Tag #119004 - Interview #101860 (Marcel Simon )

As I child I went to a Jewish school, to cheder. Normally one went to cheder before school, but I went from 1946, after we returned from Transnistria. In the cheder we spoke Yiddish and read in Hebrew. I knew Hebrew really well. I don’t know it anymore, I forgot. I learned 3 or 4 years with a religion teacher, as it was customary at that time that people learned parts of the Torah. I remember that my teacher was an old gentleman, and we played, we fooled about, and he ran after us, he slapped us sometimes – in a friendly way. We started with the alef, bet – with the alphabet, and then the parts. We had to sing… It was a nice period! Even though times were tough and we were poor children. I don’t know anything of it, because I didn’t practice. You know how it is, a language can be learned by communication with people, not by memorizing and reading word by word. More than 60 years have passed since than, and I don’t remember many things from the cheder. But anyhow, there were many children, we were in groups. In a group there were 25-30 kids, just like a quite big class. Only boys, there weren’t any girls. Now, in the more modern period, even the girls went to the Talmud Torah. Mr. Pietraru, the former president of the Jewish community in Suceava told me, that even girls went, there are some pictures of it at the Jewish community.