Tag #118247 - Interview #87371 (Fani Cojocariu)

By then, people started urging us. There were many Jews, they lived on every street. A woman used to come by our place, she told us: “Why don’t you leave? You have no family, you don’t have a proper house – why are you staying here instead of leaving?” For people were leaving for Israel in great numbers. But you think we heard that from only one Jew? Well, we didn’t manage to do this either, leaving, that is. And we stayed. There is a saying, to the effect that the worm gnaws its way inside a horseradish and says that one can live there as well. There are worms that eat and prefer horseradish, which is actually so hot. That’s how it was with us – just like the worm, we had gnawed our way inside the horseradish and wouldn’t leave anywhere, neither here, nor there, not for the world. Well, that’s how it was and that’s how we stayed.