Tag #120716 - Interview #87387 (Rifca Segal)

The things that happened in Dorohoi… The things that happened in Iasi… A lawyer from Iasi, Avram Riezel, a very handsome man, who was a second degree cousin of my parents’, was boarded on the death train [8]. He died in that train car, together with his wife, Sally. They had no children. He was born in Sulita, but he married in Iasi with a very beautiful woman, herself a lawyer, they were very well off, she was rich, and he was rich when he left Sulita. His parents owned sheep. And they also had land, I believe, but they didn’t till it themselves, they hired people to do that. And someone who survived the death train experience – a friend of this cousin of my parents, someone who moved to Bucharest afterwards, and we met him – he told us how, forgive me, they relieved themselves right there, on straw, they weren’t given any water, food, nothing at all. And when the train stopped in Targu Frumos, there was this lady, Garici, may God rest her soul, and she approached the train to give them water to drink. For the train car had small, barred windows. And they slapped her over her arm, and she had to leave, otherwise they would have shot her. There were gendarmes on guard duty. And there is Yad Vashem [9] in Israel – I was there –, and there is a road there, where they planted trees “Righteous among the nations.” And Mrs. Garici has her own tree planted there. She passed away. She has a daughter here, in Romania, I don’t know how old she is, who has cancer, I believe. And she was sent to Israel for treatment. Well, if they could save her… But still, her mother’s gesture was extraordinary.