Abstract
The dialogue representing the substance of the material subjected to publication in ”Cercetări Istorice” is an unpublished testimony which restores, in a charming and open style, a life whose dramatic weave is breathtaking. The hero of our interview is the late Petre Rosetti-Bălănescu, whose adventurous ”escape” from the Communist Romania of 1949 could have been the subject of an unforgettable scenario. The son of Ion N. Rosetti-Bălănescu (1893-1971) and Elena N. Miclescu (1900-1984), Petre Rosetti-Bălănescu was born on August 28, 1927 in Bucharest and passed away in Paris, on October 27, 2018, being buried in Montparnasse Cemetery. He studied Engineering in Bucharest (at the Faculty of Mining and Metallurgy within the Polytechnic School) and in Paris (at Ecole Superieure des Mines), where he worked in various domains: the mining industry, the textile industry, metallurgy, electricity and electronics. He married Odile Mallet (born in June 1929), the descendant of an ancient family of ennobled French bankers. They had a daughter, Ileana (born December 16, 1960), married to Lawrence Giesen, with whom she had two children: Charles and Alexia.