“We moved back to Romania when I was thirteen, and my world was shattered. I hated Bucharest, its society, and its mores — its anti-Semitism for example. I was not Jewish, but I pronounced my r’s as the French do and was often taken for a Jew, for which I was ruthlessly bullied.… It was the time of the rise of Nazism and everyone was becoming pro-Nazi — writers, teachers, biologists, historians … It was a plague! They despised France and England because they were yiddified and racially impure.”

The Paris Review interview (1984)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Eugéne Ionesco59

Romanian playwright 1909–1994

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Testament to a Lost People

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Eugéne Ionesco59

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