the wolverines that I was talking about in my first paragraph. They are surveillance officers,

and this is what they do: inform on innocent people, place all types of microphones under

people’s tables and beds, and that have fun as perverted this may sound in almost every home

in Sighet, Maramures County. They report on you, and this earns them a living.

Thus, I furiously called out in my classes that our very existence was being compromised by

Ceausescu's abandonment of the population, which was ordered to, as Lenin famously said,

“work, work, and work.”

To protect myself as best I could, I turned to humor, seeking to ridicule Ceausescu’s “national

paradise.” But when I encouraged my classmates to laugh at the propaganda embedded in

the wooden language of the national bureaucracy, I soon fell under the heavy scrutiny of

university authorities, who were furious that I trying to expose the fact that all classes had

been organized to befuddle the student body into confused submission. Indeed, each professor

had favorite students to help drown out legitimate questions and stifle any competing

analysis—the university lived under nepotism, favoritism, the threat of rape (virtual and real)

by the Securitate officers, and open bribery by the professors--choose your garden variety.

My 1986 Attempt To Flee The Jail Named Romania


want anyone (especially women of child-bearing age) to escape his plan to building his “ideal

socialist industries” on farms and ranches as well as in the cities. In June, I made my way to

the border of Yugoslavia and paid a smuggler to evade the Romanian security forces that

were preventing the “nations workers” from escaping. The smuggler, who took me across the

border, turned out to be working for Romanian Border Police. Thus, soon after crossing into


what had happened too late. I had been “sold” to Ceausescu’s minions for a wagonload of

salt and 20 Liters of gasoline. Iosif Broztito had this type of deal with Ceausescu in the1980s.

Thousands were returned for this kind of draconian exchange.

That failed escape from Romania led me to a 10-month prison sentence in Timisoara Prison,

wherein the block cells were maintained so cold (supposedly to eliminate bacteria and

viruses) that it made all of us inmates sick with the cold and the flu.


pillows, and the concrete slab where inmates slept was a “back-breaker.” The lights were on

24 hours a day, blinding all of us, and there was constant observation. Every hour one was a

wakened to be counted for, and sneaking up on people, under the guise of watching out for

suicides. But everyone could be clearly seen by the guards, and there was no need to

sleep-deprive inmates. There was also someone in the higher echelon ripping off the

food budget to siphon money to themselves while serving inmates only baby carrots and spicy

beans.


imprisoned for trying to open the political system by denouncing the Ceausescu dictatorship.

These inmates were openly called “Political Prisoners,” and I was one of them.


our crime had been the political decision to repudiate Ceausescu’s “vampiristic system.”



Further in 1987, at the age of 24, I met the Family patriarch Nicolae Pipas, who directed for

the Communist government the walled Regional Art Museum in a quiet part of Sighet. When

he realized that I was a Professor of the English and Romania Languages, and one of the few

university’s highly educated persons in the region, I began to serve as interpreter/guide to

visiting foreign Ambassadors permitted to travel in Romania. They wanted to see the Museum

with its magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, and rare historical pottery and coins.

Thus,

I soon found myself interpreting and translating for visiting English-Speaking Ambassadors

from many countries who wished to know Transylvania, especially my village Sighet and its

Merry Cemetery famous worldwide for it tombstones in the form of wood sculpture of

the butcher, the baker, candlestick maker, and all professions.

Although my first languages were Romanian and Hungarian, I could also translate into

French

and Italian. Indeed, at that time I was teaching Latin in the Rural School System of my

Maramures Province.

Ceausescu and his clique has starved us to death, and all food was rationalized.

A piece of bread for each individual, an d1 liter of oil per month, as well as salami was

distributed to the people ligned up for days in front of the empty-shelved stores. And the time

for distributing food was also set arbitrarily by the communist Party.

By 1989, Ceausescu realized that his end was near, and he sought to gain support by

pardoning his political prisoners (such as myself) who had tried to escape the horrendous

conditions in the country. Hence, university students and some labor unions joined forces and

quite quickly after the fall of the Berlin Wall forced Ceausescu and his draconian wife Elena to

flee. They were caught and executed on Christmas Day, 1989, by the military that at the last

moment joined the Revolution.

‘As my friends and I (along with most of the population) cheered the fall of the failed, rotten

Romanian “dictatorship of the proletariat,” my dear mother acted differently. She was so

confused by the propaganda of the only “leader” she knew much about that she wept for

Ceausescu, not fully realizing that he was the one who had wrongly had be arrested and put

me

in prison.

The students started a rebellion in Bucharest. People in Timisoara started the revolution via

civil disobedience. For a week and so there were bloody fights in Bucharest and Timisoara,

young

People trying to get rid of Ceausescu’s regime. So finally, Iliescu another monster took over

and under the pretext of filling the vacuum of power he self-appointed himself president.

He stole the revolution with his acolytes, and over 1000 people were dead in the streets.

With Ceausescu gone, in 1990 I was able to secure a passport to ready myself to leave

Romania by gaining visas for Germany and France. The question remained, how to get there

by land without a visa to Austria—my region had no air connection to the outside world.

There was only one airport in the country, in Bucharest.

I decided toleave with Professor jim Wilkie and Jim Platler in September 17, 1990.

Jim has filled out all the paperwork to hire me, and I gratefully accepted to work for

PROFMEX.

Thus, we set out on that September 18th to visit one of the most socially and economically

interesting and beautiful parts of Romania by going up thought the green forested

Carpathian Mountains via the beautiful Prislop Pass, stopping to visit small farming families

in their folkloric clothing of which they were justifiably proud to wear on a daily basis.

Farther east in Romania, on the scenic roads, we visited the monasteries of Moldova, the town

of Cimpulung Moldovenesc, Suceava, and then the Monasteries in Sucevita and Agapia. The

gorgeous forested mountain road eventually led to Lacul Rosu and the lake country. Then we

took the long scenic mountain road to Cluj Napoca to visit my prestigious University.

As I briefed Jim about Romania, he was briefing me about factors in comparing national

economies. For example, he told me about how he had reunited in Prague on September 15th

with Richard Beesen, his former UCLA student and friend, to hear about his role in London as

Manager of Deutsche Bank’s New Accounts in Russia and Eastern Europe. Richard had

become famous for inviting Banking Officials and national Treasury Ministries to deposit

their financial reserves on deposit in his bank in London. But because his clients did not

understand anything about “interest payments” on deposited funds, they did not ask for nor

did they gain any interest payments. Also, because most Western Banks were not sure that

these new “capitalists” could be “fully trusted” for correct management of their deposits, his

Deutsche Bank collected large fees (and paid no interest to keep the Eastern Europe “bank

reserves safe.” This was all very eye opening for me.

Jim and I had realized early on that we had a close affinity as we analyzed the situation of

Romania, and he said, “Call me Jim.” (In contrast I called Professor James Platler “JP.”) As we

traveled to observe the situation of the people in different parts of the country, Jim and I

formed a deep bond of observing and analyzing; thus, both of us realized this brief interlude

had to continue for the long term in order to achieve our goals.



As a Romanian, I had the right to enter Hungary, and we did so bypassing the miles of

vehicles waiting to cross the border for the long drive to Budapest. There Prof. James Platler

finally relaxed after the long drives and often poor hotels and hotels—he said that he finally

found unbroken civilization again.

Once we arrived in Budapest, Professor James Platler, who had told Jim privately that from

the outset of our trip that he thought that I was a “Spy” (planted on us by the Romanian

Securitate to monitor our many “foreign” inquiries during our travel through Romania’s

north country), announced that his concern about me had vanished as we realized the extent

of my knowledge and research abilities. In his mind, I had to be a Spy because I had obtained

access to special private dining rooms and quarter in some fine hotels, as well as invitations

for wonderful lunches at some Monasteries, where miraculously I made immediate friends

with each Mother Superior. But by the time we reached Budapest, he realized that at my

University I had learned the Elite skills needed to survive safely and comfortably in Eastern

Europe.

My problem was to enter Austria, where I had no visa. But Jim passed his UCLA business

card through to the Consul General of Austria in Budapest, and quickly we found ourselves

whisked from the back of the long line to the front and right into a meeting with the Consul

General himself. He was pleased to hear about the research of our UCLA Team, but said that I

did have a visa. Jim then told them that I only needed a three-day transit visa to reach

Germany, the visa for which he could see in my passport.

With entry to Austria solved, we were on the road to the Hotel Kobentzl and Graz, which

overlook Salzburg, all the way analyzing the comparative economic and social situations of

Austria, Hungary, and Romania.

We spent most of our time down the mountain from Kobentzl to the valley, before returning

to our sweeping Hotel view of Salzburg City. Meanwhile I was deepening my questions about

capital is leveraged to undertake big private projects. As we took photos over from on high

looking down on the many bridges of Salzburg and Jim was explaining how the developed

world operated by using finances, credit, and interest to help economies grow.

Finally, we left Salzburg to enter Germany and Munich, where our quick look into Oktoberfest

found us among nasty drunken louts each of whom seemingly had hand four hands: one to

chug-a-lug beer; one to smoke foul smelling cigarettes; one to quaff horrible-bleeding-raw

sausages; and one to punch someone in the face. From what we saw, Oktoberfest was a place

for nasty males seeking to “get smashed on beer” and then smash another male to break his

nose. Thus, we fled for our lives as the brutes began to threaten anyone who looked at them.

Even though the “English-Speaking USA” had been supposedly always threatening to

invade Romania, I continued to study English language and literature. That I chose to study

English even though the act alone brought suspicion on me because all society was taught to

believe since 1945 that we were fighting off the Great USA. America was officially seen as

a threat to Romania and its allies under Russia’s COMECON, all of which I became only fully

aware as I grew older and had to buy the English Course textbooks on the risky, expensive

Black Market, in Timisoara, 4 hours drive from Cluj.

In the meantime, without rarely granted permission, we were forbidden to meet and visit

with foreigners, especially those who spoke English and who wanted to hear from us about

Sighet





River is the natural border with Southern Ukraine. Mara is another river I explored in my

Youth with my brother, Alex.

My mother Magdalena decided, when I was 3, to move from Satu-Mare to the Sighet,

Maramures county. For me this change was welcome, and I grew up in the Maramures region,

where I have I have my first memories. The region was much nicer, ethnically more diverse,

better climate, and more geographic diversity, with the Mountains of Gutinul and the rivers of

Iza and Tisa, as Tisa was the natural border with the Ukraine.



the Communist Party and infamous security officers, which everyone had to join--except for

me because with my knowledge, I was considered a security risk! I actually refused to join the

bloody red party, and so did one of my girl colleagues, Michaela Pascu-Arvedson, who lives in

Malmo, Sweden now. Non-alignment meant we were the black sheep of the class.







Transylvania Folklore, which prepared me well to understand Communist Party Lore, and

unjustified secret security surveillance.

Thus, for the second time, my fateful choice of a field research project had further prepared

me, unknowingly, for my future with Jim Wilkie.

Once I had been admitted to the Babes Boljay University, which was called “the heart and


language and literature. Also, I had studied Romanian language and literature in the

Department of Philology. The Bolyai University is still considered to this day the best

University in Transylvania.

Upon beginning my mentoring for other students, I was happy to find a sense of

freedom. Reading and writing comprehension were my forté during my four years at Cluj. I

had always dreamt of being a professor and a writer and seemed to be off to a great start.






mental images. Not one professor asked us, “What do each of you really think of all this






Party.










economics involved only fuzzy nonsensical slogans such as “We Romanians have to fight-off

the ‘running dogs of capitalism,” without the word “capitalism” ever being defined except in

unrealistic theory laced with epithets.

Even as an English major, I not permitted to speak with foreigners in English --answering

one question was a crime, according to the tendentious Security Decrees. Abortion was a

crime punishable for up to 20 years in prison. Doctors performing it ended up in jail, and so

did the pregnant women. Punishments were ridiculous—the Anti-Abortion Law lasted for 40

years, until 1990.





As I said previously, my childhood was marked by fights as I had to protect my little

brother Alexandru. In high school, I was known as the student-poet, the class poet, and I won

some pretty prizes for my poems in General School, coordinated closely with Ileana Zubascu

Cristescu; my Romanian Language Professor. I am still in touch with her to this day.

I had another flashback coming to me. Academia was infested with egregious

communists,

as became clear to me upon admission to the prestigious University in Cluj in 1982, in the

heart of Transylvania. It was so select in admissions that I was the only from my generation

to pass all the exams to arrive from Sighet. Upon entry I was realized that I was fortunate to

that my major enabled me to find the best noncommunist namely the American Language

and Literature and Romanian Language and Literature Department of Philology. The

professors, started reading the mounds of new Decrees every day, which made me laugh, and

staff of the university was suspicious of me not believing their “expose” in the classrooms.

Professors were

trying to befuddle us with words from a wooden language, totally bent toward twisting our

brains into confused submission. During my college years, Professors, and Securitate officers

were acting as sweaty bureaucrats, uneducated idiots trying to tell us what to think. Not one

professor asked us, “What do you really think, all of you?” Each professor had their favorite

students and made sure they pointed it out in class, stifling any competition, and showed

openly their favoritism or nepotism.

When I reached 22 years, I started being argumentative, and started criticizing professors,

esp. the history professor. I was getting so sick at academics yelling at us, and being forced to

do the military service as a woman in the academia. After all, Americans were coming to take

away our socialist country.

We couldn’t t buy books in English, and I was an English major.

We couldn’t talk to foreigners, and the atmosphere was dreadful in classes. Speech was not

free; one couldn’t argue in class, or make any real analysis or debate. You had to regurgitate

what they were telling you, and read whatever was there in the old books stacked in the

communist library. I was an English major, but could not get the books in English necessary

for the Exams. They did not exist. Talking to foreigners in English or answering one question

was a crime, according to a stupid decree. Abortion was a crime for 20 years. Doctors

performing it ended up in jail, and so did the pregnant women. 5 years jail for an abortion. If

my uncle from Canada visited us, we were all under surveillance, the entire family. Even

today, in 2014 one has to go and declare if you have family visiting from the USA or CANADA

for some bizarre security reasons. Well even after 26 years, not much has changed in poor

Romania. The Securitate is still doing surveillances of Romania’s “enemies” and even ramped

up surveillance now using NATO funds to control people in key positions of government, be it

local, municipal, or at federal level.

Now, writing this, it all came back to my mind’s eye: I was a professor of Romanian and

English in Sighetu Marmatiei, Maramures County, at School #2 for 6 years. Teaching English

and American languages and grammar was my favorite thing, and my goal was to move to

the West. So I settled in Tisa with my then-husband, Valerian Pipas.

It was very exacting commuting all the time from Tisa where I lived in our private Museum

(Pipas Museum of Art) to Sighet by bus. I also taught Latin and English to people just to make

ends meet. Salaries were dismal for intellectuals. So, finally I had it, and decided to leave in

1986. We were caught on the border and sent back in 1984. Ceausescu, the “father” of the

nation pardoned all border violations in 1983, as prisons were full with civil society activists.

The jail was so cold in Timisoara to keep the bacterias and viruses that it made everybody

sick internally with the cold and the flue. Most of civil society was imprisoned, for trying to

open the system, and denounce the Ceausescu dictatorship. The blanket was as warm as a

kleenex tissue. Moreover there were no pillows, and the concrete slab where inmates slept

was a back-breaker. The lights were on 24 hours a day, blinding all of us, and there was

constant observation. Every hour one was awakened to be counted. All under the guise of

watching out for suicides. But everyone could be clearly seen by the guards, and there was no

need to sleep-deprive inmates, as they were doing. There was also someone in the higher

echelon ripping off the food bill. They served only baby carrots, and spicy beans. Prisoners

were forced to labor in the fields and sorting out what was left of pigs to be

Exported, to pay off Romania’s debt to the IMF. Yes, that was Ceausescu’s dream. Famishing

the

Nation, sacrificing entire generations of people, just to pay off the debt. I remember studying

with

no lights, only a candle for exams, and not having eggs or meat for years. In 1984 my father

sold his house for a pig. Peasants had to give up parts of their products to the state. Taxes

were paid in food.

The sadest years of my life: 1984 to 89.

My poor mother Magdalena, was so confused by the propaganda, that she started crying

when I was freed from jail, additionally she was feeling very emotional after the death of the

nation’s father, Ceausescu. Nicolae together with Elena were shot execution style by his

opponent, socialist, KGB educated Ion Iliescu, who stole the revolution from the young people

of the University Square in Bucharest.

My endurance had limits. Fed up with all the restrictions, and full of frustrations, I hit the

border with Yugoslavia.

I have been unfairly jailed as I tried to leave the country in 1986.

I was ready to give up my life, just to escape people in an impossible country, with impossible

leadership.

It has become unlivable for many people. In 1989, Ceausescu finally pardoned everybody who

tried to escape the horrendous conditions in the country.

The first act of freedom I have performed it was to secure a passport for myself. And got

married to Valerian Pipas, a famous violinist from Virismort, Tisa in Maramures county.

Otherwise the consulate would not have given me the visas. Conditions were one had to be

married, and own a house. Truly I enjoyed being married to a musician; he played the violin

and I danced tango and Csardas in weekends.}

I have been teaching English in Sighet, Tisa, and Giulesti, as well as Camara for another 10

years. Conditions were absolutely horrific; no heating in schools, no teaching material, and

constant harassment from colleagues of being informed on.

After I finally left Romania, when an execution squad shot Ceausescu in December 26, 1989

for Christmas. Nice gift to the Romanian people.

When the regime changed in 1990, I was free to get a passport, and Organized Conferences

and Seminars at the University of Babes-Bolyai, in the heart of Transylvania. I was mostly

writing on destatification and privatization of Romanian companies. 51% of MARA, the

textiles company I researched was finally sold to the Germans. The opening up of Romani has

finally begun.

It was on a rainy September 17th day, in Sighet. Shortly after, I have met American professors

from UCLA, who were doing a study on the effects of the Cold War in post-socialist countries.

My observations were very valuable to Dr Wilkie who then asked me to guide the academic

group through Eastern Europe. They were traveling in a German Opel (a U.S. made car). I

took them to the Museum of my friend, D-ra Mihaly de Apsa, in my hometown, Sighet.

She was the last descendant of a fine lineage of Romanian revolutionaries fighting for the

unification of Romania in 1918; Mihaly de Apsa. James was enchanted to have met her, alive

in her pretty museum of “Pasoptisti.”

Together, we went to the Merry Cemetery, and it was dusk by the time Dr James Wilkie from

the University of Los Angeles, California, arrived in Sighet at the Marmatia Hotel. His book

was about cycles of statism in Socialist countries. He has written over 30 books on economic

development.

Let me start the story of my travels by explaining the places I went in 1991. Jim and I

left Sighet on the most beautiful road of Romania (and the world as was to learn in the next

ten years) by West up and over Prislop Pass to Bolrs We went Around Romania, visited the

monasteries of Moldova, C-lung Moldovenesc, Suceava, Sucevita and Agapia monasteries.

Then we went to Lacul Rosu. We took the scenic road to Cluj Napoca, where I was trying to

get the plane in order to fly out to Paris, in France. I had all the visas. But there was no flight.

No airport and I was not going to go through Bucharest, but via HUNGARY.

Nobody took credit cards, so Jim had to take out a lot of cash, so that we can travel safely.

Seeing how The Professor cared, I fell in love with Jim Wilkie.

I was deeply in love with James Wilkie, whom has hired me as a guide.

He said: “call me Jim”. We finally left for Budapest after the airport visit in Cluj Napoca.

We got through Budapest, finally, and then got out towards Austria and Germany.

Our colleague, Dr James Platler was worried that I was a spy, as we received special private

rooms, and great Hotel deals, plus good lunches at the Monastery, where I was a good friend

with Mother Superior.

I was just happy to be a guide in many countries.



the Communist Party, which everyone had to join--except for me because with my knowledge,

I was considered a security risk!







Transylvania Folklore, which prepared me well to understand Communist Party Lore.

Thus, for the second time, my fateful choice of a field research project had further prepared

me, unknowingly, for my future with Jim Wilkie.

Once I had been admitted to the Babes Boljay University, which was called “the heart and


language and literature. Also I studied Romanian language and literature in the Department

of Philology. The Bolyai University Is considered the best University in Transylvania.

Upon beginning my mentoring for other students, I was happy to find a sense of freedom.

Reading and writing comprehension were my forté during my four years at Cluj. I had always

dreamt of being a professor and a writer and seemed to be off to a great start.






mental images. Not one professor asked us,

“What do each of you really think of all this Ceausescu propaganda of decrees harming the

educational process?”





Party.










economics involved only fuzzy nonsensical slogans such as “We Romanians have to fight-off

the ‘running dogs of capitalism,” without the word “capitalism” ever being defined except in

unrealistic theory laced with epithets.

Even as an English major, I not permitted to speak with foreigners in English --answering

one’s question was a crime, according to the tendentious Security Decrees. Abortion was a

crime punishable for up to 5 years in prison. Doctors caught performing it ended up in jail,

and so did the pregnant women. Over 10.000 women died trying to perform abortions on

themselves, or botched it, not knowing how to escape having children that they had no means

to raise in a country rife with complete hunger.

Even today, Romania has the highest rate of orphans in the whole world.

Punishments were ridiculous—the Anti-Abortion Law lasted for 40 years, until 1990.





With Ceausescu finally gone, after 40 years of dictatorship, in 1990 I was able to secure a

passport in order to ready myself to leave Romania by gaining visas for Germany and France.

I had a lovely family in Bordeaux, namely Saint-Denise-de-Pile, who invited me over to

Bordeaux, the Godrie family, so I pursued this wonderful opportunity, and decided to visit

them in Saint-Denis-De-Pile. I spoke impeccable French. I corresponded for years with

Muguette Godrie, my beloved friend who sponsored my stay in France.

Meanwhile, the question remained, how to get there by land without a visa to Austria— as my

isolated region of Transylvania had no air connection to the outside world til late in 1990.

I succeeded to finally extract myself from that virtual prison, and we had to do it by car.

Pumped up and having all the visas in my passport, I took off with Jim on September 16, 1990

in an Opel, which remains my favorite car to this day. They ended manufacturing of the Opel

in 1990.


In the meantime, the History of Transylvania weighed heavily on population of Romania, with

constant change in the emerging political map always have left “citizens” always lost about

who was really in charge.

Thus, Transylvania was originally part of the Dacia Kingdom between 82 BC until the Roman

conquest in 106 AD. The capital of Dacia was destroyed by the Romans, so that a new as

capital would serve the Roman Province of Dacia, which lasted until 350 AD, by which time

the Romans felt so hated that it behooved them to withdraw back to Rome.

During the late 9th century, western Transylvania was conquered by the Hungarian Army to

later become part of the Kingdom of Hungary and in 1570 to devolve into the Principality of

Transylvania. During most of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Principality became an

Ottoman Empire vassal state, confusingly also governed by the Habsburg Empire. After 1711

Transylvania was consolidated solely into the Hapsburg Empire and Transylvanian princes

were replaced with Habsburg imperial governors. After 1867, Transylvania ceased to have


Hungarian Empire. After World War I, Transylvania reverted in 1918 to be part of Romania.


Romanian queen Maria successfully reclaimed it after the end of World War II.

The year 1940 was important for Romania because if was seized for its oil by Nazi Germany

(1940-1944), “liberated” by the “Soviet Union” (1944-1947), and finally “re-liberated” to

become the Popular republic of Romania (under USSR remote control), as the Cold War was

beginning to freeze the Iron Curtain into place.

At the end of World War II while the USSR and its Red Army were the occupying powers in all

Romania, in 1947 Romania forcibly and ironically became a “People’s Republic” (1947–1989),

after the rise of the Iron Curtain.


Secretary General of the Communist Party of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, was elected as the

second “president” (1965-1989), shifting his savage dictatorship into a harsher Romanian

“Gulag” than known in the USSR.

For two decades I neither understood the dimensions of tragic history of Transylvania, nor

did I yet realize that I would have to escape the Gulag of Romania, even if by the “skin of my

teeth.”

For peoples of the world Transylvania seems to be a far-away place, where most people know

the werewolves and vampires have been “seen” to in the imagination of Transylvanians,

whose beliefs was soaked in mystical folklore. Even today it is hardly possible to have a

rational conversation with most the Transylvanian folk on any subject without recourse to try

to understand where their distorted imagination has befuddled them.

The population has consisted of Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, and some

Ukrainians. These languages are still being spoken in Romania’s Maramures province, but

because I always liked and loved the Romanian language, I decided to become a Professor of

Romanian Language and Literature, as well as American Language and Civilization.


I later told Jim how I had been admitted in 1982 to the Babes-Bolyai University, in Cluj-

Napoca at the heart of Transylvania, I focused especially on Linguistics. Unfortunately, there I

found that the professors, who were under the control of sweaty-stinking Securitate officers,



the country’s food supplies to Russia in order to pay down Roman’s official debt with exports.

Those Securitate officers ate well and ominously watched us virtually starve. They said, be

calm, like your parents in the face of their starvation.

Thus, I furiously called out in my classes that our very existence was being compromised by

Ceausescu's abandonment of the population, which was ordered to, as Lenin famously said,

“work, work, and work.”

To protect myself as best I could, I turned to humor, seeking to ridicule Ceausescu’s “national

paradise.” But when I encouraged my classmates to laugh at the propaganda embedded in

the wooden language of the national bureaucracy, I soon fell under the heavy scrutiny of

university authorities, who were furious that I trying to expose the fact that all classes had

been organized to befuddle the student body into confused submission. Indeed, each professor

had favorite students to help drown out legitimate questions and stifle any competing

analysis—the university lived under nepotism, favoritism, the threat of rape (virtual and real)

by the Securitate officers, and open bribery by the professors--choose your garden variety.

Knowing My Real value And Having A Spine


want anyone (especially women of child-bearing age) to escape his plan to building his “ideal

socialist industries” on farms and ranches as well as in the cities. In June I made my way to the

border of Yugoslavia and paid a smuggler to evade the Romanian security forces that were

preventing the “nations

workers” from escaping. The smuggler, who took me across the border, turned out to be

working for Romanian Border Police. Thus, soon after crossing into Yugoslavia, he turned his

wagon around and I was again in Romania again when I realized what had happened too

late. I had been “sold” to Ceausescu’s minions for a wagonload of salt and 20 Liters of

gasoline. Thousands were returned for this kind of draconian exchange.



viruses) that it made all of us inmates sick with the cold and the flu.


pillows, and the concrete slab where inmates slept was a “back-breaker.” The lights were on

24 hours a day, blinding all of us, and there was constant observation. Every hour one was

awakened to be counted for, and sneaking up on people, under the guise of watching out for

suicides. But everyone could be clearly seen by the guards, and there was no need to sleep-

deprive inmates. There was also someone in the higher echelon ripping off the food budget to

siphon money to themselves while serving inmates only baby carrots and spicy beans.


imprisoned for trying to open the political system by denouncing the Ceausescu dictatorship.

These inmates were openly called “Political Prisoners,” and I was one of them.


our crime had been the political decision to repudiate Ceausescu’s “fantastic system.”

OUT OF PRISON IN 1987 TO FIND ROMANIA FACING DISASTER And FAMINE



Further in 1987, at the age of 24, I met the Family patriarch Nicolae Pipas, who directed for

the Communist government the walled Regional Art Museum in a quiet part of Sighet. When

he realized that I was a Professor of the English and Romania Languages, and one of the few

university’s highly educated persons in the region, I began to serve as interpreter/guide to

visiting foreign Ambassadors permitted to travel in Romania. They wanted to see the Museum

with its magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, and rare historical pottery and coins.

Thus, I soon found myself interpreting and translating for visiting English-Speaking

Ambassadors from many countries who wished to know Transylvania, especially my village

Sighet and its Merry Cemetery famous worldwide for it tombstones in the form of wood

sculpture of the butcher, the baker, candlestick maker, and all professions.

Although my first languages were Romanian and Hungarian, I could also translate into

French and Italian. Indeed at that time I was teaching Latin in the Rural School System of my

Maramures Province.

By 1989, Ceausescu realized that his end was near, and he sought to gain support by

pardoning his political prisoners (such as myself) who had tried to escape the horrendous

conditions in the country. Hence, university students and some labor unions joined forces and

quite quickly after the fall of the Berlin Wall forced Ceausescu and his draconian wife Elena to

flee. They were caught and executed on Christmas Day, 1989, by the military that at the last

moment joined the Revolution.

‘As my friends and I (along with most of the population) cheered the fall of the failed, rotten

Romanian “dictatorship of the proletariat,” my dear mother acted differently. She was so

confused by the

propaganda of the only “leader” she knew much about that she wept for Ceausescu, not fully

realizing that he was the one who had wrongly had be arrested and put me in prison.

With Ceausescu gone, in 1990 I was able to secure a passport to ready myself to leave

Romania by gaining visas for Germany and France. The question remained, how to get there

by land without a visa to Austria—my region had no air connection to the outside world.

MY FATEFUL 1991 MEETING IN SIGHET WITH JIM WILKIE

Almost age 27 in 1991, I was in the right place at the right time when UCLA Professor Jim

Wilkie arrived in Sighet September 17th, 1990, together with Professor James Platler (his

friend and driver). They came as part of their trip to assess the impact of the 1989 Fall of Iron

Curtain--which had imprisoned all Romanians and made it a crime to try to escape from

Romania. The two Americans had already visited “East” Germany, Czechia, and Slovakia

(soon to break their union, each becoming independent), and Poland, where English speakers

could provide guidance.

In Romania the UCLA Team found itself at a loss as few of the people who they encountered

could speak English and none of them could analyze or articulate how the System of

Government and society functioned before and after 1989.

When we met, Jim immediately contracted with me to advise them as well as guide

them through Eastern Europe. They were pleased to hear the my outline of Transylvanian

and Romanian history (see above), with which I explained how constant national boundary

change meant that Transylvanians and Romanians were never able to develop either honest

civil government or active civic society. Little did I know that the concepts of “Civic” and

“Civil” Society were of utmost importance to Jim? As I would find out later, Jim and I had been

conducting compatible research for years and would lead me to my

PHD Dissertation and two books written with Jim. All these works distinguish between the

concepts of Civil Society (which represents national and local governmental activity) and

Civic Society (which involves active private citizens (who organize non-governmental

initiatives to develop model projects

beyond the ability of official bureaucrats to even comprehend, including the influence needed

to monitor and expose the failures and successes of governmental activity).

But before we left in September 18, 1991, to visit Romania and Hungary, I had to find a

substitute for my new class teaching American English and History in Sighet—I left a friend,

Johnny Popescu, to become my permanent substitute. Only then could our newly expanded

Team set off under my guidance.

Thus, we set out on that September 18th to visit one of the most socially and economically

interesting and beautiful parts of Romania by going up thought the green forested

Carpathian Mountains via the beautiful Prislop Pass, stopping to visit small farming families

in their folkloric clothing of which they were justifiably proud to wear on a daily basis.

Farther east in Romania, on the scenic roads, we visited the monasteries of Moldova, the town

of Cimpulung Moldovenesc, Suceava, and then the Monasteries in Sucevita and Agapia. The

gorgeous forested mountain road eventually led to Lacul Rosu and the lake country. Then we

took the long scenic mountain road to Cluj Napoca to visit my prestigious University.

As I briefed Jim about Romania, he was briefing me about factors in comparing national

economies. For example, he told me about how he had reunited in Prague on September 15th

with Richard Beesen, his former UCLA student and friend, to hear about his role in London as

Manager of Deutsche Bank’s New Accounts in Russia and Eastern Europe. Richard had

become famous for inviting Banking Officials and national Treasury Ministries to deposit

their financial reserves on deposit in his bank in London. But

because his clients did not understand anything about “interest payments” on deposited

funds, they did not ask for nor did they gain any interest payments. Also, because most

Western Banks were not sure that

these new “capitalists” could be “fully trusted” for correct management of their deposits, his

Deutsche Bank collected large fees (and paid no interest to keep the Eastern Europe “bank

reserves safe.” This was all very eye opening for me.

Jim and I had realized early on that we had a close affinity as we analyzed the situation of

Romania, and he said, “Call me Jim.” (In contrast I called Professor James Platler “JP.”) As we

traveled to observe the situation of the people in different parts of the country, Jim and I

formed a deep bond of observing and analyzing; thus both of us realized this brief interlude

had to continue for the long term in order to achieve our goals.



As a Romanian, I had the right to enter Hungary, and we did so bypassing the miles of

vehicles waiting to cross the border for the long drive to Budapest. There Prof. James Platler

finally relaxed after the long drives and often poor hotels and monasteries —he said that he

finally found unbroken civilization again. I was astounded to hear that. I made everything

possible for them to have the best lodging and food in Moldova and Maramures county.

Obviously, my friends had different standards than us, Romanians.

Once we arrived in Budapest, Professor James Platler, who had told Jim privately that from

the outset of our trip that he thought that I was a “Spy” (planted on us by the Romanian

Securitate to monitor our many “foreign” inquiries during our travel through Romania’s

north country), announced that his concern about me had vanished as we realized the extent

of my knowledge and research abilities. In his mind, I had to be a Spy because I had obtained

access to special private dining rooms and quarter in some fine hotels, as well as invitations

for wonderful lunches at some Monasteries, where miraculously I made immediate friends

with each Mother Superior. But by the time we reached Budapest, he realized that at my

University I had learned the Elite skills needed to survive safely and comfortably in Eastern

Europe.

My problem was to enter Austria, where I had no visa. But Jim passed his UCLA business card

through to the Consul General of Austria in Budapest, and quickly we found ourselves whisked

from the back of the long line to the front and right into a meeting with the Consul General

himself. He was pleased to hear about the research of our UCLA Team, but said that I did have

a visa. Jim then told them that I only needed a three-day transit visa to reach Germany, the

visa for which he could see in my passport.

With entry to Austria solved, we were on the road to the Hotel Kobentzl and Graz, which

overlook Salzburg, all the way analyzing the comparative economic and social situations of

Austria, Hungary, and Romania.

We spent most of our time down the mountain from Kobentzl to the valley, before returning

to our sweeping Hotel view of Salzburg City. Meanwhile I was deepening my questions about

capital is leveraged to undertake big private projects. As we took photos over from on high

looking down on the many bridges of Salzburg and Jim was explaining how the developed

world operated by using finances, credit, and interest to help economies grow.

Finally we left Salzburg to enter Germany and Munich, where our quick look into Oktoberfest

found us among nasty drunken louts each of whom seemingly had hand four hands: one to

chug-a-lug beer; one to smoke foul smelling cigarettes; one to quaff horrible-bleeding-raw

sausages; and one to punch someone in the face. From what we saw, Oktoberfest was a place

for nasty males seeking to “get smashed on beer” and then smash another male to break his

nose. Thus, we fled for our lives as the brutes began to threaten anyone who looked at them.

Then on September 30th, I took the plane from Munich to Paris to take a bus to Bordeaux to

meet the French family, the daughter of which, in her visit in 1990 to the Museum in Sighet,

had invited me to obtain a French visa and move to stay with her on the lovely family farm

outside Bordeaux.

Jim (and JP) also left the same day for Jim to arrive in time to go from the airplane to open

and begin teaching his Fall Quarter class at UCLA. But he promised to call daily and return to

join me again in ten weeks.

In the meantime, I made a trip to Paris to request political asylum in France, but a grey-faced

judge rejected my request, saying that the petitioner must file with the help of a lawyer.

To complicate matters in Bordeaux, the French Security Agent there was investigating me, a

lone woman, as a possible spy sent by Romania to “monitor activities at the Port of Bordeaux.

When he told that, if I pleased him in unmentionable ways, he would not deport me to

Romania but arrange my legal status in France so that I could live him. I immediately told

Jim on his next telephone call.

To resolve the above problem, Jim called his Paris friend Gérard Chaliand, a former visiting

professor at UCLA, whose real job involved traveling the world for French Security to report

on his professorial travels that took him to all continents. Gérard immediately called French

Security to report on the illegal approach to me by their Agent in Bordeaux. That same day

the Agent came to apologize profusely to me in the best manner that he could muster in his

pitiful condition. He begged me not to have him fired for his proposition to me. I could see him

looking at me in truly puzzled way that implicitly said: “Who are you? How did I make such a

grave mistake in deciding that you, a lone Romanian woman, could not have any power to

reach my bosses in Paris?” I took pity on him and told him that if he minded manners and

watched from affair to be sure that I was always safe, he would not be fired.

JIM RETURNS TO EUROPE IN DECEMBER, 1991:

HIS PLAN FOR ADVISING EASTERN EUROPEAN CIVIC SOCIETY ABOUT HOW TO GAIN

GRANTS FROM U.S. FOUNDATIONS (NPPOs), WHICH HOLD THE WORLD’S LARGEST POOL

OF NGO DEVELOPMENT FUNDS

Even though it was December 11, 1991, when Jim returned, France was in the midst what

some in America call an “Indian Fall,” warm with colorful fall leaves still on the trees. It was

a beautifully bright

“fall day” when we left Bordeaux the next day to spend some days visiting the Loire River with

its many castles and incredible views.

Even during our photography of the Loire region, Jim began to outline his New Plan (now our

plan) to wit: PROFMEX Plan to Help Eastern European “Foundations”

Therefore, some Romanian and Mexican NGOs become legally eligible to gain grants

from U.S. Tax Exempt Foundations following our advice on how to do it, best practices we

could teach other leaders about: and so The U.S. Model for Philanthropy was born.

“The U.S.-Mexico Model for Philanthropy.”

Indeed, Jim told me that recently when he had been in Mexico City, he received an invitation

to meet with Manuel Alonso Muñoz, Executive Director of Mexico’s National Lottery, who,

when he heard about Jim’s U.S.-Mexico Model, invited him to meet at the Lottery’s historically

famous ornate building. After an extended briefing by Jim, Manuel told him that he had

already called his own good friend Ronald G. Hellman, Professor of Sociology in the Graduate

School at the City University of New York, to ask him for an evaluation of Jim and his Mexico-

U.S. Model for Philanthropy. Ironically, it was only then when he realized that Ron was (and is

today) Jim’s PROFMEX Vice-President for Strategic Planning. With that news and Jim’s stellar

briefing, Lic. Alonso asked if the Lottery could make a series of generous grants to PROFMEX

in order to help fund the expansion of Jim’s Model to Eastern Europe, putting Mexico into an

innovative new light.

Mexico And The World, I got the idea! Evrika, so the brilliant idea to bring together experts

from all the world to Mexico, to have a debate was born. The Conference I was always

dreaming about was beginning to shape up, and soon things all lined up for us to organize a

bi-lateral Conference in Morelia, the State of Michoacán. The Governor was more than happy

to receive us in Michoacán. So we worked together with Manuel Alonso to get people down

there. The hardest part was to get the financing for it.

Manuel Alonso was appreciative of the fact that Jim, while serving as Consultant to the U.S.

Council on Foundations, had become involved since 1990 with his Model for helping Mexican

Foundations (including, for example, charities, human rights organizations, hospitals,

universities, biospheres, etc.) to help them re-write their constitution and by-laws to be

compatible with the U.S. tax requirement that they mirror U.S. Not-for-Private Profit

Organizations (NPPOs).

The question of “mirroring” involved Jim’s explanation that:

As NPPOs, U.S. Foundations are legally responsible for controlling expenditure of funds

granted to organizations that do not mirror the U.S. foundations do not want to be involved

in the day-to-day activities of its grantees. Indeed, “ they want to transfer expenditure

responsibility” (including misuse or illegal use of grant funds) to the recipient foundation to

which they grant funds but can only do so if the grant recipient organization is deemed to

have an “equivalent” legal structure to that of the U.S. donor foundation.

Here is the background, according to Jim: “In order to facilitate the U.S. philanthropic

activity needed during the 1970s and 1980s to help speed world development, the U.S.

Secretary of Treasury and the IRS formulated provisions that resulted in changing and/or

interpreting the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) to freely permit U.S. foundations to grant funds

abroad, if they meet the following special proviso:

U.S. NPPOs can themselves make a legal “determination” that the foreign organization

receiving the U.S. grant be “determined” to be “equivalent” to an NPPO described in Section

501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.”

Further, Jim pointed out that, “while this proviso has worked well for big U.S. grant-

making foundations that place costly offices and staff around the world (such as Rockefeller

and Ford Foundations), it has worked less well for foundations that have had to send their

lawyers to meet with their legal counterparts in prospective ‘equivalent organizations, the

legal cost of making such a determination often reaching $25,000 [or, by 2016, much, much

more] for each new organization to

receive funds from the U.S. NPPO. If that determination is favorable, the U.S. NPPO can

transfer funds to the equivalent organization, just as it can to any other approved U.S. NPPO,

and along with the transfer of funds to the recipient organization goes the transfer of

responsibility over how the funds are spent.”

Transfer of ‘Expenditure Responsibility’ from the

U.S. Donor NPPO to the Foreign Recipient NPPO.

The ability of U.S. NPPOs to avoid costly expenditure responsibility, as Jim told, is one of the

factors that have helped make American grant-making foundations so important in the

world. Thus, U.S. NPPOs have been enabled to avoid becoming ensnarled in accounting

processes and audits, which are better done by the foreign organization that receives and

administers the U.S. NPPO grant of funds.

In this manner, said Jim, the U.S. NPPO is free to focus its energy on evaluating the substance

of its grant programs. The ability of grant-making foundations to transfer Expenditure

Responsibility to other NPPOs is the main reason that they generally prefer (and require) that

their funds be granted only to approved organizations rather than to individuals or to non-

approved organizations.

The above views, Jim said, do not mean that U.S. NPPOs are unable to grant funds to an

organization that is not equivalent to a U.S. NPPO (or make grants to individual scholars,

artists, or writers either at home or abroad), but to do so adds a complication to the grant-

making process. Rather than passing on the Expenditure Responsibility (as the U.S. NPPO

does when it makes grants to another NPPO or U.S. equivalent), the Expenditure

Responsibility remains with the donor NPPO when it makes a grant to an organization that is

not an NPPO (or its U.S. equivalent) or to an individual.

In the unlikely case where the donor NPPO retains Expenditure Responsibility, then, Jim

told me in my interview with him on September 17, 1991, the donor foundation has to

concern itself with costly financial oversight involved, which may problematic whether of in

or outside the USA.

ON TO PARIS AND THE WORLD TO MEET WITH NPPO LEADERS ABOUT

NEW FOUNDATIONS

Jim and I arrived in Paris on December 15, 1991, to meet with Jim’s contacts at the

American Embassy, who heard about our research and suggested that Jim meet also with

their counterparts at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. They agreed to help begin to our new

Plan to expand to Eastern Europe and Russia Jim’s successful Model for Tax-Free Flow of

Nonprofit Funds, the example being what he negotiated (with the U.S. Council on Foundations

and the U.S. and Mexican Treasury Departments), as analyzed above.

It is important for me to say here that George Soros and his decentralized donations to his 41

semi-autonomous “national foundations” (exemplified in Romania, Hungary, and Russia)

have been built following the IRS proviso and regulations discussed above. Also, Soros’

“National Foundations” require that national Government charter the independent role as

NGOs.

In contrast, the flowering of thousands of small independent “Foundations” in Eastern

Europe since 1989 has grown from groups looking for funds from the many U.S. Foundations

that do not have the Soros/New York link with its Foundations in many nations, all of which

operate in Soros’ closed loop. Few of these new Foundations have the Soros knowledge and

financial resources to set up the By-Laws and Legal Status needed for the thousands of

Foundations desiring to tap into funding by the U.S. Foundations. However, since 2013,

Soros’ has organized an office to work with shared Global Funds (for food, migration, etc.)

outside the non-Soros frameworks to help poor areas and countries to stave off crises.

Recently, in 2013, George Soros has been discredited by the Hungarian PM, Orban who has

aggressively made anti-Soros advertisement on buses in Hungary, claiming that the

Hungarian American wanted Arabs, and Palestinians to “invade” Hungary. The anti-Soros

rhetoric has become increasingly nationalistic, and this is what FIDESZ, the ruling party is

preaching

Before we left Paris on December 19, 1991, we met with Gérard Chaliand to personally thank

him for having made the Bordeaux Security agent reexamine his whole approach to his life.

Further, with Gérard, we worked out a plan to arrange for me to become a U.S. resident and

obtain U.S. citizenship nine years after my arrival in Los Angeles, October 1992. He

recommended that my case by handled in In Los Angeles by one of America’s most

knowledgeable and effective Migration Attorneys—Cynthia Juárez Lange, today Managing

Partner, Northern California, for the Fragomen Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy LLP Legal Office

located in San Francisco. Cynthia is herself an academic and personable genius.

Meanwhile in my travels with Jim in December 1991 and from March to June 1992 we met

NPPO leaders in the European Union to better understand how foundations work under

unique laws in each county rather than in any rational manner for the whole EU, we went to

Marseilles, Nice, Villfranche-sur-Mer, Cap-Ferrat, Monaco, La Rochelle, Andorra, Sevilla,

Madrid, Trujillo, El Escorial, Avila (a magnificent fortress city), and Segovia.

On September 3. 1992, we arrived at the U.S. Consulate in Paris, where the U.S Consulate in

Mexico had arranged with Jim for my U.S. eligibility for residence to be issued. Also, the

Mexican Consulate General in Paris issued me my residence papers to enter and leave Mexico

freely, as arranged by Jim with the Mexican Consular Head Office in Mexico City.

Before we left Europe for the USA in October 1991, we returned to Sighet on September 7,

1992, for meetings with Romanian Civic Activists. (Thus, I finally returned to Sighet after

having “escaped” with Jim to France in December 1991).

From March to June 1993, we met with NPPO leaders in Budapest, Sighet, and Varna

(Bulgaria), Bucharest, and St. Petersburg.

In Moscow (June 21-14, 1993), Jim appointed Professor Boris Koval (Director of the Latin

American Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences), to be PROFMEX Representative in

Russia. Koval had invited us to Moscow and introduced us to his own Security Chief to be our

translator and guide. This Security Chief was a fascinating person who had been former head

of the KGB Office in Iraq, 1979-1989.

Jim, who always wore his Mexican guayabera shirt with or without a suit, was seen to be

“authentically Mexican” in our meetings and discussions about NPPOs.

Some of our interviews focused on the successes of Soros Open Society Foundation--Russia

(1987-2002). Other meetings with civic society followed as we learn the details about the

problems of the Soros

Foundations--Russia since 2003, when, under reactionary Government pressure, he was

phasing out of operation active programs. According to the Soros Foundation—Russia:

“When on November 30, 2015, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office classified the Soros

Open Society Foundation as an “undesirable” organization, it closed the possibility of Russian

individuals and institutions from having anything to do with any Soros initiative or

programs… [Because it constituted] a threat to the foundations of Russia’s Constitutional

order and national security….

“Prosecutors [then] launched a probe into Soros Foundation

activities…. [and in July 2015], after Russian senators approved

the so-called “patriotic stop-list” of 12 groups that required

immediate attention over their supposed anti-Russian activities, [the

following U.S. organizations] realized that they would soon be

banned in Russia: [the U.S.] National Endowment for Democracy; the

International Republican Institute; the National Democratic

Institute; the MacArthur Foundation, and Freedom House. Now in

2017, all Eastern European countries want Soros foundations closed

in their countries, especially the Hungarian PM, Orban Viktor, who

went so far as to describe him as a dangerous politician mixing in his

domestic “dictatorial” affairs.

The American hedge-funds mogul George Soros issued from London the following Press

Release

on November 30, 2015:

“Contrary to the Russian prosecutor’s allegations, the Open Society Foundations have, for

more than a quarter-century, helped to strengthen the rule of law in Russia and protect the

rights of all. In the past, Russian officials and citizens have welcomed our efforts, and we

regret the changes that have led the government to reject our support to Russian civil society

and ignore the aspirations of the Russian people.

“Since 1987, Open Society has provided support to countless individuals and civil society

organizations, including in the fields of science, education, and public health. Open Society

has helped finance a network of internet centers in 33 universities around the country, helped

Russian scholars to travel and study abroad, developed curricula for early childhood

education, and created a network of contemporary art centers that are still in operation.

“This record speaks for itself. We are honored to have worked alongside pioneering citizens,

educators, and civil society organizations that embody Russian creativity, commitment, and

hope.

“We are confident that this move is a temporary aberration; the aspirations of the Russian

people for a better future cannot be suppressed and will ultimately succeed,” said George

Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations.) Despite all efforts made by

Soros and his organizations, he has been banned from Russia.

“Once with the reset of the Cold War, in 2012, when Putin was reelected as Russia’s President,

Putin’s first movement was to ban all Soros organizations which were impeding his expansion

onto Crimea.”

Catching up on Soros, he most recent assertion is that civil society is being endangered

by nostalgia for communism. Read: by Jacob Grandstaff

1 COMMENTS

Read Part One of “George Soros’ says in Romanian Ghosts.” Part Two explains how Soros-

funded NGOs and their Western allies in government push for revolution in Eastern Europe.

Part Three shows how Romanian activist “ghosts” became a threat to civil liberties and

undermined their nation’s sovereignty.

Back in Mexico City for the 1994 PROFMEX Event featuring Eastern Europeans interested

in the U.S.-Mexico Model for NPPOs, we convened, July 28-29, for our meeting on

“Development of Mexico as seen from the World,” Co-sponsored by UCLA and Mexico’s Consejo

Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología.

This Conference was held at Mexico City’s María Isabel Sheraton, with 70 participants from

Mexico and the United States, and which I co-organized with Jim

The following invitees from Eastern Europe came from

Hungary

Zoltan Karpati, Professor of Sociology

Romania Mihai Coman, University Dean

Roman Romulus, Consul General in Mexico

Alexandru Lazín, PROFMEX-- England and Romania

Lia Stan, Investor from Bristol, England.

Highlights of the event came frequently as we turned our gaze from Salón A with his all-

window view from the top floor to discuss the anti-government protest marches up and down

Reforma Avenue past the Angel Monument below.

Further, our group enjoyed the invitation of Mexico’s Attorney General, Jorge Madrazo

Cuéllar to visit him at his headquarters where we personally discussed and raised questions

about the street blockages of political protest in front of our María Isabel Sheraton Hotel.

In December 1997, we continued to invite world scholars especially interested in

economic matters, as well as in the U.S.-Mexico NPPO Model to participate with us at the:

IX PROFMEX-ANUIES Conference

Hosted by Governor Víctor Manuel Tinoco Rubí

Morelia, Michoacán, México

México y el Mundo Or Mexico and the World, in December 8-13, 1997

With hundreds of participants and Attendees from all continents,

Special Guests were invited from Russia: Boris Koval, who recalled with excitement

the visit of Jim and I to Moscow in June 1993.

From China: Sengen Zhang

Hongzhu Huang

Korea: Kap-Young Jeong

Japan: Soichi Shinohara

Osamu Nishimura

Yasuoki Takagi

Indonesia: Lepi T. Tarmidi

Argentina: Eugenio O. Valenciano

Bolivia: Antonio J. Cisneros

---------

Jim and I have been involved with many academic activities, but those are beyond the scope

of my analysis here of our role in extending PROFMEX around the globe, especially to Europe

and Russia.

My courses at UCLA taken under Jim and Professors Carlos Alberto Torres, Richard Weiss, and

Ivan T. Berend led me to my M.A. in History and Latin American Studies (1996) at

Unieversity of California, Los Angeles.

And my Ph.D. in History (2001) at UCLA, and Post-Doctoral Research in the

Education and Information Department for 8 years. I completed this Fellowship in 2017.

Here is title of my first book’s author: http://www.DecentralizedGlobalization.com 2017

March 10.

The second book, La globalización se descentraliza:Libre mercado, fundaciones, sociedad

cívica y gobierno civil en las regiones del mundo (2007) Olga Magdalena Lazín. With a

Prologue by James W. Wilkie.

My third book, co-authored with James W. Wilkie, contains images that reflect my travels

with Jim:

La globalización se amplia (2011), or Globalization Amplifies, Olga Magdalena Lazín & James

W., Preface de Rafael Rodríguez Castañeda, was published by UCLA, in 2011 in Spanish.

These books, including Decentralized Globalization show how U.S. Tax Exempt Organization

(TEO) law has evolved to become the most important in the world owing to its flexibility.

Where the laws of most countries require prior legal authorization to launch in a new

direction, the United States TEO law recognizes no such limit.

Thus, U.S. TEO law, unlike most other countries, is never trying to make legal what is

already underway and working in the world. For the USA and now Mexico, both Treasury

Ministries together have signed the first collaborative agreement that stands as the blueprint

for global NPPOs.

With Professor Jim Wilkie, I know that much researching and writing awaits us in our

projects around the world….

Olga and Jim, Guadalajara, Mexico, International Airport, December 7, 2016 @olgalazin

Later on, Richard Beeson, who headed up Deutsche bank, London office, where he represented

all EE countries, had convinced EE countries Central banks to deposit their golden cash at

Deutsche Bank, London office. He reunited with JW in Prague, and Cracow, where the horrible

polluted air blinded him.

In Budapest I obtained the Austrian visa, where I needed a transit visa.

Then we travelled to Kobentzl, overlooking Salzburg, talking about the global economy.

We even spent most of our time down Salzburg city, taking pictures, and JW was teaching me

economics, how the world of development worked: finances, credit, interest. JP had more faith

in me than ever.

We continued our journey to Munich, where we celebrated Oktoberfest with the locals in

Frankfurt.

Next, I took the plane to Paris, from Munich, to fly out to Bordeaux to meet the family, which

invited me to France. Jim had to go back to Los Angeles to teach Fall Quarter, as always. He

promised he would return for me soon.

After ten weeks in Bordeaux, Jim came to visit me.

We met in Paris, and I was refused asylum in France. The national security Bureau headed by

a Gris guy (security officer) was asking me weekly why was I keeping in touch with “The

American”, I quote.

Finally, Jim returned for me. It was a very wonderful fall, I Bordeaux, so we drove to see all

the castles along the Loire River.

The 1st trip was to and along the river of LOIRE; we left in September, and came back in

December. Then we went to Paris, and visited the Versailles, Champs Elysee, the Montmartre,

and Montparnasse. We had everything to ourselves, and then we went to Marseille, listening

to the Pastorales, and day-dreaming through the beautiful green lands of France.

In Marseille we stayed at the Sofitel, JW was overlooking the Bay, into the icy cold town. And

we went to the COTE Azure. We stayed at Hotel Welcome. Then rode over the serpentined

Cornish roads, overlooking the Mediterranean, Cap Ferrat, and Monaco. Then JW had to fly

out to teach again, and I flew back to Bordeaux, where I took numerous courses in European

Union Regulations for the environment, and sustainability.

In Cancún, at the tiny Iguana conservationist group

Life In Bordeaux France, 1991

Life with the nuns in Bordeaux, France, in the city of Red Wines, was finally very healing and I

was in excellent health. The mother superior took me to Toulouse Lautrec’s castle, and we

swam in the Atlantic ocean. I cooked for myself and studied Elitelore and Folklore at

Université De Michelle de Montaigne, one block away from my Doctrine Chretiéne.

I was feeling very safe with the Nuns. Jim was calling me daily, checking up on me and my

health. Then I flew to meet Jim in NICE, in 1992.

It was now another beautiful stay at WELCOME hotel overlooking the ocean, in a stupendous

pictorial town called Beaulieu sur Mer. At the Welcome Hotel, right across from the ocean

scene, I saw the boats coming up and down to the port.

Jim came back 10 weeks later. The second time we travelled to Carcassonne, a fortified city,

through Andorra (a gambling center, in the Pyrenees’). The Principality of Andorra was rich

and ostentatious with baroque buildings. And La Rochelle, a beautiful Bay, nested in the

mountains.

Then entered into Spain, toward Madrid, and stayed at Hotel Paris for a week, in the center of

Madrid.

Here we enjoyed eating the charales in the main plaza. Best snack I ever had in Spain, tiny

delicious fish would make us feel satiety in a few minutes. We found charales in Morelia later

in 1995.

We visited stupendous Toledo, the town of knives, which we left behind in late September, and

then headed to the town of Trujillo. In Trujillo we went and took pictures while walking on

the red roofs of houses, perfectly lined up for me to walk. I took great that I was free and

nobody minded my business. Jim and I, we were only taking care of one another.

We went up to the Devil’s Throat (a town deep in a canyon, tucked into the mountains where

a monastery is nested) to continue up in the mountains, and then went down to a walled town

of Avila, to Trujillo, and continued to Madrid. We stayed at Paris Hotel in the heart of the

capital, and listened to the powerful bells of the Catholic church in front of us. The sounds of

the Church bell were strong, and it reverberated in my vertebrae.

Then we headed toward El Escorial, the monastery, and then JW flew out of Madrid. I took the

plane to France, and in Bordeaux I joined the nuns again, and continued my studies of

Folklore at the University of Bordeaux, where I was writing about the mythical Lilith.

To paint it in a picture of words, I am flashing out the pageant, of that most extraordinary

beautiful Catholic Church, as we went down from La Rochelle, along the clean river, where we

called to make reservations in a pretty tiny hotel, ahead and we found a room with a high

ceiling warm and cozy.

Out of many, Switzerland is my favorite European country; the majestic mountains and the

rivers impressed me.

Monte Rosa’s Peak and Matterhorn were absolutely fabulous, left us breathless, and the

chalet Michabell was looking down onto Italy. The view out of the window was that of

Matterhorn mountain in Zermatt, a pretty town.

We then went out to Monte Rosa, a majestic chain of snow-covered Mountain of rare beauty.

I enjoyed the lovely scenery in Luzern, and Interlaken, with the beautiful lake with little

bridges leading up to the center, all dressed up in geranium flowers. Multicolored geraniums

flowers were hanging out from each houses’ window. The beautiful trip is to go up on a

chairlift (telefericul) to wheel you up over the meadows, seeing cattle and, magnificent

glorious view of the Swiss Mountains, and the peaks. It is a very gentle and slow trip.

At the base of the Matterhorn, in July 1994 we stayed at the very top, at the Gornergrat Hotel,

in a very solitary beautiful hotel. What a trip that was; and it gave me the perspective to

figure out my future plans.

The beauty of nature and overdose of oxygen gave me clarity of mind.

I had in my mind’s eye, planned out all my life during this lovely trip. I knew I exactly what I

wanted. I envisioned myself making research and taking my Doctoral degree at UCLA, in Los

Angeles in History.

We were moving ahead with our travels and research. I decided I want to go to America with

Jim. In 1991 in summer I left France for the United States, more specifically to Los Angeles

that is to UCLA, where I wanted to get my master’s degree in History.

In L.A. I witnessed the 1992 riots. I was reading feverishly on how people have started

burning buses and cabs in East Los Angeles, as well as attacking and beating up white people

in the streets. The smoke and foul air was moving towards me in Marina del Rey.

We found a lovely hotel, Marina Del Rey, in Marina del Rey, where I stayed for a week, and we

looked for a place to live.

I have finally escaped from the bad world into the good world. We loved each other so deeply.

I moved into Westwood and enrolled into the UCLA’s Master program in summer 2004. I

graduated soon after in 2005, but no family was present, as my mother died of a heart attack,

and could never travel by plane.

I understood that I never had good communication with anyone.

I was sensitive and creative; and only Jim could appreciate me. These were my thoughts then

when I was 40.

Before enrolling at UCLA, I had to visit my uncle Nicholas Lazin, who has fled to Hungary in

1947, after the Wall was raised between the East and the West in Europe, and settled down in

Oshawa, Canada. He invited me many times to visit, Oshawa, in Toronto, Canada. This trip I

took in 1993, it was wintertime in Canada, and it was a harsh experience staying there and

getting accustomed again to cold weather. Coming out of cold winters I spent in

Transylvania, I was filled with rheumatism and arthritis.

Cold weather just does not work with me, it was as simple as that. I decided I never leave Los

Angeles ever again. My precious warm, sunny Los Angeles I have fallen in love with.

Discovering new Places And Peoples

It was a good feeling escaping Ceausescu’s tyranny and discovering the hidden side of the

word. I realized how we lived in the dark and isolation from the world, and that there was

better climate in Mexico than in Romania; and one does not be the prisoner of their own

thoughts and limited spirit of the others, living the same nightmare, as I did back in Romania.

I know the nuns in Bordeaux were free spirits and happy women, with a great sense of humor

especially the Mother Superior. We even visited Toulouse Lautrec’s castle, and spent time on

the beach where the Atlantic Ocean met the Pacific Ocean. I had spent unforgettable moments

of discovery, and fraternization with the nuns.

Because I have entered the Mexican state, in order to see the pyramids first, I tried to find a

place to live also in Mexico, and I have selected a place called El Bosque del Secreto, but it did

not work out. The air is too polluted in Teotihuacan, and around Mexico D.F. that I only

visited the Pyramid of the Sun, and the pyramid of the Moon, and hurried to find a nice place.

When I finally found the house surrounded by beautiful red bougambillas, I realized it was

too isolated from town, without a car, far from the market, in one word, I felt it was not really

feasible.

As all ironies are happening, when I arrived to L.A., the riots were in progress.

I was settling in marina del Rey. Then I left again to Toronto to see my uncle Nicholas, and

cousin Caroline Lazin. I started teaching History pretty soon, when I returned to UCLA.

After 2 years in the Doctoral Program in History at UCLA, I graduated in 2001, in January.

After graduation I have published my Doctoral thesis, and a second book on the bright and

dark sides of

Globalization with Dr James W Wilkie, Professor at UCLA. Our books are widely read around

the world and are used to teach Courses at College and University levels.

After 9/11 the whole world has changed. And this will be the topic for another book. A book in

which I will investigate what has changed exactly in these 22 years in Los Angeles, and how

change has impacted us. Why are we missing those good things of the past, as a collective.

That is the collective memory I garnered.

http://www.profmex.org

OR

http://www.olgalazin.com


which I will investigate what has changed exactly in these 22 years, and how. Why are we

missing those things, customs of the region of Transylvania, as a collective. That is the

collective memory I cherish most.

At UCLA, with my students in History, 2014

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/203836679/Escaping-From-Transylvania-30-

FebTRANSYL?post_id=2538457_10103066199638166#_=_

Copyrighted © Dr Olga M. Lazin-Andrei 2014 Escape to the West

___________ ©_________//___________________________________

Written on a E mail; [email protected]

On Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+OLGALAZINDr

Twitter: olgamlazin

Facebook: Olga Lazin

Blog: http://olgaandrassy.blogspot.com

http://drolgalazin.blogactiv.eu

http://olgalazin.wordpress.com

http://drolgalazinandrei.wordpress.com

E-rated: http://erated.me/p/drolga-lazin/

Titles by the same author: http://www.olgalazin.com/books.html

Academic http://calstatela.academia.edu/DROLGALAZIN

Biography in Romanian: http://www.scribd.com/doc/40129327/Biografie-Dr-Olga-Lazin

March 15, 2014, A Crucial Year for My Career

After 2 years in the Doctoral Program in History at UCLA, I graduated in 2001, in January.

After graduation I have published my Doctoral thesis, and a second book on the bright and

dark sides of Globalization with Dr James W Wilkie, Professor at UCLA. Our books are widely

read around the world and are used to teach Courses at College and University levels. To get

the books we have written together with James Wilkie, download them form:


which I will investigate what has changed exactly in these 22 years in Los Angeles, and how

change has impacted us. Why are we missing those good things of the past, as a collective.

That is the collective memory.

Doing Yoga, in Cancun.

I have volunteered 200 hours with MADD in 2015.

After volunteering at MADD, for 200 hours, I started working with Edward Olmos

(film-director in Hollywood)

The Russians, having been directing Romanian politicians since 1945, pressured the

Romanians to dig useless trenches as well as learn to disassemble and assemble the AK47!

The atmosphere was dreadful in classes. Restrictions were plentiful and absurd. Speech was

not free; one couldn’t discuss issues freely in class, or make any real analysis or debate. One

had to regurgitate what the professors were telling us. Modern economics led by and read

whatever was there in the old books stacked in the communist library. Until I escaped

Romania in 1992, I learned that the so-called economics classes we took taught nothing

about money, credit, and such terms as GDP. The Marxist economics involved only fuzzy

nonsensical slogans such as “We Romanians have to fight-off the ‘running dogs of capitalism,”

without the word “capitalism” ever being defined except in unrealistic theory laced with

epithets

Even as an English major, I could not speak with to foreigners in English --answering one

question was a crime, according to the tendentious Security Decrees. Abortion was a crime

punishable for up to 20 years in prison. Doctors performing it ended up in jail, and so did the

pregnant women. Punishments were ridiculous—the Anti-Abortion Law lasted for 40 years,

until 1990. Furthermore if my uncle from Canada visited us, we were all under surveillance,

the entire family. Even today, in 2016 one has to report to the police to declare if any visitor of

family comes from the USA (or Canada, for some bizarre security reason). Well after 25 years,

not much has changed in poor Romania. The influence of recent Romanian history.



about who was really in charge. Thus, Transylvania was originally part of the Dacia Kingdom

between 82 BC until the Roman conquest in 106 AD. The capital of Dacia was destroyed by

the Romans, so that a new capital would serve the Roman Province of Dacia, which lasted

until 350 AD, by which time the Romans felt so hated that it behooved them withdraw back to

Rome. During the late 9th century, western Transylvania was conquered by the Hungarian

Army to later become part of the Kingdom of Hungary and in 1570 to devolve into the

Principality of Transylvania. During most of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Principality

became an Ottoman Empire vassal state, confusingly also governed by the Habsburg Empire.

After 1711 Transylvania was consolidated solely into the Olga Magdalena Lazín & Wilkie:

(see historia, economía y elitelore 227 )Habsburg Empire and Transylvanian princes were

replaced with Habsburg imperial governors. After 1867, Transylvania ceased to have


Hungarian Empire.6 After World War I, Transylvania reverted in 1918 to be part of Romania.


Romanian queen Maria successfully reclaimed it after the end of World War II. The year 1940

was important for Romania because if was seized for its oil by Nazi Germany (1940-1944),

“liberated” by the “Soviet Union” (1944-1947), and finally “re-liberated” to become the

Popular republic of Romania (under USSR remote control), as the Cold War was beginning to

freeze the Iron Curtain into place. At the end of World War II while the USSR and its Red

Army were the occupying powers in all Romania, in 1947 Romania forcibly and ironically

became a “People’s Republic” (1947–1989), after the rise of the Iron Curtain. The first

“president,” Gheorghiu-Dej (1947) ruled as puppet of Moscow, but when he died, his Secretary

General of the Communist Party of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, was elected as the second

“president” (1965-1989), shifting his savage dictatorship into a harsher Romanian “Gulag”

than known in the USSR. For two decades I neither understood the dimensions of tragic

history of Transylvania, did I understand that I would have to escape the Gulag of Romania by

the “skin of my teeth.” For peoples of the world Transylvania seems to be a far away place,

where most people know the werewolves and vampires have been “seen” to in the

imagination of Transylvanians, whose beliefs was soaked in mystical folklore. Even today it is

hardly possible to have a rational 6 This Empire existed between 1867 and 1918. Olga

Magdalena Lazín Wilkie: historia, economía y elitelore 228 conversation with most the

Transylvanian folk on any subject without recourse to try to understand where their distorted

imagination has befuddled them. The population has consisted of Romanians, Hungarians,

Germans, and some Ukrainians. These languages are still being spoken in Romania’s

Maramures province, but because I always liked and loved the Romanian language, I decided

to become a Professor of Romanian Language and Literature. My backdrop to the fall of

CEAUSESCU I later told Jim how I had been admitted in 1982 to the BabesBolyai University, in

Cluj-Napoca at the heart of Transylvania, I focused especially on Linguistics. Unfortunately,

there I found that the professors, who were under the control of sweaty Securitate officers,



the country’s food supplies to Russia in order to pay down Roman’s official debt at our

experts. Those Securitate officers ate well and ominously watched us virtually starve.

They said, be calm like your parents in the face of starvation. Thus, I furiously called out in my

classes that our very existence was being compromised by Ceausescu's abandonment of the

population, which was ordered to, as Lenin famously said, “work, work, and work.” To protect

myself as best I could, I turned to humor, seeking to ridicule Ceausescu’s “national paradise.”

But when I encouraged my classmates to laugh at the propaganda embedded in the wooden

language of the national bureaucracy, I soon fell under the heavy scrutiny of university

authorities, who were furious that I trying to expose the fact Olga Magdalena Lazín Wilkie:

historia, economía y elitelore 229 that all classes had been organized to befuddle the student

body into confused submission. Indeed, each professor had favorite students to help drown

out legitimate questions and stifle any competing analysis—the university lived under

nepotism, favoritism, the threat of rape (virtual and real) by the Securitate officers, and open

bribery--choose your garden variety. My 1986 flight from Romania backfires by 1986, at age

23, I had decided to flee Romania—an illegal act because Ceausescu did not want anyone

(especially women of childbearing age) to escape his plan to building his “ideal socialist

industries” on farms and ranches as well as in the cities. In June I made my way to the border

of Yugoslavia and paid a smuggler to evade the Romanian security forces that were

preventing the “nations workers” from escaping. The smuggler, who took me across the

border, turned out to be working for Romanian Border Police. Thus, soon after crossing into


what had happened too late. I had been “sold” to Ceausescu’s minions for a wagonload of salt.



viruses) that it made all of us inmates sick with the cold and the flu. Cell bed blankets were

less warm than one Kleenex tissue. Moreover there were no pillow, and the concrete slab

where inmates slept was a back-breaker. The lights were on 24 hours a day, blinding all of us,

and there was constant observation. Every hour one was awakened to be counted for, and

sneaking up on people, under the guise of watching out Olga Magdalena Lazín Wilkie:

historia, economía y elitelore 230 for suicides. But everyone could be clearly seen by the

guards, and there was no need to sleep-deprive inmates. There was also someone in the

higher echelon ripping off the food budget to siphon money to themselves while serving

inmates only baby carrots and spicy beans. Almost every family in Romanian civil society had

at least one member who had been imprisoned for trying to open the political system by

denouncing the Ceausescu dictatorship. These inmates were openly called “Political

Prisoners,” and I was one of them. Political Prisoners were not permitted to work outside the

prison walls in the fields because our crime had been the political decision to repudiate

Ceausescu’s “fantastic system.” Out of prison in 1987 and open to change in the air Once free

in 1987, I could return to my University to finally complete my M.A. in 1990. Further in 1987,

at the age of 24, I met the Family patriarch Nicolae Pipas,7 who directed for the Communist

government the walled Regional Art Museum in a quiet part of Sighet. Being one of the few

highly educated persons who spoke English in the region, I began to serve as

interpreter/guide to visiting foreign Ambassadors permitted to travel in Romania. They

wanted to see the Museum with its magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, and rare

historical pottery and coins. Thus, I soon found myself translating for visiting English-

Speaking Ambassadors from many countries who wished to know Transylvania, especially my

village Sighet and its Merry Cemetery famous worldwide 7 Upon Ceausescu’s death, the

Patriarch Pipas mysteriously became the Museum’s “owner” and then transferred title to his

son Valerian Pipas, the regions most famous violinist. Olga Magdalena Lazín Wilkie: historia,

economía y elitelore 231 for it tombstones in the form of wood sculpture of the butcher, the

baker, candlestick maker, and all professions. Although my first languages were Romanian

and Hungarian, I could also translate into French and Italian. Indeed at that time I was

teaching Latin in the Rural School System of my Maramures Province. By 1989, Ceausescu

realized that his end was near, and he sought to gain support by pardoning his political

prisoners (such as myself) who had tried to escape the horrendous conditions in the country.

Hence, university students and some labor unions joined forces and quite quickly after the fall

of the Berlin Wall forced Ceausescu and his draconian wife Elena to flee. They were caught

and executed on Christmas Day, 1989, by the military that at the last moment joined the

Revolution. As my friends and I (along with most of the population) cheered the fall of the

failed, rotten Romanian “dictatorship of the proletariat,” my dear mother acted differently.

She was so confused by the propaganda of the only “leader” she knew much about that she

wept for Ceausescu, not fully realizing that he was the one who had wrongly had be arrested

and put me in prison.

My book cover conceived in 1991. Caring for the environment.

Before we left Paris on December 19, 1991, we met with Gérard Chaliand to personally thank

him for having made the Bordeaux

Security agent reexamine his whole approach to his life. Further, with Gérard, we worked out

a plan to arrange for me to become a

U.S. reident and obtain U.S. citizenship nine years after my arrival in Los Angeles, in October

1992. He recommended that my case

be handled in In Los Angeles by one of America’s most knowledgeable and effective Migration

Attorneys—Cynthia Juárez Lange,

today Managing Partner, Northern California, for the Fragomen Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy

LLP Legal Office located in

San Francisco. Cynthia is a personable genius. In our travels in December 1991 and from

March to June 1992 we met NPPO

leaders in the European Union to better understand how foundations work under unique laws

in each county rather than in

any rational manner for the whole EU, we went to Marseilles, Nice, Villfranche-sur-Mer, Cap-

Ferrat, Monaco, La Rochelle,

Andorra, Sevilla,

Madrid, Trujillo, El Escorial, Avila, Navarro, and Segovia. On September 3. 1992, we arrived at

the U.S. Consulate in Paris,

where the U.S Consulate in Mexico had arranged with Jim for my U.S. eligibility for residence

to be issued. Also, the Mexican

Consulate General in Paris issued me my residence papers to enter and leave Mexico freely, as

arranged by Jim with the

Mexican Consular Office in Mexico City. his profits ($13 billon) for their activities, his personal

wealth in 2016 estimated

to be $25 billion. See https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/expenditures Also, for

the details of Soros $930.7

million dollar Open Society Foundations 2016 Budget, which can be found by searching online

for this title.

By September 7, 1992, we were in Romania for meetings with Civic Activists in Sighet (where I

finally returned after “escaped”

with Jim in December 1991). From March to June 1993, we met with NPPO leaders in

Budapest, Sighet, and Varna (Bulgaria), Bucharest, and St. Petersburg. In Moscow (June 21-

14, 1993), Jim appointed Professor Boris Koval (Director of the Latin

American Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences), to be PROFMEX Representative in

Russia. Koval had invited us to

Moscow and introduced us to his own Security Chief to be our translator and guide. Thus the

freaking Security Chief

was a fascinating person who had been former head of the KGB Office in Iran, 1979-1989.

Jim, who always wore his Mexican guayabera shirt with or without a suit, was seen to be

“authentically Mexican”.

Starting in 2012, the soviet KGB agent, Putin has reset the Cold War with the United States.

Now I am finally enjoying some

Distancing from Eastern Europe and realize freedom was worth all the risks I took, to

establish myself and live in the United States,

where I have found safety.

Our Books and work has shown how U.S. Tax Exempt Organization (TEO) Iaw has evolved to

become the most important in the

World owing to its flexibility. Where the laws of most countries require prior legal

authorization to launch in a new direction,

U.S. TEO law recognizes no such limit. Thus, U.S. TEO law, unlike most other countries, is

never trying to make legal what is already

underway in the world.

In developing a way to translate the U.S. legal framework in a standard way for this era of

Globalization, I hope that this work offers a

basis for others to advance their own analysis of the issues presented here.

The work is organized to examine the traditional U.S. Centralized Model as developed for

world philanthropy by the Rockefeller

foundation early this century. The most important variation is the Decentralized Model

established under U.S. Tax lax by the Hungarian-

born George Soros, who has set up National Boards to direct their own destiny in 31

countries.

Recently three new models have surfaced, and they are examined briefly in the other book, in

this series: Dr Olgas Dream Come True.

P.S. Vampirism continues anabashed in Maramures County. Good Romanians are trying to

root out co-

rruption every day. The same scenario is going on here in the United States with Trumpism;

the voyage continues.

Currently on January 2018, I am working together with Carlos on a big project;: border

violence, and

Narco gangs between U.S. and Mexico.

Post-PHD research is now expanding his thesis into a cogent two-volume series:

The Tijuana-San Diego “Drug” Link (1911) to Mexico City’s National Links (1932) and to

Wars Between and Among Cartels/ Police/ Military (since 1985)

Thanks for reading my book. OML

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