My mother – just like my aunt – was a woman who observed religion, popular, to be sure! She liked to dress elegantly. Well, a pretty little dress, a skirt, a blouse to wear – as she was a seamstress – she cut them, stitched them together and made her own clothes. But when it came to finer dresses, for special occasions, for holidays, she went to Dorohoi – for she was born there –, and she had them made there by dressmakers – well now – more professional ones. For on holidays she too went with my father to the synagogue in Dumbraveni, and she had to wear something a bit more special.
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Displaying 28081 - 28110 of 50826 results
Simon Meer
We had a two-room house and the store was in one of the rooms. But we paid rent for the house, it wasn’t ours. We had a few fruit trees in the courtyard – sour cherries, plums, that was about it. They kept a dog, a cat, but no other domestic animals whatsoever. No fowls, no kinds of animals.
My father was a small merchant, he had a store, a sort of a grocery selling almost anything: food, salt, flour, oil, even cloths – he supplied the store with everything. He brought the merchandise from Bucecea, a town located close to Dumbraveni, and from Botosani. He took a cart from the village, drawn by two horses, he went and brought a freight cart, so that he could supply the store with merchandise. So father was a merchant and mother was a seamstress:
she sewed underwear, bed linen: pillows, eiderdowns, odds and ends. And since she was a seamstress and was good with fabrics – manufacture, that’s what they called them – they also sold fabrics at the store. She helped father when it came to fabrics. She was in charge of textiles.
My mother came to Dorohoi by cart, she brought us food, bought supplies, and took back with her rolls of fabrics, lengths of cloth. That’s how we made a living.
she sewed underwear, bed linen: pillows, eiderdowns, odds and ends. And since she was a seamstress and was good with fabrics – manufacture, that’s what they called them – they also sold fabrics at the store. She helped father when it came to fabrics. She was in charge of textiles.
My mother came to Dorohoi by cart, she brought us food, bought supplies, and took back with her rolls of fabrics, lengths of cloth. That’s how we made a living.
Dumbraveni was a large locality, with more than 20,000 inhabitants – that’s how large it was. Poorer families lived there, as well as richer ones, and then there were also really well-to-do people who lived there in the village. 12 Jewish families lived there as well.
My mother’s name was Feiga – Feiga Cojocaru was her name. She was born in 1898, in Dorohoi. As the grandmother from my mother’s side was a seamstress, my mother learned that trade from her as well.
Her husband, Moise Butnaru, cut to measure the leather for shoes – he cut the leather and made the vamps for shoes.
My mother’s other brother, Elisa Cojocaru, was married, but he didn’t have any children. They lived in Bucecea, in the county of Botosani. He had a manufacture store – textiles, fabrics.
They weren’t deported, but they were evacuated from Bucecea to Botosani.
She wore regular clothes. A dress or a skirt with a blouse – that was her attire. She wore dark colors. She didn’t cover her head. She only covered her head with a head kerchief on Friday evening, when she lit the candles for the Sabbath. She had her natural hair, which she braided it behind the back of her head and looped around, like that. No woman in our family wore a wig, as only the women [wives] of rabbis and hakhamim wore wigs – they wore their hair cut short and wore wigs.
She was a seamstress – for my mother, being her daughter, learned the trade from her. She sewed bed linen, underwear. My grandmother had a sewing machine, and she had many customers.
My grandfather was a furrier – he sewed sheepskin coats, hats. The old man especially, he went in the countyside, entered people’s houses, people had skins for hats, coats, and he sewed them right there, on the spot. And that’s how it was back then: for instance, if you were a shoemaker, your name was Shoemaker – the name for someone who made shoes. As my mother’s father was a furrier, his name was Cojocaru [Romanian for “furrier”].
My father was the eldest among his brothers. His name was Froim Meer, he was born in 1893, in Dumbraveni. My father fought during World War I, I don’t know where exactly, but, in any case, I do know he did his military service with the 8th Regiment Dorobanti, Botosani. [Ed. note: Dorobanti is located 17 km north of Botosani.] He had a leg wound from the front, but he wasn’t limping.
Romania
In 1939, when the legionaries [1] came to power, my father’s other brothers took refuge in Botosani. My father and mother were the only ones who came to Dorohoi – my mother being born there. My father’s other 3 brothers went to Botosani, they weren’t deported. The Jews from Botosani weren’t deported. Only these regions were, those belonging to Bukovina – Campulung, Vatra Dornei, Humor, Radauti, Suceava – and it included us too, the region of Dorohoi, with the surrounding towns – Saveni, Darabani, Mihaileni.
Nusan – Nusan is the Yiddish variant, but Nathan is the Romanian one – was one of my father’s brothers; he knew Hebrew well, and he performed the religious service in the synagogue in Dumbraveni. He also read the Sefer Torah – and the Sefer Torah is very difficult to read, for there is no punctuation.
My father had 3 more brothers and a sister, they all lived in the village of Dumbraveni. My father’s brothers and my father as well, learned the trade of shoemaking from their father, but, after they got married, seeing there was no parnose in shoemaking [parnose (Yiddish): livelihood, living] – as they say, you have no income –, they opened up stores. All 4 of them had small stores – general stores, selling all sorts of goods – in the village. Dumbraveni was a large village, just like a city.
My father lived in Salageni, my father’s other brothers had their stores near the village center.
My father lived in Salageni, my father’s other brothers had their stores near the village center.
My grandfather’s name was Haim Meer, my grandmother’s was Frida. My grandfather, my father’s father, was a shoemaker.
And I worked in Tulcin until September 1943, when the front lines were broken at Stalingrad [16]. Had the front not been broken at Stalingrad, none of us would have returned home. They had received an order from Bucharest to prepare us – all the Jews up to the river Bug, meaning the territory that belonged to the Romanians – to get us ready to be repatriated. They released us from the construction site, and we returned to Caposterna from Tulcin, from where they took us. My eldest brother returned there, too. He had been sent elsewhere – I don’t remember anymore where he was taken. My aunt and the 2 younger brothers stayed in Caposterna, and we found them still there when we returned.
And carts, and automobiles were made available for us, and they took us to Shargorod, where they put us in train cars. Still cattle cars, not passenger cars. We were content. But we didn’t believe we would return home anymore. I kept saying to myself: “This is our doom! This is the end!” Especially there, at that peat bog, I remember there was an engineer, his name was Salveciu – he frightened everyone on the extraction site. All those who happened to fall ill, or not be able to carry on working anymore, he saw to it that they drowned in those bogs where the peat was extracted. What, you think they cared about human lives there?
And we came to Moghilev. We arrived in Moghilev in December 1943. The Federation in Bucharest had by then already sent aid for us in Moghilev: food, clothing. They gave us clothes to wear. We were all naked. I remember I wore a pair of pants made from burlap. They loaded us on special trains, and we came by train from Moghilev to Dorohoi. There was an entire train of people from Dorohoi alone. They had formed trains in Moghilev, when they put us on the trains, based on routes, destinations. We left there on December 22 or 23, for on December 24-25 – on the first day of Christmas – we were in the Dorohoi train station.
And carts, and automobiles were made available for us, and they took us to Shargorod, where they put us in train cars. Still cattle cars, not passenger cars. We were content. But we didn’t believe we would return home anymore. I kept saying to myself: “This is our doom! This is the end!” Especially there, at that peat bog, I remember there was an engineer, his name was Salveciu – he frightened everyone on the extraction site. All those who happened to fall ill, or not be able to carry on working anymore, he saw to it that they drowned in those bogs where the peat was extracted. What, you think they cared about human lives there?
And we came to Moghilev. We arrived in Moghilev in December 1943. The Federation in Bucharest had by then already sent aid for us in Moghilev: food, clothing. They gave us clothes to wear. We were all naked. I remember I wore a pair of pants made from burlap. They loaded us on special trains, and we came by train from Moghilev to Dorohoi. There was an entire train of people from Dorohoi alone. They had formed trains in Moghilev, when they put us on the trains, based on routes, destinations. We left there on December 22 or 23, for on December 24-25 – on the first day of Christmas – we were in the Dorohoi train station.
Especially there, at that peat bog, I remember there was an engineer, his name was Salveciu – he frightened everyone on the extraction site. All those who happened to fall ill, or not be able to carry on working anymore, he saw to it that they drowned in those bogs where the peat was extracted. What, you think they cared about human lives there?
I was taken from this construction site to another one, at the peat extraction in Tulcin [Ed. note: Today, Tul’cin, Ukraine, east of Shargorod]. Those were the 2 places where I worked. I spent the whole summer of 1943 in Tulcin, until September, working on the peat extraction site, extracting peat. There was a site there from where the peat was extracted, and we were 2000 Jews on that site.
We dug, always found water in the ground, there were water pumps that extracted the water from the ground, and we carried on digging using special spades and extracted peat out of the ground. And we slept in a sovkhoz [15], in stables for livestock, there were bunks with straws on them. Filthy, believe you me… There was a canteen at that peat bog, that’s where we ate. This canteen was run by Ukrainian employees, men and women. And we came there to eat, they gave us rations. Horse meat was a delicacy we ate at the construction site. Horse meat – that’s what they gave us as food. They made all sorts of dishes from horse meat. They only slaughtered horses there. Sometimes, on the odd Sunday, they would bring us a loaf of bread, so that we could make it from one day to the next.
And I worked in Tulcin until September 1943, when the front lines were broken at Stalingrad [16]. Had the front not been broken at Stalingrad, none of us would have returned home.
We dug, always found water in the ground, there were water pumps that extracted the water from the ground, and we carried on digging using special spades and extracted peat out of the ground. And we slept in a sovkhoz [15], in stables for livestock, there were bunks with straws on them. Filthy, believe you me… There was a canteen at that peat bog, that’s where we ate. This canteen was run by Ukrainian employees, men and women. And we came there to eat, they gave us rations. Horse meat was a delicacy we ate at the construction site. Horse meat – that’s what they gave us as food. They made all sorts of dishes from horse meat. They only slaughtered horses there. Sometimes, on the odd Sunday, they would bring us a loaf of bread, so that we could make it from one day to the next.
And I worked in Tulcin until September 1943, when the front lines were broken at Stalingrad [16]. Had the front not been broken at Stalingrad, none of us would have returned home.
But as soon as the winter was over, they grabbed those of us who were sturdier, and took us to do forced labor. During the first year we worked on a construction site on the Murafa – Erosinka road. These 2 cities, Murafa and Erosinka, were around 20 km apart, that’s where we worked in the beginning, laying stone. We were over 1000 Jews doing forced labor at this road.
The local Jews weren’t there. Many of them had been taken away, too, and shot. The front had already passed through there, the Germans had been there. The things the Germans did there as well – they destroyed the kolkhozes, confiscated the livestock belonging to the people, to the peasants. It was a disaster! Had we been there when the German occupation was present, all of us would have been shot. But as things were, still under Romanian occupation – we were saved.
And each of us went begging for alms in the village now and then, or we found some work here and there. There were handicraftsmen there as well – tailors, shoemakers… They went to people’s houses and sewed this and that, patched a pair of shoes or boots. Those of us – my oldest brother and I –, who hadn’t learned a trade, started gluing galoshes. For the Ukrainian peasants from those parts wore boots made from felt and galoshes. And the galoshes used to tear. I remember, we took a piece of sheet iron, drilled a hole in it, and turned it into some sort of rasp for scraping rubber, and we went to people’s homes and said: “Slusaite!” – Listen! – “Davai la taim vad (vab, vag?) galosii!” – “Give us your galoshes to glue them!” And they brought the torn galoshes and we repaired them, either with rubber bands, or with rubber, or with a piece of sole. We rasped the rubber, applied a solution to it – we had a solution made from gasoline and crepe rubber – and it glued them together, it adhered – rubber on rubber. And they gave us food. And that’s what got us through the winter.
And each of us went begging for alms in the village now and then, or we found some work here and there. There were handicraftsmen there as well – tailors, shoemakers… They went to people’s houses and sewed this and that, patched a pair of shoes or boots. Those of us – my oldest brother and I –, who hadn’t learned a trade, started gluing galoshes. For the Ukrainian peasants from those parts wore boots made from felt and galoshes. And the galoshes used to tear. I remember, we took a piece of sheet iron, drilled a hole in it, and turned it into some sort of rasp for scraping rubber, and we went to people’s homes and said: “Slusaite!” – Listen! – “Davai la taim vad (vab, vag?) galosii!” – “Give us your galoshes to glue them!” And they brought the torn galoshes and we repaired them, either with rubber bands, or with rubber, or with a piece of sole. We rasped the rubber, applied a solution to it – we had a solution made from gasoline and crepe rubber – and it glued them together, it adhered – rubber on rubber. And they gave us food. And that’s what got us through the winter.
Afterwards, we – 500 Jews from Dorohoi – were taken from Sargorod [Shargorod] and sent to Caposterna – it was a village close to Shargorod. [Today, Kopystirin, Ukraine, it is located approximately 15 km north of Shargorod]. There, they put us in some stables for livestock again, for pigs; it was part of a kolkhoz located at the outskirts of a forest. And what do you think, this Jew, a certain Zaharia Pitaru, a small shoemaker who had more guts – I remember it to this day –, said: “If they shoot me, they shoot me.” For what do you reckon, were you allowed to leave the camp – the ghetto, as they say –, and go as you pleased? And he went to Moghilev, where the gendarmes legion was, the headquarters for the entire Moghilev region.
He went there, poor soul, and he made it, he managed to find the commanding officer’s aide-de-camp, major Orasanu. On hearing they put us in stables during the summer [it was the summer of 1942] – which meant we would have all melted away and died there, major Orasanu took this Zaharia Pitaru and said: “Get in the car and come with me!” The major came to Caposterna, called the gendarmes station – for there was a gendarmes station there –, and ordered them: “You will take everyone out of here and put them inside the peasants’ houses at once!” And we were very fortunate that the Ukrainian peasants took us in and we spent the winter in their homes.
He went there, poor soul, and he made it, he managed to find the commanding officer’s aide-de-camp, major Orasanu. On hearing they put us in stables during the summer [it was the summer of 1942] – which meant we would have all melted away and died there, major Orasanu took this Zaharia Pitaru and said: “Get in the car and come with me!” The major came to Caposterna, called the gendarmes station – for there was a gendarmes station there –, and ordered them: “You will take everyone out of here and put them inside the peasants’ houses at once!” And we were very fortunate that the Ukrainian peasants took us in and we spent the winter in their homes.
I, who was a punk of 15, went begging during the first winter. The army was there, guarding us to make sure we didn’t leave the city, but we, children, used to sneak out, slip by without being seen by the sentinels, and went into the villages now and then. You think I didn’t get caught? There were around 5 of us, 5 boys walking across a field, we were about to enter the village.
The field was supervised by the army there – they were called agricultural soldiers. And wouldn’t you know it, a soldier who was carrying a weapon stops us: “Hey, what are you doing here?” “Well, we were going here, to beg for alms – a loaf of bread, some polenta…” “Where are you from?” “From this place, from that place,…” In Sargorod [Shargorod], there were people from Chernivtsi, and from Suceava, from all cities in Bukovina. We grouped together and went begging for alms together. I said: “I’m from Dorohoi.” When that soldier heard the name of Dorohoi being mentioned… “Hey, I’m from Dorohoi too. I’m from Havarda – did you hear of…” [Ed. note: Mr. Meer is probably referring to Havarna. Havarna is located 22 km north-east of Dorohoi.] Did I know then where it was, where Havarda was? I didn’t know the villages to know which one Havarda was. And he was a good lad, he had a loaf of bread in his kitbag, he took the bread and gave it to me: “Here, you have a loaf of bread, you eat it!” Well, meeting such a person was a rare thing, it was a rare thing.
The field was supervised by the army there – they were called agricultural soldiers. And wouldn’t you know it, a soldier who was carrying a weapon stops us: “Hey, what are you doing here?” “Well, we were going here, to beg for alms – a loaf of bread, some polenta…” “Where are you from?” “From this place, from that place,…” In Sargorod [Shargorod], there were people from Chernivtsi, and from Suceava, from all cities in Bukovina. We grouped together and went begging for alms together. I said: “I’m from Dorohoi.” When that soldier heard the name of Dorohoi being mentioned… “Hey, I’m from Dorohoi too. I’m from Havarda – did you hear of…” [Ed. note: Mr. Meer is probably referring to Havarna. Havarna is located 22 km north-east of Dorohoi.] Did I know then where it was, where Havarda was? I didn’t know the villages to know which one Havarda was. And he was a good lad, he had a loaf of bread in his kitbag, he took the bread and gave it to me: “Here, you have a loaf of bread, you eat it!” Well, meeting such a person was a rare thing, it was a rare thing.
In Sargorod [Shargorod] they put us in abandoned houses, with no roofs, destroyed by the battles on the front – for the front had been there once –, and that’s how we passed the winter, with no windows or roof.
We were around 4-5 families living together in a large room; we stayed on the floor, with straws scattered around in the dirt. Typhus broke out, along with lice – and these killed people by the thousands. You just saw it in the morning the following day… There were carts provided by the Town Hall of Sargorod [Shargorod] which carried the dead, the corpses. Just as they did in Dorohoi in the old days with the dogs they collected from the streets, which were thrown somewhere in a dried up well, that’s how they collected the corpses from the houses in Shargorod, and took them to the cemetery, and dumped them in a mass grave. My parents themselves are lying there, together with approximately over 200 dead bodies, dumped there. We arrived there in November, and they died during the first winter because of the filth and hunger, in January-February 1942. My mother was the first to die, followed shortly afterwards by my father.
The first winter [the winter of 1941-1942] was terrible. People died then by the thousands. Because of the typhus, the filth, the hunger… Where could one get food?
We were around 4-5 families living together in a large room; we stayed on the floor, with straws scattered around in the dirt. Typhus broke out, along with lice – and these killed people by the thousands. You just saw it in the morning the following day… There were carts provided by the Town Hall of Sargorod [Shargorod] which carried the dead, the corpses. Just as they did in Dorohoi in the old days with the dogs they collected from the streets, which were thrown somewhere in a dried up well, that’s how they collected the corpses from the houses in Shargorod, and took them to the cemetery, and dumped them in a mass grave. My parents themselves are lying there, together with approximately over 200 dead bodies, dumped there. We arrived there in November, and they died during the first winter because of the filth and hunger, in January-February 1942. My mother was the first to die, followed shortly afterwards by my father.
The first winter [the winter of 1941-1942] was terrible. People died then by the thousands. Because of the typhus, the filth, the hunger… Where could one get food?
When we crossed the Dniester, we came upon the town of Moghilev [12] on the other bank of the river – a large town. In Moghilev, they lodged us in a former army building, where we stayed for several days and nights. There, as long as we stayed in Moghilev in the army building, we were guarded by the Romanian army, and peasants came and brought us some bread, this, that, and we, children, would sneak out to get things – I was 15, I considered myself to be still a child.
They received orders to take from there to Bug. Farther still. They made us fall into a column and we walked on, day and night. The elderly who couldn’t walk anymore sat down by the side of the road, near the ditch by the side of the road; they shot them with their machine guns right there on the spot. What difference did it make? You think they cared about a human being back then? They didn’t! When we reached a village after nightfall, if we happened to reach a village by nightfall, they dumped us in a kolkhoz [13], so we spent the night there, in the stables, together with the cattle.
When we arrived in November, we found there the Jews from Bukovina, Bessarabia – the deportations of those from Bukovina, Bessarabia had already taken place. And they were taken even across the river Bug. They took very many people from Bukovina, entire trains of people, on the other side, across the river Bug. The conditions for those who were taken across the river Bug were terrible. For instance, they were working on a bridge across the river Bug, and there is a very large lake there, and the Germans threw many Jews inside the lake, leaving them to drown in the water. We had nothing to do with the German army, but that territory was controlled by the Germans.
They left us somewhere before reaching the river Bug. They left some of us behind, through various localities we passed through. For instance, out of that file of so many thousands of people, 500 Jews remained in Sargorod [Shargorod], among whom was my family as well. Many remained in Moghilev, too.
They received orders to take from there to Bug. Farther still. They made us fall into a column and we walked on, day and night. The elderly who couldn’t walk anymore sat down by the side of the road, near the ditch by the side of the road; they shot them with their machine guns right there on the spot. What difference did it make? You think they cared about a human being back then? They didn’t! When we reached a village after nightfall, if we happened to reach a village by nightfall, they dumped us in a kolkhoz [13], so we spent the night there, in the stables, together with the cattle.
When we arrived in November, we found there the Jews from Bukovina, Bessarabia – the deportations of those from Bukovina, Bessarabia had already taken place. And they were taken even across the river Bug. They took very many people from Bukovina, entire trains of people, on the other side, across the river Bug. The conditions for those who were taken across the river Bug were terrible. For instance, they were working on a bridge across the river Bug, and there is a very large lake there, and the Germans threw many Jews inside the lake, leaving them to drown in the water. We had nothing to do with the German army, but that territory was controlled by the Germans.
They left us somewhere before reaching the river Bug. They left some of us behind, through various localities we passed through. For instance, out of that file of so many thousands of people, 500 Jews remained in Sargorod [Shargorod], among whom was my family as well. Many remained in Moghilev, too.
When we reached Otaci [Atachi], on the bank of the river Dniester, at 12 in the night, the army made us get off the train cars and told us: “Don’t take anything, you will come in the morning to pick up your luggage!” Were you there? As if we ever saw our luggage again! I remember that when they deported us, my mother wrapped the sewing head of the sewing machine in an eiderdown together with a pillow and baled it. But what was the use, since all our luggage was left behind on the train that night and we never saw it again. God forbid! I don’t even want to remember.
And we stayed in Otaci [Atachi] for one night in a derelict building, with no roof, with no windows – and it was cold by then –, we stayed there crammed, shivering. They crammed thousands of people in there, we spent the entire night standing on our feet, and in the morning, under escort – army troops, gendarmes –, they took us on the bank of the river Dniester – Otaci [Atachi] was located right on the bank of the river Dniester. The bridge, needed for crossing the Dniester, was destroyed by now, for the front had moved forward. We crossed the Dniester on ferries. Many of the older people, poor souls, even fell in the Dniester, that’s how crowded we were.
And we stayed in Otaci [Atachi] for one night in a derelict building, with no roof, with no windows – and it was cold by then –, we stayed there crammed, shivering. They crammed thousands of people in there, we spent the entire night standing on our feet, and in the morning, under escort – army troops, gendarmes –, they took us on the bank of the river Dniester – Otaci [Atachi] was located right on the bank of the river Dniester. The bridge, needed for crossing the Dniester, was destroyed by now, for the front had moved forward. We crossed the Dniester on ferries. Many of the older people, poor souls, even fell in the Dniester, that’s how crowded we were.
My parents rented a room in Dorohoi, and from here they left with us to Transnistria [10] on November 11, 1941
Dorohoi belonged to the Romanian Old Kingdom, the Old Kingdom of Moldavia, it wasn’t a part of Bukovina [5]. But I don’t know what happened and they mixed us with those from Bukovina, they had included us to the lot from Bukovina, and they deported us to Transnistria together with those from Chernivtsi, Suceava, the whole Bukovina. And we got the short straw on that. We didn’t even have to be deported. I don’t know where this world of good originated. It was an order from high up, from Antonescu [11].
And when the deportation began, we, my parents, my aunt, us, packed everything, we packed everything into fresh bales, took a cart and went to the train station. There was a commission at the train station – representatives from the Prefecture, the Bank, the Police – they checked us to see if we had any jewelry, this, that, gold on us, what we had in our luggage – we had to declare what we had in our luggage –, and they boarded us on train cars. Our luggage and my aunt’s luggage alone filled almost half a train car. And all the bales were left behind in the train cars.
Dorohoi belonged to the Romanian Old Kingdom, the Old Kingdom of Moldavia, it wasn’t a part of Bukovina [5]. But I don’t know what happened and they mixed us with those from Bukovina, they had included us to the lot from Bukovina, and they deported us to Transnistria together with those from Chernivtsi, Suceava, the whole Bukovina. And we got the short straw on that. We didn’t even have to be deported. I don’t know where this world of good originated. It was an order from high up, from Antonescu [11].
And when the deportation began, we, my parents, my aunt, us, packed everything, we packed everything into fresh bales, took a cart and went to the train station. There was a commission at the train station – representatives from the Prefecture, the Bank, the Police – they checked us to see if we had any jewelry, this, that, gold on us, what we had in our luggage – we had to declare what we had in our luggage –, and they boarded us on train cars. Our luggage and my aunt’s luggage alone filled almost half a train car. And all the bales were left behind in the train cars.
When the legionaries came to power, they drove away the Jews from the countryside [9], so in 1940 my parents came to Dorohoi as well. We, the children, weren’t at home when the Jews were evacuated from every village. But I will not forget, our father told us the story, that the peasants from where they lived, the village of Salageni in the locality of Dumbraveni, came to him, and that’s what they said: “Mr. Frochi, you don’t move from here. Should someone lay a finger on you, we’ll cut their throat.” Hundreds of people living in the village gathered around my parents’ house. But in the end my parents were scared, and they finally came to Dorohoi.
The villagers loved my father very much. I’ll give you an example. “I’m going to Bucecea, I want to buy two calves. Mr. Frochi, lend me some money.” “Yes, my good man, come over and I’ll give it to you.” Without asking for any security in return. That’s how much my father trusted them, he lent them money, and people returned the money they borrowed from him. That’s how good life was, until the legionaries came to power.
The villagers loved my father very much. I’ll give you an example. “I’m going to Bucecea, I want to buy two calves. Mr. Frochi, lend me some money.” “Yes, my good man, come over and I’ll give it to you.” Without asking for any security in return. That’s how much my father trusted them, he lent them money, and people returned the money they borrowed from him. That’s how good life was, until the legionaries came to power.
When the legionaries came to power, in 1940 [Ed. note: Mr. Simon Meer is referring here to the period during the Antonescu regime], we were all forced to wear the yellow star [8]. And if you were caught not wearing the star on your chest, they took you to the police station and beat you up, tortured you, kept you at the police station for several days and nights and beat you. Everyone manufactured their yellow star as best they could – the villains didn’t specify any particular dimensions for the yellow star. For there were so many tailors in Dorohoi, they manufactured them.
Everyone cut a piece of cloth to measure, placed it on a piece of cardboard – so that it had the 6 points –; if the material was darker in color, they sewed an additional yellow rim, so that it was clear it was a star. For if you used only a darker shade of cloth, on a dark item of clothing, you couldn’t notice the star, so you had to use a lighter shade of yellow, so that it caught the villains’, the legionaries’ eyes, so they could see it was a six-pointed star. We wore the yellow star for over a year, until we were deported.
And we were allowed to go out only for one hour a day, to go to the market or do some shopping. For instance, I went to the workshop. I sneaked through certain places lest a guard should find me. And I kept the star in my pocket, I wasn’t wearing it – well, I was more of a punk, as children are. But older people, those who traded, the women who went to the market – they had to wear the star, otherwise they couldn’t enter the market if they didn’t wear the yellow star, or if they wanted to go to a store to do some shopping, anything. If the police caught you – an order had been issued: you were to be brought to the police station and administered a beating.
Everyone cut a piece of cloth to measure, placed it on a piece of cardboard – so that it had the 6 points –; if the material was darker in color, they sewed an additional yellow rim, so that it was clear it was a star. For if you used only a darker shade of cloth, on a dark item of clothing, you couldn’t notice the star, so you had to use a lighter shade of yellow, so that it caught the villains’, the legionaries’ eyes, so they could see it was a six-pointed star. We wore the yellow star for over a year, until we were deported.
And we were allowed to go out only for one hour a day, to go to the market or do some shopping. For instance, I went to the workshop. I sneaked through certain places lest a guard should find me. And I kept the star in my pocket, I wasn’t wearing it – well, I was more of a punk, as children are. But older people, those who traded, the women who went to the market – they had to wear the star, otherwise they couldn’t enter the market if they didn’t wear the yellow star, or if they wanted to go to a store to do some shopping, anything. If the police caught you – an order had been issued: you were to be brought to the police station and administered a beating.
But the 1941 pogrom from Iasi was a disaster, with the death train [7]. If 50 people were shot here during the pogrom, in Iasi there were a few thousands – 10,000 or 12,000 Jews were on that train. Many years ago, my wife and I went and visited the cemeteries from Targu Ocna, Podul Iloaiei, and Targu Frumos, where - you should see it - there are rows of tombstones, rows of them. For this train travelled on a route from Iasi, Targu Ocna, Targu Frumos – back and forth, asphyxiating them.
They kept the people inside cattle cars, without air, without anything, and kept moving them forward. And, for instance, if they opened the cars’ doors in Targu Ocna, they got off the train in Targu Ocna those who were asphyxiated, who were lying on the floor, and the Community there had to take care of funeral arrangements. Others who were asphyxiated by the time the train reached Targu Frumos were taken off the train in Targu Frumos. Then the train started the journey back. That’s how they kept moving that train until they asphyxiated everybody.
They kept the people inside cattle cars, without air, without anything, and kept moving them forward. And, for instance, if they opened the cars’ doors in Targu Ocna, they got off the train in Targu Ocna those who were asphyxiated, who were lying on the floor, and the Community there had to take care of funeral arrangements. Others who were asphyxiated by the time the train reached Targu Frumos were taken off the train in Targu Frumos. Then the train started the journey back. That’s how they kept moving that train until they asphyxiated everybody.