National Traumas – Local Memories Villages Southeast and Southwest from Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca) during WW2 – General Research Overview

The presentation summarizes the results of two years of oral history research. The aim of the research was to record the recollections of the still living eyewitnesses of the events in the fall of 1944 in Cluj and its surroundings, in settlements that belonged to the southern part of Transylvania during World War II. Several hours of interviews were made in the villages of the regions of Ţara Călatei (Kalotaszeg) and the Transylvanian Plain (Mezőség), and the lecture presents a synthesis of these interviews. They address issues like deportation, atrocities, fleeing, arm usage, Soviet and Romanian detention camps, adventurous escapes, etc.