The abusive takeover of the company “Mechanical Cotton Weaving Mill Ehrlich & Auscher”, Timişoara, took place in 1948, 73 years ago! de ani!

Weaving Mill from behind, Ciprian Damşescu Street, Timişoara

My grandparents Mór Auscher and Gizella Auscher, b. Ehrlich, founded this company in 1923. Almost 100 years ago. They invested their income from their grocery store in the vicinity of the future company in the Josephine neighborhood. They bought a plot of land and in a few years their industrial enterprise had 120 employees. They fed to 120 families. My grandparents became entrepreneurial traders. They participated in a process of economic effervescence stimulated by an entrepreneurial spirit, typical of those years, a phenomenon that contributed to the flourishing of Banat and the city of Timișoara. It was a time when many new entrepreneurs - Romanians, Jews, Germans and Hungarians - founded and developed local industry and human capital, giving the region a boost towards prosperity, the traces of which are tangible even to this day.

The weaving mill had several production departments: weaving, dyeing, finishing as well as services - heating, marketing, storage, accounting, transportation, and others.

And how were my grandparents rewarded for becoming entrepreneurs? They ran the company until 1940, for about 15 years, until, being Jewish, the laws of the Antonescu regime expropriated them. The company was "Romanianized" under the leadership of an Italian delegate, Vignati and famous "Marinescu-Auscher". My father, one of the company's directors, was sent to forced labor in the Jiu Valley where he "spent" 4 years. I was then four years old and when he was released I was eight. After the war, in 1946, the company was returned to the family. In 1949, it was abusively taken over by the communist regime. So, the founders of this company ran it and benefited from it for 18 years!

During this short period, the company was run by the four brothers Auscher, Victor, Josef, Ernest and Emerich. Each with his own responsibility, the priority belonging to the eldest, Victor. Emerich studied textile engineering in the Czech Republic.

Between 1948 and 1955, my father, Ernest Auscher, was arrested 4 times. Three times for reasons related to the enterprise and he spent 3 months, 6 months and a year in the prisons in Caransebeş and Timişoara, respectively. Both one of his brothers and a sister-in-law were arrested on the same basis. In 1952 he was sentenced to 15 years as a Zionist activist and detained in Jilava. So I grew up without a father again when I was between 12 and 19 years old.

Following an agreement between the Romanian state and Israel, in 1957 we were able to leave the country and emigrate to Israel. This moment was the luck of our lives and in the 64 years that have passed since then I have finally been able to spread my wings.

During the 73 years that have passed since 1948, the state and the city have constantly benefited from the company's products, from all the rented and sold real estate. The return on the other hand seems to be calculated only on the basis of the historical values of the shares. I reviewed this story to highlight the frustration my family feels. Not only has the company been abusively taken over twice and the restitution process has been going on for 20 years, the proposed compensation does not even cover the cost of our lawyers, documentation, lawsuits and travels to Romania related to the lawsuit.