Tag #124342 - Interview #87368 (Miriam Bercovici )

Grandfather Hutman was a trader in Botosani, a very rich, but also very avaricious man, a hard giver. It’s a known fact that one never refused the poor. The obligation of business owners was to donate from Thursday to Friday morning. People from the synagogue came to collect, especially for those from Maramures, from Borsa, where following the 1928 pogrom the synagogue, but also the houses burned down. [Editor’s note: Between 1928 and 1930, the Alexandru Vaida-Voevod National Peasants' Party cabinet gave tacit assistance to the Guard, but Iuliu Maniu (representing the same party) clamped down on the Legion after July 1930. This came after the latter had tried to provoke a wave of pogroms in Maramures and Bessarabia. In one notable incident of 1930, Legionaries encouraged the peasant population of Borsa to attack the town's 4,000 Jews.] My grandfather though was very close-fisted, he always gave so little and all so hard, and he only pretended to be religious.