Tag #129632 - Interview #78111 (Aristide Streja)

Afterwards I went to the Matei Basarab High School, because my brother had gone there too. [Ed. note: The Matei Basarab High School is one of the oldest and most prestigious secondary schools in Bucharest. It was located in the vicinity of the Great Synagogue and of the Jewish quarter. The children of many outstanding Jewish families went to this high school.] I studied there from the 1st year until the 6th year, when I was kicked out because I was a Jew - this happened in 1939-1940. I had very good teachers. There was the principal, Stoenescu, who taught Math. There was the History teacher, Ion Tatoiu, an author of textbooks. He was a great teacher who came to class, sat down and taught us history as if he were narrating a novel or telling us a story. When we grew older, we had a teacher of Romanian, Perpessicius, who was a literary critic. [Ed. note: Perpessicius (1891-1971), literary critic, literary historian and poet. He managed the 'Universul literar' - 'Literary Universe' - magazine between 1925 and 1927. He was a literary reviewer for Radio Bucharest between 1934 and 1938. Between 1929 and 1951 he served uninterruptedly as a teacher of Romanian at the Matei Basarab High School in Bucharest.] Our Latin teacher was Chiriac, an author of textbooks too. I was a relatively good student in Latin. I remember he once caught me with my lesson not learnt and he gave me a 1. But I generally got good grades. I didn't take private lessons. I studied French and Italian in high school. Our Italian teacher was a young woman named Constanta, and learning from her was a pleasure.

The Matei Basarab High School was recognized as a very good high school. It was a public school, but there was some tuition to pay. Back then, elementary schools were free of charge and it was compulsory to attend them; but you had to pay in order to go to high school.