My grandmother observed Yom Kippur, when she fasted; also, she didn't eat bread for ten days on Pesach, only matzah. [Editor's note: traditionally Jews are not allowed to eat bread on Pesach but only matzah for eight days.] She went to the synagogue on the high holidays. However, she didn't observe the kashrut; it was a bit hard with the shop. Nonetheless, she always lit a candle on Friday evenings and said the blessings, and her shop was closed on Saturdays.
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Displaying 61 - 90 of 50826 results
Ruth Greif
My grandmother lived in Brasov when I knew her. She lived in a rented house, she never owned one. My grandmother shared a courtyard with several other tenants. There were no Jews there, but she was very esteemed all the same. She worked very hard. She had a store and it was open from morning until late in the evening. She lived in the same house where she had her shop; from the shop you could go into the living room of the house, and she occupied the other two rooms of the house, each with separate entries. She also had a kitchen and a bathroom. She sold several delicacies in her shop, sausages and other meat products, chocolate, liquors. And she was in charge of everything: the stocks, bookkeeping, selling. She was a very energetic and agile woman and she had no help. She didn't have time to breed animals or grow vegetables; she was too busy with the shop. For as long as I knew her, my grandmother never had a vacation. She couldn't leave the store; she didn't want to lose her clients.
In their family, there was always the Friday evening ceremony: candles were lit, they had barkhes, the traditional sponge cake, and cholent with goose meat. First they went to wash their hands and then they said the prayer. On Pesach there was no bread, but there were cookies or other dishes made from matzah flour: there were some dumplings made from matzah flour, boiled potatoes and eggs. I know the recipe as well. These dumplings can be either sweet or salted, it depends on how you want to have them. They are called kremzli in Hungarian. There were also dumplings for the soup, made from matzah flour and eggs; generally all the Pesach dishes require a lot of eggs.
I didn't have the chance to spend a holiday with my grandmother, but I used to spend Pesach with a family related to my father: Heinirich Weiss was my father's cousin - my grandfather Goldstein and his father had been brothers. His family was very religious, and I enjoyed spending the holidays with them: they had separate tableware for dairy and meat products, and they also had special tableware for Pesach. And you would never find pork in their kitchen.
My husband died in 1994. He is buried in the Jewish cemetery here; there was a minyan at his funeral and someone from the community recited the Kaddish. And after my parents and my husband died, I sat shivah for seven days for each of them. The community has a long black prayer-stool, with two seats, for those who need to sit shivah. The first day I went out, I circled the building. I keep Yahrzeit for my parents and my husband and I go to the minyan for the prayer.
I believe life got better after 1989. You have access to everything now, you don't have to stand in queues for everything. But we weren't doing too badly during communism either: we had good wages, I did night shifts for 30 years and those were well paid, and we could save a lot because there wasn't anything you could spend it on, except trips. After the revolution we had 700.000 lei saved, which was a huge amount of money back then. Immediately, my husband started to worry about how to invest it. He knew from his own experience in Cernauti that the money would devaluate, and that in the end we would only be able to buy a bag of onions with that money. So we started buying: we bought gold - the Russians were coming with gold jewelries - we bought hand-made carpets, which are extremely hard, if not impossible to find now, we bought a four-bedroom apartment for my daughter, furs and so on, And, we still had money left.
When the Romanian Revolution of 1989 [24] started, I was at home with my husband, getting ready for Chanukkah to go to the temple. We heard what happened in Timisoara on the radio - that the students and other people were rebelling against the Communist Party - but we still didn't discuss it at work. You couldn't be sure how things were going to end and who was listening. Also, a student from Timisoara, who lived in our apartment block, came home and told us what was going on, about the slaughters. [Editor's note: several students were arrested, others beaten or even shot during the first confrontations between the revolutionaries and the authorities]. She could hardly make it home by train. So we sort of knew from the source what was going on, that the revolution had finally broken out, and that it wasn't just a pack of hooligans like the authorities said.
My daughter observes the high holidays, but she only lights the candles on Friday evenings when she remembers, and she doesn't fast on Yom Kippur. My granddaughter Daniela, on the other hand, is more religious and involved in the community. She has been to Szarvas three times already and she likes to learn about customs and religion. [Editor's note: Szarvas is a two-week Jewish camp that takes place every year in Szarvas, Hungary; it was founded by the Lauder Foundation, and it welcomes Jewish teenagers from Europe, USA, Ethiopia and Israel. It focuses mainly on preserving the Jewish traditions.] My daughter also trims a Christmas tree on Christmas; so more or less they observe both religions.
My mother died in 1988 in Brasov, and she was buried in the Jewish cemetery here; in 1988 we didn't have a rabbi here anymore, but we asked for a chazzan from Bucharest to come. I think it was someone from the community who recited the Kaddish. When my mother-in-law died we brought Rabbi Neumann all the way from Timisoara. We had to pay for it, of course, the rabbi couldn't travel all over the country for every funeral for free, but my husband insisted to bury his mother in the presence of a rabbi.
When the wars in Israel started, I was worried; first of all for my brother Benjamin, who was in the army for three years and who fought in the Six-Day- War [23], and for my father's cousins. I visited Israel and Benjamin in 1973. Unfortunately, I went alone, without my husband. Only two people from Brasov were allowed to leave the country that year, and I was one of them. I needed a lot of approvals and my husband had to intervene in many places so that I could go. By that time, Benjamin was an adult, worked as a dental technician and was a married man. His wife was expecting their first child. I went to Israel three times after that as well, and they also came here. And I could visit Jerusalem, which had been liberated, and Bethlehem. I visited more or less every place I could. My husband had a cousin there, who was the director of the Haifa refinery, and he had a car and quite a talent for showing people around. I saw the north of Israel, I went as far as the border to Lebanon, and I also visited my childhood friend, Rose- Marie, who was by that time a doctor in Jerusalem. We are still good friends.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
We did have some sort of unwanted contacts with the Securitate during communism. After Beatrice graduated from high school in 1973, she went on a trip to Israel, and a friend she made there, a boy, came to visit us as well, on Pesach. Of course we knew he wasn't allowed to stay in our house, so he stayed at a hotel. He came over for seder - my husband led it - and we celebrated. Then a very strong rain-storm broke out, the boy was tired and eventually slept over at our place and only went back to the hotel the next morning. Back then, all receptionists, chambermaids and so on were snitches for the Securitate, who wanted to keep an eye especially on foreigners, and each hotel had a Securitate officer. And of course the receptionist told the officer that one guest didn't sleep at the hotel that night, and the poor boy - I don't remember his name - was questioned by the officer and he told the truth, saying that a strong rain-storm broke out and that he had to sleep over at some friends. After that, the boy called my husband and told him what had happened. My husband immediately called the hospital Securitate officer, whom he knew, and explained the whole situation. I got pretty scared. I thought they would come to search our house, so I packed all the soaps I had received as gifts from patients, put them in a suitcase and stashed it at some neighbors. But fortunately, that was the end of it - nothing happened.
Correspondence was a problem during communism: I couldn't write to my brother in Israel when I was a student in Cluj. I didn't even try. When the staff at the post office saw a stamp for Israel, or the USA, or any other country, they would open it and call the Securitate. It was that bad during Stalinism. After Stalin died [in 1953] and Khrushchev [22] came to power, it got better, that is you could write, but not be sure if the letters would reach their destination! It happened to me as well.
We also suffered from the lack of heat: hot water was limited, and all the family crowded in the kitchen to get warm at the cooker. But I didn't suffer from hunger or food restrictions, that is true. As a doctor, I had to make periodical checks for different institutions, and those people had to come every month with their health books. I knew them already, and they would just send their books for me to sign. In return for that I never had to stand in queues at grocery shops because I knew the staff there. At restaurants I could buy meat as well for the same reason, and you could hardly find meat anywhere else. Some patients gave me Kent packs, and I used to trade them for meat at the butcher's shop. That's the way the black market worked.
My greatest pain during the communist regime was that I couldn't travel more; of course I saw with my husband all the countries in the socialist camp, but we still wanted more. And even a trip to a socialist country was a problem, not in terms of money - we had two wages and one was more than enough for a two-week trip - but we had to fill in tons of papers, whole files, really, just to be able to go on a simple trip. We had to write CVs of ourselves, we had to write what relatives we had abroad, their addresses, when they had left etc. We had to write who of our family had stayed behind and so on. They wanted to make sure we wouldn't run away.
Our attitude towards the government was hostile, but not openly so: we were afraid of the repercussions. When friends came over, we would put a pillow over the phone, just in case. [Mrs. Greif refers to the fact that many people, including her, suspected that the phones were tapped by the Securitate.] Anyone suspected anyone. One out of three friends was a snitch for the Securitate. The suspicions were even worse because we didn't know from whom to stay away. But of course in very close circles, we told jokes about Ceausescu [20], we practically lived on those jokes and the BBC and Radio Free Europe [21]!
My mother, on the other hand, eventually got the approval, in 1965 or 1966, and she left for Israel, but not to stay there. She went to Israel to take back some valuables she had managed to send there in 1964/5, with some Jews who left earlier and were supposed to keep the jewelry until she came for it. It was a risk, of course: if the jewels had been found, they would have been confiscated and lost. But my mother took the chance because she knew she would leave and would have lost the jewelry anyway if she had left it behind, so she sent some jewelry with brilliants and other precious stones to some Jews who left for Vienna and some others who left for Israel.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I wasn't a member of the Communist Party, but in high school I had to be a member of the UTM [Uniunea Tineretului Muncitoresc, The Young Workers' Union], and then in university I was a member of a student organization, which later became UTC [Uniunea Tinerilor Comunisti, Young Communists Union']. But when I started working, I was already married, and my husband wouldn't let me join the party. He wasn't a member either, but he had a good friend, a Hungarian doctor, who was very active in the party, and this friend wanted me to join. But my husband was very categorical about it and said, 'Up to here! She doesn't want to and she won't!' My husband had a managerial position, he ran the medical orderly Mutual Aid Fund for 30 years, and he was the vice-president of the medical syndicate, and he still managed not to join the Party. He declared very openly that his family had been landowners and kulaks, and that he didn't want to join just to be thrown out later. So I wasn't a party member, but I had to participate in marches on 23rd August [18], 1st May and 7th November [also known as October Revolution Day] [19] all the same.
Romania
My mother, on the other hand, eventually got the approval, in 1965 or 1966, and she left for Israel, but not to stay there. She went to Israel to take back some valuables she had managed to send there in 1964/5, with some Jews who left earlier and were supposed to keep the jewelry until she came for it. It was a risk, of course: if the jewels had been found, they would have been confiscated and lost. But my mother took the chance because she knew she would leave and would have lost the jewelry anyway if she had left it behind, so she sent some jewelry with brilliants and other precious stones to some Jews who left for Vienna and some others who left for Israel.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
In the end, I gave up the idea of emigrating. My husband didn't want to leave under any circumstances. Back then the rule was that you were only allowed to leave with 70 kilograms of clothing, nothing else, and my husband had a lot of valuable things here in the country which he didn't want to give up. When I got married, I signed a paper saying that I had given up the idea of emigration. My husband insisted on that; he never wanted to emigrate. But we could have filed for it again, if we had wanted to.
It wasn't dangerous for us, our positions weren't considered very high, and we weren't in the Communist Party. During communism I never had problems because of being Jewish, and I never had to hide it, and neither had my daughter. And whoever says we didn't have religious freedom is lying. Of course, those Jews who had managerial positions and were party members were careful not to be seen at the synagogue, they didn't want to lose their position. But the rest of the Jews in Brasov could go anytime; there was no problem. And, during our marriage, our friends were Jews and Romanians alike; it didn't matter.
We went to the synagogue on Purim, on Sukkot, on Chanukkah, but not every Saturday.
I raised my daughter to be a Jew, of course. I used to light candles every Friday evening, and say the blessing in Hebrew. I knew that by heart. We observed all high holidays, we fasted on Yom Kippur, we didn't eat bread on Pesach; however, we didn't follow the kashrut. My father-in-law led the seder, and after he died, in 1966, my husband did. My husband spoke Yiddish, and he read perfectly in Hebrew - which he also understood. I know he studied Hebrew, but I don't know if it was in a cheder or a yeshivah. Anyway, all the ceremonies in our house were very long because my husband insisted that we understood them as well, so he said the prayers in Hebrew first and then translated them for us.
Then another friend of my husband's, the chief doctor in Bod, made a request for a doctor in Bod because, presumably, they didn't have one. So my husband put me in the hospital and said I was three months pregnant - and I wasn't at all back then! - and went straight to Minister Burghelea [Minister of Health at that time] in Bucharest, with the medical certificate and the request that a doctor was needed in Bod. My husband later told me how the meeting went: he knocked on the door, opened it, took a large step inside with his right foot, and said to the minister, 'Comrade Minister, I entered with my right foot. I hope you will be able to solve my problem!' The atmosphere was immediately relaxed, and my husband brought home the approval. So I became a probation doctor in Bod, where I worked for a year; after that I worked for two more years in Halchiu [16 km from Brasov], and after that I took an exam and I was finally a doctor in town, in Brasov.
So he opened me a consulting room through ONT ['Oficiul National de Turism', 'The National Tourism Office']. It was the time when foreigners started to come and visit the country, and the fact that I could speak several languages was a plus. So my husband fixed it with the ONT in Bucharest, and I commuted to Poiana Brasov for a year. I worked as a doctor, of course, but on paper I was just a nurse.
My husband, who was very versatile, got me a job as a nurse in Poiana Brasov. [Editor's note: Poiana Brasov is Romania's premier ski resort located 12 km from Brasov.] This was possible because my husband had a rather high position at that time: he was the president of the medical orderly Mutual Aid Fund here in Brasov. And, each doctor needed a loan and my husband gave loans, but could afford to ask for favors in return. He was very good friends with the chief doctor of the region [see Territorial reorganization in 1952] [17], and my husband asked him to get a petition for the need of a doctor in Poiana Brasov.
I was repartitioned to some village in Moldova, I have no idea where because I never went there. By that time I was already married, and only those who were pregnant or had high grades could choose the town, but that wasn't my case. My husband told me that if I didn't get Brasov, then I shouldn't go where they sent me. But back then you couldn't just pass on what you were offered, not working wasn't an option. In order to work somewhere else, the chief doctor in Moldova, where I was initially repartitioned - he was a Jew called Merler- had to let me go first. My husband went there and asked him, but at first he refused. He said that, first of all, he was a Jew as well and that would be too obvious, and second, he couldn't pretend that he didn't need me when he needed more doctors. I don't remember how my husband eventually solved the problem, but it was solved.
Romania
When I graduated from university in 1959, there was a social mark that was added to all the other grades I obtained after my final exams. I had an 'unhealthy' origin as well because my parents had owned a store; because of that, I had a file and couldn't choose a workplace where I wanted, even if normally I could have because my grades were very high. But because my social grade was 4, and it was added to the 9 point something I had in all my six years of study and state examination, I couldn't choose where I wanted to work.
The parents of my parents-in-law were very rich people. My mother-in-law's family had a house in the very center of Cernauti, with 27 rooms, and a space for a shop downstairs. My mother-in-law and her brother inherited it. My father-in-law's family had an estate in Plosca, which is a commune [10 km from Cernauti], and they had there 250 hectares of woods there, plus horses and a big manor. A law was passed last year [in 2003], saying that the Romanian state will make up for the losses, and I filed for it. I had all documents from those times; my parents-in-law were very careful with paperwork.
Marrying someone who wasn't Jewish never occurred to me, and I'm sure my parents wouldn't have approved. But I never had Romanian boys court me, except one, maybe, but that was nothing serious. And I think tradition is good for something, in a marriage there can be so many problems, that a dispute over religion is the last thing one needs.
Romania
For as long as I was in Cluj, I saw Carol only during holidays, and in the meantime he was engaged to someone else, but that didn't work out. In the end we fell in love and married in 1959, just before I took my state examination. We only had a civil marriage that year because my husband was very proud, and he said he would have a wedding only with a rabbi, not with a hakham. But we had the religious wedding later on, when my husband found out unexpectedly that Rabbi Moses Rosen [14] was in Poiana Brasov. He went after him and persuaded him to wed us, and he did. In Brasov Carol worked at first in a test laboratory.