Tag #120962 - Interview #102368 (Solomon Meir)

n fact, I learned Yiddish at home, as a child. Jewish [Yiddish, that is] was spoken in our home – naturally, Romanian as well, but also Jewish –, and I learned it from my parents. But I attended the cheder after I was 5 and a half, a school where they taught you to read and write in Yiddish; I learned to read the siddur, the prayer book – it is written in Jewish, not in Hebrew. And I attended the cheder until 1939. The Germans invaded Poland in 1939 [2], and many Poles fled here from Poland, and there was a great rush of cars, something unusual for the city of Botosani – there weren’t that many cars in Botosani. And as the cheder was at a distance of around 2 km, 2 km and a half from home, I had to walk there by myself and my parents didn’t allow me to attend anymore – we were afraid of cars. The Poles came in cars, trucks, they were very well-off. They settled here, across Romania, and part of them returned to Poland after a few years, others remained here for good.