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Life was easier during the Romanian rule. They didn’t shoot inmates of the ghetto. They were more interested in money. At least once a month officers from the Romanian commander’s office demanded gold and money from the chairman of the Jewish community threatening to send inmates to a concentration camp if he didn’t pay them. Jews paid as much as they could to buy off the commander. Romanians subjected inmates of the ghetto to all kinds of tortures. People died of hunger and diseases, but at least there were no shootings. Once a week inmates of the ghetto were allowed to go to the market for two hours to buy some food. We exchanged whatever belongings we had for food. Then my father obtained permission to work at home on Sunday. He had clients that paid him with food products or Romanian money. Uncle Unchl’s widow Surka baked bread for Romanians. They had a bakery making bread for them, but it wasn’t as delicious as Surka’s baking. They brought her flour and she made two bags of bread for them every day. For this they gave her one loaf of bread. A Romanian officer, Belocon, and two soldiers came to our house waiting for Surka to bake the bread. Before World War II Belocon was a teacher. He was a kind man. While waiting he taught me Romanian. My father went to the commander’s office to shave the commander. When he took a razor in his hands for the first time the commander said to him ‘Now I am in your hands’. From then on he only talked Yiddish with my father. There were many Jews in Romania and Romanians living among them knew Yiddish. My father shaved the commander every other day and each time he received two loaves of bread from him. My father had an official permission to walk out of the ghetto.
Period
Interview
Arkadi Yurkovetski