Things became better after the collapse of communism in 1989 [see Romanian Revolution of 1989] [14]. I remember I was in the kitchen, and I heard something on the radio but I didn't understand. And then Nadia phoned, and said, 'Turn on the TV!' There were people who came into the headquarters of the national television station, announcing that the communist era was over, and broadcasting scenes showing fights in Timisoara.
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Displaying 7201 - 7230 of 50826 results
Louiza Vecsler
My husband died in 1990 and was buried in a Jewish cemetery. There was a rabbi and a chazzan at the funeral, and someone from the community, not from the family, recited the Kaddish.
Tradition is still very important to them. Manuela also married a Jew, Andrei Czizler, in 2002. They had a religious ceremony in the synagogue here, in Brasov.
Raphael works as a journalist at several newspapers in Brasov.
In 1974 Raphael married Felicia Reinisch, who is also Jewish, in the synagogue in Bucharest, in the presence of Rabbi Moses.
My children always knew what they wanted to do, I couldn't influence them. When Raphael finished the 5th or 6th grade, he had to choose between mathematics and humanities, and he chose the latter. Then, he studied journalism in Bucharest. Nadia was just as determined, and went to study mathematics in Bucharest.
Sandu left for Israel, Jerusalem, in 1984. His son, Sergiu, had already emigrated to the US, but he came home for a while. Sandu's wife, Fiameta, was ill, she had to have dyalisis, and Sergiu convinced them that dyalisis was easier done in Israel. So they left, and she died during a dyalisis in Jerusalem in 1985.
My sister Ernestina emigrated to Australia in 1964; she married a Jew call Rufenstein who left from Botosani as well. I think he was an accountant and she was a translator, we kept in touch, wrote letters to each other, but I don't know many details about their lives there.
I was glad to hear about the birth of Israel, but I was upset because of the wars since I had acquaintances who had already left. They weren't close friends, but a lot of pharmacists from Botosani left for Israel. Ieti, the sister of my friend Ostfeld, was married, had a son, and they both left for Israel.
When Nadia was about two years old, in 1951, we started proceedings to leave for Israel, me, my husband, my mother-in-law and our children. But only my mother-in-law got the permission to leave for Israel. She didn't leave, she was too old to take care of herself alone, with no family. That was the policy: many families were separated, parents left without their children or the other way around. I remember about one family, I don't know the name anymore: the parents left with one daughter, and the other had to stay here because she was over 18 when they filed for aliyah and she didn't get the approval. She had to stay here for many years, I don't know exactly how many.
And because we had filed for aliyah, and the proceedings lasted for many years, Nadia didn't win any prizes in elementary school, although her grades were very good. I remember I told her she wouldn't get a prize because of our situation on the way to the festivity because I knew that if I had told her at home she wouldn't have wanted to go anymore. And she didn't get any prizes until we gave up on emigration and withdrew the file when she was in the 8th grade and had to take the capacity examination.
We gave up because my husband received a note from Centrofarm, which was in Suceava by then, which said that if he didn't give up on emigration, he would be transferred to work in a village. [Centrofarm was a state pharmaceutical company, which operated all over the country.] They had probably been asked to do so. So we gave it up, and Nadia entered the high school examination on her first try. Our boy, Raphael, didn't make it on the first try just because our file was still valid. [He was older, so he took the exam earlier than Nadia.] After we gave it up, they both won prizes in high school.
And because we had filed for aliyah, and the proceedings lasted for many years, Nadia didn't win any prizes in elementary school, although her grades were very good. I remember I told her she wouldn't get a prize because of our situation on the way to the festivity because I knew that if I had told her at home she wouldn't have wanted to go anymore. And she didn't get any prizes until we gave up on emigration and withdrew the file when she was in the 8th grade and had to take the capacity examination.
We gave up because my husband received a note from Centrofarm, which was in Suceava by then, which said that if he didn't give up on emigration, he would be transferred to work in a village. [Centrofarm was a state pharmaceutical company, which operated all over the country.] They had probably been asked to do so. So we gave it up, and Nadia entered the high school examination on her first try. Our boy, Raphael, didn't make it on the first try just because our file was still valid. [He was older, so he took the exam earlier than Nadia.] After we gave it up, they both won prizes in high school.
I never had problems at work because of being Jewish; I got along well with my colleagues. I remember the lab's director, the first of them, Mardare. He lived in a rented apartment, his neighbors were Jewish and they got along very well. That's how he met my son, who was playing with his neighbors' kid. And Mardare used to say openly: 'On [Jewish] holidays I don't want to see you in the lab!' The doctor who followed him, Naciu, was the same: I had time off on high holidays. But I had to work on Saturdays, of course, like everybody else. I worked at Sanepid until I retired. But I went on working after that as well, I got a full salary and half a pension. I needed the money because by then both my children where studying at university in Bucharest and it was hard to get by.
I've never been a party member, and I've never been involved in politics, in any way. But it was compulsory to take part in social activities, like marches on 23rd August [13] or 1st May.
We only went to the synagogue on high holidays. There was no rabbi in Brasov when we moved here. The service was led by some of the elderly Jews, who had no functions in the community. We could go to the synagogue during communism, we had no problem, but if there was some kind of special event, like a high holiday, or an anniversary, when other important non-Jewish people were invited as well, like the mayor, we had to thank comrade Nicolae Ceausescu [12] for allowing us to have that gathering.
We raised our children in the Jewish tradition: we observed Sabbath, said blessings on Friday evenings, observed Purim and Chanukkah and all the other high holidays. Of course, on Sabbath we, that is me and my husband, had to work, but we celebrated it at home. We followed the kashrut as much as we could, with separate pots for dairy and meat products.
I had my first child, Raphael, in 1946. In the same year I started working in the same chemist's shop with my husband. A year before, the pharmacist I had worked for before World War II, Rosenberg, moved to Bucharest and we rented his shop. We lived upstairs, and had the shop downstairs. My husband woke up earlier and went into the shop, and I would look after Raphael a bit and then join him. We had our own chemist's shop until 1949, when all chemist's shops were nationalized. But there were too many pharmacists in Botosani and I had a husband who was a pharmacist, just like me, and a small child at home. They only hired one spouse. That was my husband, and I couldn't find a job anywhere. I only got a job in 1953 when someone came to me and told me, that there was an opening in Botosani, at Sanepid, in the chemistry department. [The Sanepid institution was established in 1950 and its main objective was the prophylaxis of infectious diseases, then extending to other fields of prophylactic interests, especially concerning the hygiene of public institutions or locations.] So I applied for it at the county, because back then Botosani belonged to Suceava county, and after a few months I was accepted and started working at Sanepid as a food chemist.
After World War II, our house was nationalized [see Nationalization in Romania] [11], but we weren't forced to leave it. But we moved out because we were too close to the railway station, to the power station, to the military units; the neighborhood was too noisy and crowded, and we wanted to be closer to the rest of the family. The house where we formerly lived was inhabited by several people until my sister, Henrieta, who worked at the People's Council, managed to take the house out from the nationalization list; I don't know how she managed to do so. We registered the house in Sidonia's name, my other sister, because the rest of us had better jobs, compared to her: she worked half a shift as a secretary and half a shift as a librarian. We all thought it was fair to do so.
Sidonia, who lived in the same house we had rented, with the rest of us, rented out the house, but the rent was very small and the tenants always came to her to ask for money for restorations, and they cost a lot. Two rooms at the back of the house were rented to an elementary school: one was the library where Sidonia worked and the other was the pioneers' room. And when she saw how much the restorations cost, she said to the school principal: 'Keep the whole house and leave me alone, these restorations are confusing me!' She donated the house to the school and that was it. My elder sister, Tina, worked as a clerk in a men's underwear factory, whose owners were from Vienna. When everything was nationalized, she lost her job.
Sidonia, who lived in the same house we had rented, with the rest of us, rented out the house, but the rent was very small and the tenants always came to her to ask for money for restorations, and they cost a lot. Two rooms at the back of the house were rented to an elementary school: one was the library where Sidonia worked and the other was the pioneers' room. And when she saw how much the restorations cost, she said to the school principal: 'Keep the whole house and leave me alone, these restorations are confusing me!' She donated the house to the school and that was it. My elder sister, Tina, worked as a clerk in a men's underwear factory, whose owners were from Vienna. When everything was nationalized, she lost her job.
My husband was a gentle man, and very obliging. He helped everybody in the chemist's shop. I remember there was a young pharmacist from Cluj [Napoca], who had been assigned to Botosani. My husband looked after her a lot, taught her how to prepare different things. Back then drugs were prepared in the chemist's shop, they weren't ready-made as they are now. And she had to take an exam in Bucharest I think, and her subject was on something she had worked on together with my husband. And she sent us a postcard to thank us: 'I was lucky to be in your shop, I passed the exam!
Romania
We married in 1945. I think it mattered to me that my husband was a Jew; I don't think I would have married a Romanian.
I met my husband, Solomon Vecsler, after I had finished my studies. He worked as a pharmacist as well. He worked for an expropriated chemist's shop, but nobody said anything to its owners [at the time of the anti- Jewish-laws]. We met by chance: one of his colleagues set up a deposit with pharmaceutical supplies, and we met there.
Romania
After that, I worked for the pharmacist Mrs. Constantinescu, whom I had worked for before the war, with an officer: whatever I gained, I had to give him half. He was a relative of Mrs. Constantinescu's, who had taken refuge, and I was selling her merchandise, so I had to give him money.
Before 1945, when the Russians came, Miss Popovici asked me to work for her again and I accepted. Then, the wife of a Jewish doctor - who had been deported to Transnistria [10] - came and asked for some drugs, and I gave her what she needed. And Miss Popovici's sister asked me who that was, and I told her. She said, 'I've never heard of her, I wouldn't have given her anything, accursed Jew!' And after that everything was packed because they were leaving for Bucharest the very next day. She showed off as a Jew- baiter, even though the merchandise she sold was a profit for them. Next day somebody was supposed to come and take all the merchandise to Bucharest, but the Russians came to Botosani, and everything was left behind. Soon after Miss Popovici moved to Bucharest. She came back some time later; she had a farm near Botosani where she retired because she was ill.
After they let him go [from the army], he came to Botosani, where he had to work for the public service: change plates with street names and so on. After that he worked in the city hall, but they fired him from there as well by saying, 'What is a Jew doing in the city hall?' I don't remember what kind of work he did after that.
David, my brother, also helped us. He was a technical manager at the textile plant in Prejmer and was living there. [Prejmer is a place in Brasov county which had a well-known textile factory.] There were only two managers: him and an administrative manager, so they needed him there. Once on New Year's Eve I went to Prejmer, it was soon after the rise of the Goga- Cuza government [8]. The train was late, and it was dark when I arrived at the station in Prejmer. I knew that someone had to wait for me there. When I got off, I called out, 'Is there anyone here from the plant?' And a man answered, 'Yes, Miss, the engineer is waiting for you!' And then I heard another voice: 'No, you will take us to the village!' The voice belonged to a legionary who was at the train station with many others. They were some people from a village, but not workers. And the driver said, 'No, I'm just taking this young lady to the plant!' And they took revenge for that. They came to the plant and asked for light bulbs, and later I heard that they had a fight. My brother was also beaten by these legionaries.
After the first anti-Jewish laws were passed, my father couldn't work as a bookkeeper any more. He worked as a salesman. He had representations from different factories and he sold their products to wholesale dealers. This happened shortly after the war began; meanwhile Jews were also forbidden to travel by train and he had to give up his job and work in a high school. He was a secretary; that was where he retired from.
During the war a German officer stayed in our house. He lived in our living room; he wasn't very talkative, but he was polite. Over at Aunt Clara's, my father's sister, there was another German, and my father used to go over there because my aunt didn't know German very well. And my father told him that the Germans are getting on well, and he said, 'Yes, yes, the Germans are getting on well, but remember Russia is large and deep!
Then I worked for another Romanian pharmacist, Miss Popovici, for ten days. She had an anti-Semitic sister, who lived in Botosani, and who always told her, 'All you do is listen to Radio Free Europe [6], Radio London and fear that the Russians will get to Botosani! Don't worry, they won't get here!' [Editor's note: actually Radio Free Europe only began broadcasting in 1949.] And this sister always called me a Jew, but Miss Popovici didn't listen to her. After ten days, she received an official letter from the Pharmacists' Council stating that she had to let me go or they would revoke her license. And Miss Popovici went to them and told them, 'How come Gheorghiu can keep Jews, and I can't?' But she had to let me go.
There was another Romanian man, Gheorghiu, who was an accursed legionary [7] pharmacist. However, he also kept a Jew in his shop, but in the back, where no one could see him. His daughter was also a pharmacist, but she had just finished her studies and she didn't know a lot about running a chemist's shop. And he talked to Miss Popovici, although by that time I had already left her shop because he wanted me to go work in his daughter's shop. I didn't want to go, and I said so. Miss Popovici had paid me 1,000 lei per day, in ten days I made 10,000 lei and that was a lot. When I had worked for the Jewish pharmacist, I got 3,000 lei per month. Miss Popovici paid a lot because there was nobody to help her. So I told Gheorghiu that if he wanted me to work for his daughter, he should pay me 1,000 lei per day, like Miss Popovici. Of course he didn't want to; that was a lot of money. But he knew my father, and he came over to talk to him. My father told him, 'Mr. Gheorghiu, she is a grown-up woman, she does what she wants. If she won't do it, I cannot force her to!' And I didn't work for him. I preferred to knit a jacket - whoever needed something like that came to us - and get paid for that. I would have rather got 1,500 lei for a waistcoat, which took a long time to make, than work for Mr. Gheorghiu.
There was another Romanian man, Gheorghiu, who was an accursed legionary [7] pharmacist. However, he also kept a Jew in his shop, but in the back, where no one could see him. His daughter was also a pharmacist, but she had just finished her studies and she didn't know a lot about running a chemist's shop. And he talked to Miss Popovici, although by that time I had already left her shop because he wanted me to go work in his daughter's shop. I didn't want to go, and I said so. Miss Popovici had paid me 1,000 lei per day, in ten days I made 10,000 lei and that was a lot. When I had worked for the Jewish pharmacist, I got 3,000 lei per month. Miss Popovici paid a lot because there was nobody to help her. So I told Gheorghiu that if he wanted me to work for his daughter, he should pay me 1,000 lei per day, like Miss Popovici. Of course he didn't want to; that was a lot of money. But he knew my father, and he came over to talk to him. My father told him, 'Mr. Gheorghiu, she is a grown-up woman, she does what she wants. If she won't do it, I cannot force her to!' And I didn't work for him. I preferred to knit a jacket - whoever needed something like that came to us - and get paid for that. I would have rather got 1,500 lei for a waistcoat, which took a long time to make, than work for Mr. Gheorghiu.
Before World War II, I had worked as a pharmacist. The owners of the shop where I worked were Jews, and they lived upstairs. Their name was Rosenberg, and I got along very well with them. In 1942 all the merchandise in the shop was handed over to a Christian pharmacist, Mrs. Constantinescu. She wanted to keep me because she was from the countryside and she didn't know anybody in Botosani, except for her sister, who lived there. And it was something else, when the customers saw somebody familiar at the counter. People in Botosani knew me, and whoever came into the shop said: 'Thank God you are still here, you know what to give us'. There was a peasant from Cotusca [a small village near Botosani], whose wife was sick, and he always bought a 100 gram bottle of valerian tincture. He used to say, 'I wouldn't buy it from somewhere else, even if they gave me a kilo for free! This one is clean, carefully prepared and it cures!'
On one winter day, when it was already dark and there was a blizzard outside, the ex-owners upstairs asked me to sleep over because I lived far from the chemist's shop. I accepted, I had also joined them for dinner on several occasions. And in the morning, when I came down, a man from Social Insurance came into the shop, saw me and said, 'What is a Jew doing in a Romanian drug shop? You just got your shop, Mrs. Constantinescu; if you keep her, we will revoke your license!' I went upstairs, took my coat and left. [This happened around 1942.
On one winter day, when it was already dark and there was a blizzard outside, the ex-owners upstairs asked me to sleep over because I lived far from the chemist's shop. I accepted, I had also joined them for dinner on several occasions. And in the morning, when I came down, a man from Social Insurance came into the shop, saw me and said, 'What is a Jew doing in a Romanian drug shop? You just got your shop, Mrs. Constantinescu; if you keep her, we will revoke your license!' I went upstairs, took my coat and left. [This happened around 1942.
I was directly confronted with anti-Semitism when I finished university, I think I was in my last year, during the last period of practical training in 1941. We had a neighbor, a Jewish widow, who sold her house to a Romanian sergeant. This sergeant, who lived near us, was some kind of surgeon's assistant, and he sometimes came to the hospital to pick up some drugs. He used to say to me, 'Good morning, Miss! How are you? I saw your mother this morning and I told her I'm on my way to the hospital.' This lasted until just before the beginning of World War II. One day, I was on my way home - at that time I was already wearing the yellow star [5] - and a soldier stopped me in the street. A couple was also coming down the street, and they stopped to show their IDs as well. The man who had stopped me told them, 'Go ahead!', and they said, 'Ah, you're only checking the ones with the yellow star?' And he said, 'Yes, only them'. I was in my early twenties and wearing the star was compulsory. After he checked my ID, he let me go. It had rained heavily, there was mud everywhere. Then, when I was almost home and wanted to step on a dry rock, I heard a voice behind me: 'Step aside, you Jew [in Romanian: 'jidauca'], I will not step in mud with my new shoes because of you!' It was the sergeant who was our neighbor and who a month or two ago had said to me, 'Good morning, Miss!' After that I was forbidden to work.
When I came home for the summer holidays, whomever I asked, they didn't have any openings; they said they would hire me if the people they already had left, but they couldn't promise anything. There was a Jewish pharmacist, Lerner, at the Military Hospital. My father knew him and the hospital's director, Colonel Apostoleanu. One day my father was walking down the street and he met this pharmacist. He told him that he had a daughter who had to have a period of practical training somewhere. The pharmacist told him, 'Send her to us, talk to Apostoleanu!'. So I talked with the colonel and he agreed, and I started working in the hospital. I learnt from him the first basic notions about pharmaceutics, notions I still remember today and I have always put to practice.
I remember the flight of the Poles, who passed through Botosani as well. I don't remember being afraid back then. This happened around 1938, after I had finished my first year at the University of Medicine and Pharmaceutics in Iasi, and I had to have a period of practical training in a chemist's shop in Botosani.