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RP: Yeah, tell us a little bit about your husband. He was, he had a, an experience as well, talking about being restricted or not free. He was from Romania.

CT: He was from Romania and he had had to endure Hitler's Nazi regime. He endured the, his first one was the royal family, then Hitler's and then the Communists. And when the Communists came they would not let any citizen whatsoever leave the borders ever, and so he tried, he was in medical school and then he graduated and became assistant professor of infectious disease. He tried for thirteen years to get out by writing papers and everything like that, so finally the, Romania chose him to become a spy on the Sabin vaccine in Paris, France. So he knew that Sabin laboratories weren't gonna let him in. They just put a good show on, that's all. And then he asked for political asylum and at this time he had two Romanian spies after him to shoot him down, but British intelligence, they intercepted them and killed the Romanian spies, and he didn't even know this. So anyway, he stayed in Paris for one year until he asked to come to the United States, and so he had two other friends and they said, one says, "I'm going to go with a Protestant sponsor," and the other one says, "I'm going Catholic." He says, "Well, I'm going Jewish." Well, "Peter, you're not Jewish." He says, "Yes, I know." "But, so why are you going to Jewish sponsors?" "Because they're the smartest people in the world. They've been persecuted all their lives and they know the ins and outs of everything and I know I'm gonna get there faster than you." So he was here in a couple or three months, in no time, and his friend from the Catholic sponsors was, it took them one year and the other one, the Protestant, took them two years. And so they never let him forget that either.

RP: So he comes over here and how did you end up meeting him?

CT: Okay, well after he, he took his internship and he took his residency, then he got married for two weeks because he knocked up this girl and he, he thought, "Well, Elizabeth Taylor can get a divorce any time she wants." He really thought this. "So if I'm not happy then I'm gonna get a divorce." After two weeks he wasn't happy, so he told her, "You're gonna get a divorce or I'll get one," and so she wouldn't, so he had to come to Nevada, by the advice from his lawyer. "You come to Nevada. She has too much power here." So he did and that's where we met. He was at the Nevada test site.

RP: What was he doing there?

CT: He did not have a license. He had to, so they put him in charge of setting up the lab, but also he was doing physicals and then the other doctors would sign it, 'cause he had his, he just didn't have his license in Nevada. He had his Virginia license and Ohio license and everything else, but Nevada at that time refused to take foreign graduates to, for a test. So anyway, so he also was teaching the nurses, the differential diagnosis of chest pains and things like that, so we were told to go listen to him. This was mandatory. And I had just gotten out of nursing school. I was sick and tired of school 'cause, like I said, I am not a scholar. I do not like school. So he came in and I says, I'm gonna sit in way in the back of the room while he's lecturing all these girls in the front seat, and I says, I'm going to sleep. So I fell asleep and after the lecture he came back with an amused grin on his face and he said, "You know, I've been a professor of a big medical school in Bucharest, Romania and nobody has ever slept in my class." And I says, "Well, I was tired and I'm sick and tired to listening to all these lectures because I just got out of school and I'm tired of it." So he just laughed, then he asked me for a date and the rest is history. [Laughs]

RP: What were you doing at the test site?

CT: Well, you earn more money there as a RN than, because I think the average monthly pay for a RN in all the states was about two hundred and eighty-four dollars a month, and on the test site I think it was twice that much. It was a lot more, so that's why, I now had friends who were out there and they said, "Celeste, they're hiring nurses. Come on out here." So we did, I did and that's how I met Peter. Isn't that luck?

RP: And so you, you shared your stories of being in a camp like Manzanar and he shared his stories of being under Communist rule and --

CT: Oh, yes.

RP: You both had a tremendous...

CT: His was worse because he would be sitting there at lunchtime and some stranger would come to him and start talking against the government. Well, if you sat there and listened, that could be a spy for the government and if you listened then they will throw you in prison, so he used to, he says he lost a lot of weight in those days because, "Oh, I have an emergency," and wouldn't even listen to them. And then at the same time he was supposed to report that person for talking against the government, but if he did that that guy would've been, could've been a nice guy and he did not want to put himself in this position, so he would escape by saying he had an emergency. And, and he says just that feeling of such restrictions and maybe having to report somebody who's perfectly okay, it was just devastating to him. That's why he worked so hard on those papers, to try to get out of there. And he finally got out, but I remember many nights he would wake up in a cold sweat thinking that he was still there and, see, this was just right after Stalin died and so the mindset was so devastating, emotionally draining for these people.

RP: So he put freedom in a whole different perspective for you?

CT: Freedom, that's right. Freedom was the, he loved this country. He loved his adopted country, and he, he couldn't understand the Americans criticizing it. He says they don't know what freedom truly is, and see, I didn't feel this pressure because I was a little kid, but he was an adult, see? Just like the Japanese interned, the internees, the adults probably had the same feeling he did and it was a nightmare for them. So, but Peter was, he, I'll never forget, he used to just break out in a cold sweat thinking he was still in Romania.

RP: Both you and your husband made a mutual decision not to have children?

CT: Yes.

RP: Did, did your, did your experiences as an orphan have any role to play in that decision?

CT: I think so.

RP: And how?

CT: Well, well us not wanting any children, everyone says we're selfish and it's true. I didn't want the responsibility. I already had too many emotional turmoils during my young life and I just didn't want to have it afterwards. We were both career people to begin with. I liked my nursing and he just, it was a mutual consent, and I believe not having children makes you closer sometimes. I think that it's, I love children. There's no question about it, because when I was at Children's Hospital affiliation I won the award for the best pediatric student nurse in those days, so I do. I love children. I love other people's children, but I just didn't want to have my own, you know? I get along well with children, but we just decided not to. But in those days it was almost taboo, because I remember after I got married I had my gynecological exam by the doctor and he says, "Now that you and Peter are married how many children are you gonna have?" And I said, "None." And he says, "Well then get the hell off my table." [Laughs] He was so mad. I mean, I says, "Oh my gosh, is this the way people behave when you are truthful and say, 'I don't want any kids'?" So after that I had to lie about it. If they asked me, "When are you gonna have children?" like they always do at the beginning of your marriage, I would put my head down and say, "I'm sorry, it's just too painful to talk about." [Laughs] And then that'd make them feel guilty.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.