I have always been interested in politics. I believed the state had to proceed in such a manner as to create jobs, so that those who didn't want to work wouldn't have a job, but those who wanted to work could have living conditions. Because of the anti-Semitism I have experienced, communism drew me at first, because it theoretically defended the rights of all nationalities. Because I was young, inexperienced, and because I was reading the newspapers and listening to the radio, I couldn't realize what the truth was, but later I began to understand. I did pretty well under communism. I was head of the laboratory and, compared to others, I cannot complain. I wasn't a party member, I was only in the UTM, The Young Workers Union, while I was in the army. I had a managerial position, but I wasn't a party member, although my boss, doctor Muresan, told me to become a member to strengthen my position. I told him that I cannot do something I didn't believe in and that I would do my duty without being a party member. He went on insisting until my daughter left for Israel, after that he didn't say anything to me anymore. If you had relatives abroad you were followed all the time and you had to be careful what you talked about.
- Traditions 11756
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Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
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Holocaust
9685
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Communism
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Displaying 3331 - 3360 of 50826 results
Fridric Iavet
In 1958 we filed again for emigration to Israel. I kept in touch with dad very often by means of letters. Dad kept writing me that life in Israel was very hard: he said that one can still find work there until he is 40, but that after that it is harder, life wasn't that easy. He himself lived in a tent there at first. My father died in 1961 in Tel Aviv. When dad died I recited the kaddish in his memory as well. I received the passport in 1964. We were announced that a person from Securitate [6] had already come to move into our house. But we gave up leaving. I had just signed up to buy a car, a Fiat 8-50, Iudit was 12-13 years old, and Adela was 7, and I asked myself what would I do in Israel, with two children growing up, I had a house, a car...However, I had work colleagues who left for Israel. There were two emigration waves: one in 1951 and one in 1964, when I got my passport. Many from Arad left then. There were approximately 10000 Jews in Arad, now there are only 300, and most of the families are mixed.
I think I got to have my own household easier than my parents. When I was 26, in 1956, I already had my house without any help. I worked very hard. I had a lab and I worked even 13-14 hours a day. I was already married and I had one of the girls. The other one was born at the end of 1956. We got married early - I hadn't turned 20 by that time. I was as conscientious as possible all the time. I was head of the laboratory for 30 years and whenever I had inspections, they would take me along to control somewhere else, my work was that well organized.
My dad worked as a surgeon's assistant in Israel. He lived in Ramat Gan. When he arrived in Israel he found out the address of Alla's father [who lived in Russia, in the region of Bessarabia] from an uncle of hers who lives in USA. Alla went to meet her father in 1960 - she was about 20 years old. He received her coldly; she was upset that he didn't take an interest in her fate. Alla lived and worked as a kindergarten teacher in Mizra kibbutz. She met her husband, Sar-Shalom Eyal, there, in Mizra kibbutz, and they got married. He was an officer in the army, and 6 or 7 years ago he opened a salami factory in Iasi. Alla has four children: Gilad, Hila, Sai and Ran. I visited her for almost a month and I met her parents-in-law - they were from Poland: very nice people. Alla died in May 2003.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
In 1950, when dad established that we would go and file for leaving for Israel, I didn't show up, and he realized that I wanted to get married, but that I was ashamed to confess it. After we got married, dad and Alla got the passport, but my wife and I and my sister didn't. We would have liked to go because life here was very hard and it had no perspectives for the future. We both agreed on that. Dad left for Israel in 1951, and I volunteered for army service because my wife was pregnant and I thought I had better get it over with sooner, so that I could go back home and help her. Dad would have wanted to give me a medical certificate to dodge the army, but I wanted to know everything was settled correctly. I served in Bucharest, in artillery, between 1950-1952. My wife managed in the meantime with her parents' help. Dad had left, but he had left the house to my wife's mother and sister.
I am together with my wife Iuliana, nee Simon, since 1946. We got married in 1950. We didn't have a religious ceremony. She isn't Jewish and she was born on July 5th, 1929, in Arad. Her native tongue is Hungarian. She too is a dental technician - she graduated from the professional high school. After we got married we lived with my dad on Grigore Alexandrescu Street. My dad and my sister had one room, and we had the other; we shared the kitchen. Life was hard back then. Once I stood in a queue all night to get 3 meters of cloth for a suit. It was the first suit I ever had. It was dark blue with thin red stripes.
I went to the professional school here and I am a dental technician. When I graduated professional school I was the first in my class and all the school. I learnt although I didn't cram at home. I always got along well with my classmates. My native tongue is still German, but I speak Hungarian, Romanian and Russian as well.
I remember that when my father and I were at work, we received some wood at home, and mother carried it to the cellar alone. Then she fell ill, and the doctors didn't know what was wrong with her. Her health had been affected by all the journeys to Central Asia, to Romania, she couldn't diet. The marks of the war took their toll: she died of jaundice. Mother died in 1948, when she was 43 years old, and she is buried in the new Jewish cemetery from Gradiste, here in Arad. After mum died, I ran away from school to recite the kaddish in the synagogue. I went there every day for eleven months, and when I was in school, I ran out the window. It was a sort of a soul duty for me. The entire time mother was ill Alla stayed in the house of my future wife.
We officially came to Arad in 1946 - we were repatriated. I believe the motive in the papers was the departure for Israel. We came to Romania in a cart. From home to the border there were only about 30 kilometers. Bukovina was a very clean and rich region. The difference wasn't very big. Austro- Hungary had been there and here as well, so the differences weren't very big. Arad was much more quiet and cleaner than it is now. Dad had been to Arad in 1936-37 and maybe he was the one who chose to be repartitioned here.
When we moved to Arad in 1946 we lived for about 2 years on 6, Virgil Rotareanu Street. After that, one of my dad's bosses, Fischer, who had a very beautiful house (on Mihai Viteazu Street, were Dermatology is today, on the first floor) gave dad two rooms and the kitchen, because otherwise the house would have been taken away from him, because he lived there only with his wife. He trusted my dad a lot - they even had papers. When the hospital was built there we were given a place to live on 1, Grigore Alexandrescu Street, on the second floor. That's where we lived until we bought this house in 1951.
When we moved to Arad in 1946 we lived for about 2 years on 6, Virgil Rotareanu Street. After that, one of my dad's bosses, Fischer, who had a very beautiful house (on Mihai Viteazu Street, were Dermatology is today, on the first floor) gave dad two rooms and the kitchen, because otherwise the house would have been taken away from him, because he lived there only with his wife. He trusted my dad a lot - they even had papers. When the hospital was built there we were given a place to live on 1, Grigore Alexandrescu Street, on the second floor. That's where we lived until we bought this house in 1951.
Although we had obtained the house, dad decided that we should leave, thinking of us, the children. He knew we would have no future there. He went to Bucharest, where he knew Lotar Radaceanu, and he gave him a repartition to Arad. The prefect Vostinar from Arad gave his recommendation to UTA ('Uzinele Textile Arad', 'Arad Textiles Plants'); there was probably a vacancy. Dad worked during the first year as a stationary department inspector, and then he was head of the statistics department. He got along well with everybody. Mum and dad lived in Arad from 1946. Lusia worked as a clerk at UTA, and Alla went to school. I head about our house in Hlyboka that it was demolished and something else was built instead. It was in the very center of the town. We received no compensations for the house.
Romania
It was very sad when we came back from Asia, everything was like a graveyard. Both my maternal grandparents had been deported from Hlyboka: grandmother died on the way, and grandfather died during the Holocaust, in Transnistria. My paternal grandmother was shot on the way to Transnistria. Over 100 Jews were killed in Adancata in July 1941. They were buried in a mass grave. I went there with my wife and my cousins from my father's side - Gustav, Elka, Leibu, Jakob, who lived in Cernauti, in 1968. A monument was built with their names, but my cousin with his grandchildren and children were there last year [in 2002] and the monument was gone. It is like somebody wants to leave no marks.
When we came back from Asia there was already a certain hatred, because many had plundered and they didn't like the fact that we came back. When we came back no one admitted that they had taken things from our house. They didn't even give us back a document. On the other hand, when uncle Berthold from Moscow came back, a neighbor gave him back a sowing machine, pillows, an eiderdown, and some other things. We found our house inhabited by some Russians, but they released it immediately. Few Jews came back. The ones who were in Transnistria didn't even come back to Hlyboka, they went to Israel.
We left Kermine by train in 1944. I don't remember how many times we changed the train. Generally the train was full with military on their way to the front. The trains were loaded with warfare. It was a train with several floors. I remember it was extremely crowded, we had nowhere to wash, there were lice...I don't know where we got the food from. It took us about two weeks to get home. At first we went to some relatives in Cernauti for a week, and then we went home to Hlyboka, where we lived from 1944 until 1946. Our house had a foundation for another two rooms. I remember I found an anti-tank bomb in the sand. Mum was very frightened.
We decided to leave for Ukraine immediately after the liberation. They didn't want to release my dad from the hospital - under the Russians it wasn't easy at all to change your job, but we all left all the same. I also worked during the holiday at a shop that supplied the army with vegetables, I went in villages, I had a cart and I gathered vegetables. When I wanted to go back to school in the 8th grade they didn't want to release me from work. I don't know how we solved it in the end, but they released me after all.
My parents adopted a little girl from there - Alla. Dad worked in the hospital - the girl's father was on the front. Alla was born on March 31st, 1942, in Kermine. She was called Haia Katzefman, we gave her the name Alla, and then, after she moved to Israel, she got the name Haia back. I think the fact that she was Jewish was a coincidence. Her mother was hospitalized, and complained that she had a 6 weeks, or 6 months old child - I don't remember exactly - and dad said he would ask mum if she didn't want to take care of a child for 2-3 weeks. Mum agreed, and when Alla's mother died, people came to take her to an orphanage, but my parents didn't give her away.
The food was very different from the one we had home. There was no pork or potatoes. Our greatest wish when we came back was for mum to make for us a pot of potatoes and a pot of corn mush. They ate turtle, though. Near our place there was a turtlery - they ate the liver and different parts of the turtle. The mutton was the most expensive, especially the 'caracal' kind. This kind of sheep had a tail that weighed 10-15 kg. Because it was too heavy, the Uzbeks put wheels under the tail, so that the sheep didn't get tired. You could also find horse and camel meat. The milk - camel's and sheep's milk - was very fat because of the climate. There was no cream - they used the skin of milk.
The fruits were very good, very sweet. The grapes had over 30% sugar, and people made raisins from the seedless grapes. The Uzbeks came to the marketplace with sacks of raisins to sell. They sold them in half a kilo or a kilo. If someone went into a teahouse, he would buy half a kilo of raisins to have with the tea. People drank a lot of tea in Uzbekistan, because the heat was very strong. We drank tea as well because the climate required it. They had a sort of green tea, which went very well without sugar, only with raisins. There were no chairs in the teahouse. People sat on the floor, and smoked pipe. They also sold peaches and apricots - fresh or dried. They were very tasty.
The fruits were very good, very sweet. The grapes had over 30% sugar, and people made raisins from the seedless grapes. The Uzbeks came to the marketplace with sacks of raisins to sell. They sold them in half a kilo or a kilo. If someone went into a teahouse, he would buy half a kilo of raisins to have with the tea. People drank a lot of tea in Uzbekistan, because the heat was very strong. We drank tea as well because the climate required it. They had a sort of green tea, which went very well without sugar, only with raisins. There were no chairs in the teahouse. People sat on the floor, and smoked pipe. They also sold peaches and apricots - fresh or dried. They were very tasty.
I went to the market as well to earn money, although I was young. For example I bought sheets, which mother sew and made into clothes. The women wore veils. We went to the market in another commune or little town, mother stayed aside with the pile, and I sold two or three pieces at a time. The Uzbeks from villages used as means of transportation the donkeys and the camels. In the marketplace they came with the sacks on the back of the donkeys.
I was 11 years old when I arrived in Uzbekistan. I went to school there for only two years, but not all the time. I went to a school where they taught in Russian. I knew Russian from home because we had many Ukrainian neighbors, and Russian and Ukrainian are alike. There were native Jews in Uzbekistan, but there were also many Jews refugees from Ukraine, Bessarabia and Bukovina. From Ukraine there were also many Jews. I didn't make many friends there.
Everything was different: the population was Moslem, the traditions were different. I felt no rejection in Uzbekistan. Life was very hard, salaries were very small, the market was very expensive and generally their lifestyle was very different from ours.
Dad worked there for a month at the vegetables factory. After a month, the Germans drew closer. We went with the cart farther on, up to the town of Belgorod, region Voronezh, and then we got on a goods train and traveled as far as the train went. I don't know if my father knew or not the direction when we got on the train. We left the cart there. We passed through Ural, through Siberia, through Kazakhstan and we ended up in Uzbekistan, in the Buchara region. We lived in Kermine. When we got there, we slept in the street for a few nights. Mum had taken with her the eiderdown and pillows. Then we received a house, but there was no furniture in it - we slept on the floor. My dad and my sister started working. Mt father worked as a surgeon's assistant, and my sister was a clerk in a bread factory.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
During the war, between 1941-1944, we were all - our family - away in Uzbekistan. How did we leave for Uzbekistan? It wasn't our choice. There was no time for talks. Panic ruled. We traveled in a cart for two-three weeks to Ukraine and we stayed for a month there, in Zincov, Poltava region. Then they wanted to draft my dad in the army. He was very desperate, I went to the commissariat and I cried and I don't remember what happened, but they let him go. In Ukraine, where we first took refuge, people received us very well. They gave us food and I think we stayed in a rented house. Dad worked there for a month at the vegetables factory.
My father's involvement in politics was the main reason why we took refuge. If we hadn't taken refuge, we would have been the first on the list. We left all of a sudden and our relatives stayed behind. They thought the Romanians were coming to liberate them, but that didn't happen at all. When we left we knew from the radio what was going on in Germany and Poland. We knew about Kristallnacht [4] from Germany, that the Jews had to clean the streets and so on.
O September 1st, 1939, the war broke out in Poland. Romania had really good relations with Poland. There were also lots of refugees coming - they came in carts, or with trains, and we took food to the train station to help them. They came by the thousands. Part of them stopped in Romania, but the majority left for France because they had traditional relations with France. [Note: they had to take a detour through Romania because the Germans were advancing from the West.] Many of them probably left from there to the USA, because there is a large Polish community there nowadays. There are also many Jews in the USA.
In 1939, when there were massive concentrations, there was an infantry division from Dorohoi in Adancata. The concentrations took place before the war started in Poland. There were many 'teteristi'. The 'teteristi' were the ones wearing a red and white ribbon, a sign that they graduated from high school. [Note: 'teteristii' were soldiers in the Romanian army conscripted for a shorter period of time]. There were always 4-5 soldiers coming in our house as guests - father invited them. I remember 3 or 4 brothers from Dorohoi who played the violin and sang as well. They were extraordinarily nice people. They sang Jewish songs. They were a lot of fun. We served them lunch every time they could get away from their regiment. They did their military service in Adancata.
The atmosphere was already tensed before the war, after 1936, especially when the Cuzists [2] and the legionaries governed. There were many pogroms back then. When the legionaries ruled, the [Cuza-Goga] Government received an ultimatum from England and France to remove this legionary government. The government was removed in 2-3 weeks and after that the period when the Germans took over Austria and Poland followed.
The change of the population was because of the fact that about 80% of the Jews, Poles, Germans, Romanians there left, and Russians and Ukrainians came instead. In 1940, right before the war, the Germans left - I remember that German officers came to solve the problems of those who were leaving. These officers were invited in Cernauti at the Russian military parade in 1941, two or three weeks before the war started. It was a blitz krieg; nobody expected it, especially because the Germans had a friendship and non- aggression treaty with the Russians. 99% of the Jews were taken to Transnistria. However, in Cernauti many of them stayed behind [escaped] thanks to mayor Popovici, who saved thousands of Jewish citizens. He has a monument in Israel at Yad Vashem. I also have relatives who escaped thanks to him.
Cernauti was a very beautiful town. It was Romania's second most important city, a multi-national city, with universities recognized all over Europe, newspapers in different languages - German, Romanian, Ukrainian, Polish. There was the Neue Zeit ['Timpuri Noi', 'New Times'] in German. When I visited Cernauti in 1968-69 it looked terrible. The population also changed about 95 percent. When I was there it was a very clean town. Some time ago it was called the 'small Vienna'. Downtown there was a very beautiful street for walking, Herrenstrasse - that is the 'gentlemen's street', with all sorts of shops. There were also trolleybuses and trams. The city was up a hill, and the surroundings were beautiful. The university had, and it still does, a splendid building, of the kind I haven't seen in Romania yet. It was an industrial city, with a lot of textile industry.
I went to a German kindergarten. When I was there I learnt to play the piano, and I also learnt to play the violin in private, but I didn't go on with any of them. I only studied piano for a year, when I was 6-7 years old. I studied the violin for 6-7 months as well. I went to school in Adancata. I liked mathematics the best. I learnt well, in general. I studied the first year of high school in 1940, in Cernauti. I was at Mihai Eminescu high school. Lusia, my sister, also graduated from the Fine Arts high school in Cernauti.
Ruzena Guttmannova
After the liberation, I returned to Breznica for a while. However, our
house had been destroyed by bombs, everything was in ruins. But my brother
and I were well received by our neighbors and classmates. These good
relations have lasted until now.
I then moved to Stropkov in Eastern Slovakia along with my brother, and we
lived in our cousin's house.
I got married in Stropkov in 1946. My husband, Viktor Guttmann came from an
Orthodox family from Vranov. Out of six siblings, he was the only one to
survive the Holocaust.
We moved to Bratislava in 1949. Our first-born son lives in the USA now. We
had two more sons, one of them lives in Bratislava. Our family property is
now owned by an agricultural cooperative and as yet I haven't got any
compensation for it. I'm retired. After the death of my husband I live
alone, but keep in touch with my sons and their families.
My brother Irving worked as a manager after World War II. He was married to
Ester Kleinmannova, who was born in Poland in 1912. She was a housewife.
She died in Florida in 1999. Irving died in Florida in 1986. He suffered
from mental disorder. My other brother, Adolf, died in Israel in 1990.
I was at the funeral in the USA. Many people came to the ceremony and there
was a big mirror. Police were in the front, then the body was carried in a
car following the police and then people who attended the funeral were
following. There were about ten long big cars with about twelve people. I
attended this funeral where bodies in coffins were put into a wall. Ester
was put next to Irving.
house had been destroyed by bombs, everything was in ruins. But my brother
and I were well received by our neighbors and classmates. These good
relations have lasted until now.
I then moved to Stropkov in Eastern Slovakia along with my brother, and we
lived in our cousin's house.
I got married in Stropkov in 1946. My husband, Viktor Guttmann came from an
Orthodox family from Vranov. Out of six siblings, he was the only one to
survive the Holocaust.
We moved to Bratislava in 1949. Our first-born son lives in the USA now. We
had two more sons, one of them lives in Bratislava. Our family property is
now owned by an agricultural cooperative and as yet I haven't got any
compensation for it. I'm retired. After the death of my husband I live
alone, but keep in touch with my sons and their families.
My brother Irving worked as a manager after World War II. He was married to
Ester Kleinmannova, who was born in Poland in 1912. She was a housewife.
She died in Florida in 1999. Irving died in Florida in 1986. He suffered
from mental disorder. My other brother, Adolf, died in Israel in 1990.
I was at the funeral in the USA. Many people came to the ceremony and there
was a big mirror. Police were in the front, then the body was carried in a
car following the police and then people who attended the funeral were
following. There were about ten long big cars with about twelve people. I
attended this funeral where bodies in coffins were put into a wall. Ester
was put next to Irving.
Slovakia
When the first deportations started in 1942, I was rounded up as a young
girl, the first one of my family. I was deported on 22nd March 1942 with
the first transport. I remember the despair of my parents when they learned
that I had to go; I packed my suitcase, my brother harnessed two horses,
and, along with my father and a policeman, I left. I still remember those
painful first moments in the assembly center in Poprad.
We were on the train for several days, and my first impression of Auschwitz
was that I had arrived in hell. I managed to stay alive for three years in
Auschwitz. I survived several selections and experienced Dr. Mengele's
periodic inspections. Toward the end of the war, I was forced out of the
camp and on to a death march. We went through several other concentration
camps. Until now, I have never returned to Auschwitz.
While still in Auschwitz, I learned from my neighbor, who was deported
later on, that my parents paid 4,000 Slovak crowns in order to obtain an
exception as economically important Jews because they had a big farm.
However, the very next day Slovak guards [1] came to pick up my parents. So
it seems the bribe they paid did them no good.
Many members of my family didn't survive the Holocaust. My father Aron and
my brothers Emil and Max were killed in Auschwitz. My sister Tonci, along
with her three little children, of whom one was only a baby, and her
husband Berkovic were all killed in Auschwitz, too, probably in 1942. My
mother Ester died in Majdanek concentration camp [2] in 1942.
Two of my brothers - Emil, who was 27 year old and already married, and
Max, who was 22 - didn't want to leave our parents and went with them to
the concentration camp. Max had served in the Czechoslovak army, so we have
a lovely picture of him in his uniform.
I remember my cousin Kosen Goldman, who was born in Ladomirov in 1907.
Before World War II he was a businessman. During the Holocaust he was taken
to Auschwitz, and killed there.
My brother Adolf and I survived together. My other brother, Iosef, also
survived because he had been in a forced labor brigade attached to the
army, and that's how he made his escape. And, of course, Irving, who had
left for America in the 1920s, also survived.
girl, the first one of my family. I was deported on 22nd March 1942 with
the first transport. I remember the despair of my parents when they learned
that I had to go; I packed my suitcase, my brother harnessed two horses,
and, along with my father and a policeman, I left. I still remember those
painful first moments in the assembly center in Poprad.
We were on the train for several days, and my first impression of Auschwitz
was that I had arrived in hell. I managed to stay alive for three years in
Auschwitz. I survived several selections and experienced Dr. Mengele's
periodic inspections. Toward the end of the war, I was forced out of the
camp and on to a death march. We went through several other concentration
camps. Until now, I have never returned to Auschwitz.
While still in Auschwitz, I learned from my neighbor, who was deported
later on, that my parents paid 4,000 Slovak crowns in order to obtain an
exception as economically important Jews because they had a big farm.
However, the very next day Slovak guards [1] came to pick up my parents. So
it seems the bribe they paid did them no good.
Many members of my family didn't survive the Holocaust. My father Aron and
my brothers Emil and Max were killed in Auschwitz. My sister Tonci, along
with her three little children, of whom one was only a baby, and her
husband Berkovic were all killed in Auschwitz, too, probably in 1942. My
mother Ester died in Majdanek concentration camp [2] in 1942.
Two of my brothers - Emil, who was 27 year old and already married, and
Max, who was 22 - didn't want to leave our parents and went with them to
the concentration camp. Max had served in the Czechoslovak army, so we have
a lovely picture of him in his uniform.
I remember my cousin Kosen Goldman, who was born in Ladomirov in 1907.
Before World War II he was a businessman. During the Holocaust he was taken
to Auschwitz, and killed there.
My brother Adolf and I survived together. My other brother, Iosef, also
survived because he had been in a forced labor brigade attached to the
army, and that's how he made his escape. And, of course, Irving, who had
left for America in the 1920s, also survived.
Slovakia