I am retired now, and I have no occupations related to my former profession. I read, walk, go on trips throughout the country sometimes and take part in the Community’s activities [the Jewish Community in Botosani]: I go to the synagogue on a regular basis when they recite prayers, on Friday, Saturday and all religious holidays.
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Displaying 47161 - 47190 of 50826 results
Saul Rotariu
I returned with a good impression every time I traveled there. I went there before and after the Revolution and I enjoyed my stay there. But we couldn’t make up our mind to make aliyah. Since my wife’s mother lived in Romania, too – for her father had died previously and only her mother was still alive – and she lived with her mother, looked after her and had very many relatives here… They were seven siblings and all of them live here, in Romania. So she couldn’t make up her mind. I would have been in favor of leaving, but there was also the matter of my age, the question was finally addressed when I could no longer go there and start all over again. For it’s true, life is more civilized over there and – how shall I say it – more plentiful, but it takes time to get there [at that level]. You must start at the bottom, do certain things until you manage to save some money, know a few people, find a place to work. And we had reached a certain age when we couldn’t decide in favor of this anymore.
Nowadays – after the Revolution – I have only been to Israel lately, together with my wife. I went there a few times. I have relatives there – almost all my relatives live in Israel. At present, I only have cousins and female cousins from my father’s and mother’s brothers and sisters. The first time I traveled there was around 1980. My relatives sent me an official invite [6], I went to the proper authorities, they investigated my case, saw that I posed no risk, I knew no state secrets – for this is how it was: if you worked in a field dealing with matters of state security, you would have a very hard time obtaining permission to visit foreign countries.
I returned with a good impression every time I traveled there. I went there before and after the Revolution and I enjoyed my stay there.
But I went there, I’ve been there a few times, even my wife was there two or three times. After my retirement, I went there and stayed for three months together with my wife. From Haifa, in the north, we traveled as far as Tel Aviv, Petach Tiqva, a few rural settlements. I have relatives throughout the country. We didn’t go there during the summer season, we went there during winter, in November. We didn’t travel during the summer because we like to visit, travel, move about and it goes without saying that during the hot season you must stay indoors with the air-conditioning turned on, you can’t walk in the street, ride the bus, travel by train or even on the highway. Every time we went there, it was in October, November, December. The climate is milder during this time of the year, as it is in Romania in August and September.
I returned with a good impression every time I traveled there. I went there before and after the Revolution and I enjoyed my stay there.
But I went there, I’ve been there a few times, even my wife was there two or three times. After my retirement, I went there and stayed for three months together with my wife. From Haifa, in the north, we traveled as far as Tel Aviv, Petach Tiqva, a few rural settlements. I have relatives throughout the country. We didn’t go there during the summer season, we went there during winter, in November. We didn’t travel during the summer because we like to visit, travel, move about and it goes without saying that during the hot season you must stay indoors with the air-conditioning turned on, you can’t walk in the street, ride the bus, travel by train or even on the highway. Every time we went there, it was in October, November, December. The climate is milder during this time of the year, as it is in Romania in August and September.
Before the Revolution [5] I traveled to East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia. But it was only for short trips, for two days, during the holidays. I traveled to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and East Germany using my private automobile. In any case, I liked these countries. You should know, I went to Bulgaria, where, they used to say, lived ‘Bulgarians with a thick back of the neck’ – that was the saying. They were seen as more backward than us. I was already working when I went there, around 1968-1969, I went to the seaside – we used to go to the seaside [the Black Sea] every year in that period – and we also drove to Bulgaria where we stayed two or three days. And we found that the resorts were more modern than Eforie, Mangalia, or Mamaia [all resorts in Romania]. Even in those days their beaches were already compartmented, had deck chairs, beautiful kiosks, were painted in various colors. It was as it is here nowadays. In those days, over here there were sorry-looking stands, two or three planks of wood and a few grilled minced meat rolls and beer – what they usually served.
Not to mention that the degree of civilization in Czechoslovakia was something else… I was there around 1968-1969, around that period. I traveled to Poland, too, also by car. But in Czechoslovakia and East Germany – words are not enough! East Germany was civilized, beautiful, clean. When I saw that in these small towns there is no mud on the street… It had rained for two or three days when I was there, and when I saw that there was no mud… If here, in Botosani, I have some business to take care of and drive there by car when it rains, and if I just washed it the previous day, when I return I have to wash it again. I was very surprised to see that I had driven for two or three days and my car was still clean. Needless to say: the people there were cleaner, too – even in those days.
Not to mention that the degree of civilization in Czechoslovakia was something else… I was there around 1968-1969, around that period. I traveled to Poland, too, also by car. But in Czechoslovakia and East Germany – words are not enough! East Germany was civilized, beautiful, clean. When I saw that in these small towns there is no mud on the street… It had rained for two or three days when I was there, and when I saw that there was no mud… If here, in Botosani, I have some business to take care of and drive there by car when it rains, and if I just washed it the previous day, when I return I have to wash it again. I was very surprised to see that I had driven for two or three days and my car was still clean. Needless to say: the people there were cleaner, too – even in those days.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I wasn’t a member of the Communist Party. I was a pioneer [4] from 1949 – when these organizations for children were founded. And back then not all the children were accepted to join the pioneer organizations, only those who did well in school were accepted, and it was quite something in those days to be accepted as pioneer. If you weren’t a pioneer, it meant you played truant or that you were stupid. I was a pioneer until high school.
When you entered high school, you were automatically accepted within the ranks of U.C.Y. [the Union of Communist Youth]. Everybody was a member, all youngsters in high school were members of U.C.Y. One couldn’t say: ‘I don’t want to be a member of U.C.Y.’ I was a member until I turned 28 and couldn’t be a member anymore. The activity of U.C.Y. wasn’t political, as was the case with the Party. Perhaps those at a higher level were involved in political activities, but this wasn’t the case for us, at school level. We would meet, organize a trip. For instance, as a U.C.Y. member, I went on a trip to East Germany organized by the U.C.Y.; I couldn’t have gone on this trip, if I hadn’t been a member of the U.C.Y. After I started working I was still a member of the U.C.Y, and soon afterwards I reached the maximum age for membership...
After that, I didn’t want to join the Party. I had no problems at work because of this decision. Actually, I did have some problems, but I was a good professional. Back then, centralization was the name of the day, ministries, this and that, and I was asked repeatedly: ‘Say, what is the matter with you, we were told to let you know you will be out of your job, if you don’t join the Party.’ Whenever the issue came up, I would say: ‘I won’t become a member of the Party. It is for two reasons that I won’t join the Party: first of all, I don’t need to be a member of the Party in my line of work, for it isn’t a job that involves dealing with people; second of all – I told them – I don’t want to become a member of the Party and be criticized by the watchman or the janitor for not performing this or that activity with the base unit.’ For this is how it was: any drunk would stand up during the sitting and you had to answer him why this and not that, things like these. And I said: ‘That’s why I don’t want to join the Party. If you fire me from this position, I will find another job as head accountant or economist somewhere else.’ And I stuck to this until they got tired of me and said: ‘Leave this one be, he’s slow-witted, he isn’t right in the head!’ And so I didn’t join…
When you entered high school, you were automatically accepted within the ranks of U.C.Y. [the Union of Communist Youth]. Everybody was a member, all youngsters in high school were members of U.C.Y. One couldn’t say: ‘I don’t want to be a member of U.C.Y.’ I was a member until I turned 28 and couldn’t be a member anymore. The activity of U.C.Y. wasn’t political, as was the case with the Party. Perhaps those at a higher level were involved in political activities, but this wasn’t the case for us, at school level. We would meet, organize a trip. For instance, as a U.C.Y. member, I went on a trip to East Germany organized by the U.C.Y.; I couldn’t have gone on this trip, if I hadn’t been a member of the U.C.Y. After I started working I was still a member of the U.C.Y, and soon afterwards I reached the maximum age for membership...
After that, I didn’t want to join the Party. I had no problems at work because of this decision. Actually, I did have some problems, but I was a good professional. Back then, centralization was the name of the day, ministries, this and that, and I was asked repeatedly: ‘Say, what is the matter with you, we were told to let you know you will be out of your job, if you don’t join the Party.’ Whenever the issue came up, I would say: ‘I won’t become a member of the Party. It is for two reasons that I won’t join the Party: first of all, I don’t need to be a member of the Party in my line of work, for it isn’t a job that involves dealing with people; second of all – I told them – I don’t want to become a member of the Party and be criticized by the watchman or the janitor for not performing this or that activity with the base unit.’ For this is how it was: any drunk would stand up during the sitting and you had to answer him why this and not that, things like these. And I said: ‘That’s why I don’t want to join the Party. If you fire me from this position, I will find another job as head accountant or economist somewhere else.’ And I stuck to this until they got tired of me and said: ‘Leave this one be, he’s slow-witted, he isn’t right in the head!’ And so I didn’t join…
I attend the service at the synagogue every Saturday. Now that I am retired, I go more often than I used to when I was working – I didn’t even have the time then. During communism, you could practice your religion without restraints. It was only that you had to be at work, even if it was a holiday. But in certain cases, whenever possible, if they were willing to give you one or two days off, you took a leave for one or two days. It also depended on where you worked. If you worked in a highly politicized institution, you couldn’t tell them: ‘Give me a day off, I have business to attend to at the synagogue’ – for such was politics, it was atheistic. But, in general, you could observe the holidays if you wanted. You took a leave of absence and you had a week or two for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Furthermore, you could go to the synagogue, nobody asked anything about that. If you held a high-ranking position in the political hierarchy, well then, that was a different matter: you had agreed to get involved in that, you had to take it [the consequences].
After my father died, mother stayed with us until her death. And my wife learned these things from my mother. Also, she knew some of them from before, for she also attended the Commercial High School here in Botosani and she had many Jewish classmates there. Here in Botosani, the majority of the population in the city itself was actually Jewish. There were very many Jews in the schools as well, almost half the children were from Jewish families in these schools. And my wife visited the homes of her classmates and friends. They invited her for Passover, she invited them – her Jewish classmates – on Christmas, New Year’s Eve; she invited them to her home, to the table, to eat whatever they were having. Well, she knew by now what it was all about. Not to mention the fact that my mother lived with us.
I observe Passover probably better than a 100 percent Jewish family. We have separate dishes, my wife sees to it that they are separated from the rest and uses them only for Passover. As you know, that is the rule on that occasion [on Pesach]: one isn’t allowed to use dishes that were used during the year. There were times when people didn’t have two to three sets of dishes as we do nowadays – some for daily use, some for certain occasions, some for festive meals, as the case may be – they had a single set of dishes. Well, back then the custom was to boil these dishes in a solution made from boiled water and ashes. They cleaned them and they used them. That’s what my mother did, too, when we were little. She didn’t do this all the time, in the latter period, when the standard of living improved a little, she had separate dishes for Passover, pots, plates, everything you need. So does my wife: we have some beautiful French glass dishes and she keeps those for Passover, she doesn’t touch them during the year. She has some dishes which she uses for cooking, cutlery, everything – on Passover everything is replaced.
My wife prepares traditional Jewish dishes, they are very tasty; she is a very good cook. Usually, the traditional Jewish dish for Passover is chicken soup with potato dishes, all sorts of potato dishes. For instance: you mix mashed potatoes with raw eggs, fried onion, spices and you make some small breads; or you take boiled potatoes and pass them through the mincing machine: you mash the potatoes into a paste, mix them with eggs, pepper or other spices to suit your taste, place them on a rather large square tray – naturally, you oil the tray beforehand, using grease, oil – put it in the oven, bake it and slice it in squares. It tastes exquisitely.
For the matzah, the unleavened bread for Passover, there is also flour. When they sell matzah, they also sell flour. The matzah is dough that has no ingredients in it, for it is made from plain quality flour and water, which is then passed through a machine that gives it this indented shape, and is then baked in a special oven used on Passover. And after this is done, it is then ground into powder at home using a coffee grinder – until it has the consistency of flour. Well, you can make very tasty dishes from this, sweet or spicy, you mix it with eggs, sugar, you can make all sorts of very tasty sweets from it.
My wife prepares traditional Jewish dishes, they are very tasty; she is a very good cook. Usually, the traditional Jewish dish for Passover is chicken soup with potato dishes, all sorts of potato dishes. For instance: you mix mashed potatoes with raw eggs, fried onion, spices and you make some small breads; or you take boiled potatoes and pass them through the mincing machine: you mash the potatoes into a paste, mix them with eggs, pepper or other spices to suit your taste, place them on a rather large square tray – naturally, you oil the tray beforehand, using grease, oil – put it in the oven, bake it and slice it in squares. It tastes exquisitely.
For the matzah, the unleavened bread for Passover, there is also flour. When they sell matzah, they also sell flour. The matzah is dough that has no ingredients in it, for it is made from plain quality flour and water, which is then passed through a machine that gives it this indented shape, and is then baked in a special oven used on Passover. And after this is done, it is then ground into powder at home using a coffee grinder – until it has the consistency of flour. Well, you can make very tasty dishes from this, sweet or spicy, you mix it with eggs, sugar, you can make all sorts of very tasty sweets from it.
My wife also observes the holiday of Yom Kippur – when people fast – she fasts together with me, so as not to stir my appetite. I would tell her: ‘Listen, you go ahead and eat. Alright, you don’t want to eat, but have a cup of tea, nibble some sweets, anything, until I am done fasting.’ For I go to the synagogue in the morning and return late from the holiday celebration, at around six or seven in the evening. She says: ‘No, how come? Can’t I fast for a whole day? God will be happy, my God as well, for it is with Him in mind that I fast, God is One and the Same.’ And we have no issues regarding this.
When there are celebrations open to the public she comes and attends the service at the synagogue as well, she is an official member of the community, she is registered there. The same goes for me, I accompany her when she goes to church, at a funeral service, at the Resurrection ceremony, at such events. I accompany her so that she doesn’t go alone, there is no harm in it, neither for me, nor for her.
I also observe the Christian Easter and Christmas holidays. On Christmas, my brother and his family would call on us, spend time with us, eat with us. And the little nieces – they sang beautifully – performed a sort of a program. We placed presents, boxes for them under the Christmas tree and they kept peeking at the presents under the Christmas tree, they didn’t know for whom the parcels were, they didn’t know which was whose, who would receive it. And after that we gave them presents – well, they are grown-ups now.
When there are celebrations open to the public she comes and attends the service at the synagogue as well, she is an official member of the community, she is registered there. The same goes for me, I accompany her when she goes to church, at a funeral service, at the Resurrection ceremony, at such events. I accompany her so that she doesn’t go alone, there is no harm in it, neither for me, nor for her.
I also observe the Christian Easter and Christmas holidays. On Christmas, my brother and his family would call on us, spend time with us, eat with us. And the little nieces – they sang beautifully – performed a sort of a program. We placed presents, boxes for them under the Christmas tree and they kept peeking at the presents under the Christmas tree, they didn’t know for whom the parcels were, they didn’t know which was whose, who would receive it. And after that we gave them presents – well, they are grown-ups now.
I married in the meantime. I met my wife-to-be at the workplace. I married late in life, in keeping with the family tradition. I married in 1972, I was 35 by then, after a long, long friendship with my wife. My wife, Aurelia, is a Christian and her family frowned upon this friendship. And, in order not to upset her parents – she is a very kind-hearted woman, she is warm-hearted, she wouldn’t hurt a fly – she kept saying: ‘Never mind, there’s no need to rush. Never mind, we don’t need a piece of paper, no one is going to ask us for an account number.’ We were more modern by then, we weren’t particularly anxious to get married, things like those. It is more difficult with elderly people – her parents were older: one has certain notions and ideas which aren’t that easy to discard from one’s subconscious. And we said: ‘Come, let’s wait some more, let’s not do this just yet.’ We didn’t live together, but I used to go over to their place, she would come to ours, it was a known fact…
Eventually, we decided to get married. We saw the years pass by, and our friendship had strengthened too much. We were only married at the registrar’s office, and we threw a party at home for family and friends. And the bride spent around three to four days preparing this party. There were almost 30 people present: relatives, my brother, my wife’s brother, friends, colleagues. And many children would gather: my brother had three children, my wife’s brother had two, there were friends who also had children. We had a neighbor here, a woman who had a little boy – and almost all of them were of the same age. We had no children of our own.
Eventually, we decided to get married. We saw the years pass by, and our friendship had strengthened too much. We were only married at the registrar’s office, and we threw a party at home for family and friends. And the bride spent around three to four days preparing this party. There were almost 30 people present: relatives, my brother, my wife’s brother, friends, colleagues. And many children would gather: my brother had three children, my wife’s brother had two, there were friends who also had children. We had a neighbor here, a woman who had a little boy – and almost all of them were of the same age. We had no children of our own.
I worked in Saveni and then moved to Botosani in 1961. I’ve been working here ever since.
I am an economist by trade; I worked as an economist in various industrial units. I worked for a commercial unit for selling food products, after which I was head accountant for an industrial unit for collecting raw material for the light industry. I worked there until 1998, and from 1998 I worked for the Public Finances Division, I was a specialty inspector until 1999. I retired in 1999 and I am now a young pensioner aged 69.
I am an economist by trade; I worked as an economist in various industrial units. I worked for a commercial unit for selling food products, after which I was head accountant for an industrial unit for collecting raw material for the light industry. I worked there until 1998, and from 1998 I worked for the Public Finances Division, I was a specialty inspector until 1999. I retired in 1999 and I am now a young pensioner aged 69.
After completing my military service I attended university. I went to college in Iasi, under the optional attendance system, for four years. I worked for and studied at the Faculty of Accounting simultaneously.
I did my military service in many places, among them Craiova, where I also had my photograph taken. My military service lasted two years, from 1957 to 1959. At first I was a private, but in the meantime I attended a school for sergeants and thus I became a corporal – corporals belong to the sergeants’ corps.
After graduation, I worked for two years as an accountant in Saveni, from 1955 to 1957, at an agricultural machine and tractor station. My father worked there as an accountant as well and, since he worked there, I ended up working there as well.
My modernist, present-day story has nothing special about it. I attended the first grade in Dorohoi and the following seven grades in Saveni – from the 2nd to the 7th grade. After that [after the fall of 1951] I came to Botosani, sat for a matriculation exam for the Commercial High School – back then it was called Middle School for Statistics – and graduated from the Commercial High School. It was like this: 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th grade. There were four years of studies. During my studies in Botosani I lived in the hostel for pupils, and so did my brother. He graduated from the same school as I did. I graduated from high school in 1955.
We lived in Saveni until 1961 and afterwards we all moved here, to Botosani. During our stay in Botosani, my father was employed by the community as administrator of the ritual restaurant [the Jewish Community canteen in Botosani] for a few years, until his death. He died of a heart attack in 1975.
In the meantime we had moved to a new house, also rented from someone. Back then, buying a house was out of the question as it was impossible for certain social categories. We belonged to one of these categories. Even if my father was apprenticed to a trader, he had no calling for making money. He needed to turn an honest penny so that he could feed his wife and children; my mother didn’t work, she couldn’t find a job, that is – she used to sew for various people, mending this and that. We had no garden, as we lived right in the so-called urbanized area of the town, where there were no gardens. We had a small courtyard in the back of the house where there was a toilet and a small lumber-room and a clothes line for leaving some laundry out to dry.
We lived in Saveni until 1961 and afterwards we all moved here, to Botosani.
We lived in Saveni until 1961 and afterwards we all moved here, to Botosani.
It was around 1950-1951 – we were living in Saveni then – that my parents wanted to immigrate to Israel, but in the end they gave up this undertaking because my father’s relatives – he had three sisters – didn’t want to leave anymore, they hadn’t made up their mind. And then my father said: ‘If my sisters aren’t leaving, neither am I.’ And it was decided. Later on, they left and stayed here. They each left one by one, but we didn’t leave after all.
My father started performing my grandfather’s trade: that of a blacksmith. He became partner with someone – a Christian – living there, in the city, as well, who had the necessary tools, for you need tools for it, and they worked together as blacksmiths in Saveni. And that’s how life went on. I kept going to school, then my brother started going to school as well. After a while that man closed his business, left Saveni altogether, he took his tools, took everything and left. And my father stopped practicing this trade, too, because he needed to acquire tools, which was difficult, as he had no money. And even though he had only finished four grades, he had a very beautiful handwriting from the time he had worked as a shop assistant and he had to calculate, measure, write prices. So he was hired as a town hall clerk in Saveni. After working as a clerk for a facility for agricultural mechanization, he became an accountant – for he also learned accountancy in the meantime.
Afterwards, we returned to Saveni in 1946. We still had no house there – the grandparents’ house was destroyed, there was only an empty plot of land. My father rented a room somewhere that you entered and exited through the window. Someone else lived there, a single, elderly lady. It was one of those houses that have two entrances, one in the front and one in the back, and the rooms are placed like in a train carriage, without separate entrances.
We were given the room in the back, the last one, which had no separate door, and we had to walk across her room to enter ours. From the room in the back you entered the one in the middle, the middle room opened onto a hallway leading into the courtyard on one side and into the street on the other. And we had no choice but to walk across that lady’s room if we wanted to go out either through the front or through the back.
We, the children, ran about the place all day long: out of the house – into the house, outside the house. You can’t keep children inside the house all day long; we went out from time to time. And this was a very, very old lady. In the end, the problem was solved by building two or three steps in front of the window, and that’s how we went out of the room: through the window. We lived there for a while.
We were given the room in the back, the last one, which had no separate door, and we had to walk across her room to enter ours. From the room in the back you entered the one in the middle, the middle room opened onto a hallway leading into the courtyard on one side and into the street on the other. And we had no choice but to walk across that lady’s room if we wanted to go out either through the front or through the back.
We, the children, ran about the place all day long: out of the house – into the house, outside the house. You can’t keep children inside the house all day long; we went out from time to time. And this was a very, very old lady. In the end, the problem was solved by building two or three steps in front of the window, and that’s how we went out of the room: through the window. We lived there for a while.
The houses of our grandparents in Saveni had been destroyed, and our parents’ house in Hanesti wasn’t their private property. Besides, they could find no work in the village during those days after the war, so we stayed in Dorohoi. They rented a house somewhere and we moved there: our mother, our father and the two of us.
My father started working together with three brothers-in-law – with the husbands of my mother’s sisters, that is. They formed a team and they chopped wood for the winter for the households in the town of Dorohoi. And we got by like this until my father managed to gather some money and, as he was born and raised in this area where people had horses and carts, he bought two young horses, two rather young colts – they were cheap back then because people had no use for them – and he started carting goods for a living. He transported all sorts of goods, he transported grains to the mill – as they did in those days; they used to grind this and that at the mill – somebody would move… and that’s how we stayed in Dorohoi until 1945.
My father started working together with three brothers-in-law – with the husbands of my mother’s sisters, that is. They formed a team and they chopped wood for the winter for the households in the town of Dorohoi. And we got by like this until my father managed to gather some money and, as he was born and raised in this area where people had horses and carts, he bought two young horses, two rather young colts – they were cheap back then because people had no use for them – and he started carting goods for a living. He transported all sorts of goods, he transported grains to the mill – as they did in those days; they used to grind this and that at the mill – somebody would move… and that’s how we stayed in Dorohoi until 1945.
Then my father returned home. It was about March 1944, for some time passed between the closing of the construction site and their arrival back home. Certain areas were already occupied by the Russians, so they stayed in train stations, cities, I don’t know where. They brought him to Dorohoi as well, and he found out that we were there, because people asked around, the odd postcard would reach them; it was known that the Jews from Saveni had been brought to Dorohoi.
We went through some very hard times after we arrived in Dorohoi; my father still hadn’t returned from the concentration camp, he was still working in Transnistria. They allotted us a house belonging to a citizen who had left when the Germans started retreating. Some of the inhabitants had left the city, probably those who feared communism, I presume, or some thing or other. It was in one of these houses that they put us. Well, we had better accommodation here. It was a house in which there were still beds and the things the owner couldn’t sell or take with him. But the problem was that nobody would give you any food. And we were many: my mother and us, her two remaining children, together with her three sisters and her brother. In the end, the solution was that we, the children, were sent to an orphanage in Dorohoi, destined especially for the children who returned without their parents – whose parents had died in Transnistria. We stayed in that orphanage for a year.
My mother started sewing odds and ends. Those were very hard times – as is to be expected after a war – and nobody had any money back then, nobody sewed clothes for themselves anymore. Who could think about making clothes for themselves in those days? Well, little by little, that’s how we managed to get by.
My mother started sewing odds and ends. Those were very hard times – as is to be expected after a war – and nobody had any money back then, nobody sewed clothes for themselves anymore. Who could think about making clothes for themselves in those days? Well, little by little, that’s how we managed to get by.
We left once more aboard a freight car, with no toilet, no anything – as these trains are. We arrived at the train station in Dorohoi. I remember it was here that I had the finest cup of tea in the whole world and I have never had one like it to this day, in the Dorohoi train station – for it was there that we were welcomed by the Jewish Community of Dorohoi. There were still Jews living in Dorohoi – it was a town larger than Saveni – and there was a mobile kitchen there where they prepared sweetened hot tea. Sweets were a rarity in those days, and I remember that when they gave us a cup of that tea it was as if seeing a miracle, especially for us, children, that’s how it was. In December 1943 we arrived at the Dorohoi train station and they left us there. And the family settled in Dorohoi: my mother, her three sisters and her brother.
The Jewish Community in Bucharest had organized a system for help and support; they collected what they could from Jews living in Bucharest and the southern regions where the deportations had not been that massive. And they would send us help: some food, what they could manage to find, some money was given to people. And that’s how we managed to survive until we left that place.
In the meantime, my father had reached the area we were in. The building site he was working on had moved across the river Bug. The river Bug separated the site where they were building the roads from Moghilev, where their families were, the women, the elderly, the children. And usually they gathered on the riverbanks on Sunday, when they weren’t working. The men would come looking for their families. The river Bug is rather large, but if they yelled loud enough and waved their arms, they could recognize one another. And that’s how my father managed to spot my mother. Well then, that’s when my mother learned that my father was alive and that he was in that area, and my father learned that she and we were alive. And from his food ration, from what he received – they gave them a food ration at work – he would send us a little, too: a loaf of bread, a few lumps of sugar. He would send us something every now and then, through soldiers who were more charitable, or even through people living there traveling on various business; they would take a few parcels and drop them off [on the opposite riverbank for those who were waiting for them].
We, the older ones – my brother and I – were fortunate to have one of our mother’s brothers, Sulim, who wasn’t drafted for work, he was rather old. He had worked there in a mobile kitchen for Romanian soldiers. He did chores such as disposing of the slops and the like. And we were able to subsist with whatever he could bring us from there, scraps and leftovers. It goes without saying that hygiene was completely out of the question. There was no water, neither running water, nor a fountain – fountains had been destroyed during the bombing. There was the river Bug, and people brought water from there, a bucket or two, to wash with. It was a long distance away, but they brought water. Well, diseases broke out because of the squalor and starvation: typhus, the like. Those who were older and weaker fell ill. My father’s parents and my mother’s parents fell ill and shortly afterwards – deprived of any medical assistance – they died. Only my mother was left and us, two children. Well, this lasted until 1943.
And this little sister of ours died at some point. She starved to death. My mother had no milk to breast-feed her anymore. I have a macabre memory of my sister’s death. There was a place where the dead were buried, a common burial ground. There was always activity there, since they always carried away those who were found dead in the morning. A few persons would come, place the dead on a stretcher and carry them away.
I remember my mother tormented herself with the thought of placing my little sister there on the pile for them to carry her away on that stretcher. And I remember there was something in the shape of a wooden box, my sister being such a little girl – she was nine months old – I know that my mother put her in that small wooden box and covered her with a piece of cloth. That’s what I remembered as a child, when I had no knowledge of coffins, I was innocent in all things. At least my mother had the notion of placing her in a coffin, not just simply have her taken away and thrown on the pile. This is the memory I have of it. At the age when you have your first memories, the earliest impressions on your memory, these things out of the ordinary remain with you… it’s not as if they happen every day as regular play.
There were no funerals performed, ten men would gather together – as is our custom – and perform a Jewish religious ceremony, which is very short, it lasts five minutes: they say a prayer in the memory of the deceased. And afterwards it was taken to a common burial ground, somewhere. I didn’t go to the common burial ground, as my mother didn’t let me. She went there with the dead baby, and we stayed with Aunt Ruhla, my mother’s sister. Whenever my mother had things to take care of, our mother’s sister looked after us.
I remember my mother tormented herself with the thought of placing my little sister there on the pile for them to carry her away on that stretcher. And I remember there was something in the shape of a wooden box, my sister being such a little girl – she was nine months old – I know that my mother put her in that small wooden box and covered her with a piece of cloth. That’s what I remembered as a child, when I had no knowledge of coffins, I was innocent in all things. At least my mother had the notion of placing her in a coffin, not just simply have her taken away and thrown on the pile. This is the memory I have of it. At the age when you have your first memories, the earliest impressions on your memory, these things out of the ordinary remain with you… it’s not as if they happen every day as regular play.
There were no funerals performed, ten men would gather together – as is our custom – and perform a Jewish religious ceremony, which is very short, it lasts five minutes: they say a prayer in the memory of the deceased. And afterwards it was taken to a common burial ground, somewhere. I didn’t go to the common burial ground, as my mother didn’t let me. She went there with the dead baby, and we stayed with Aunt Ruhla, my mother’s sister. Whenever my mother had things to take care of, our mother’s sister looked after us.
There they left us in a neighborhood that had been bombed during the fighting. And there was a sort of a large storage facility there, a large warehouse, a cereal warehouse as they used in those days. People were taken to different places. We ended up in this large warehouse, where there were many of the people living in Saveni and the neighboring villages, who had been previously taken to Saveni – for there were Jewish people living in all the neighboring villages. I was just a child, I couldn’t put forward an estimate about how many persons were in this warehouse, but I do know there were many families from Saveni, from where we had left.
My mother had a younger sister, Ruhla, and she would leave us in her care whenever she went to get some food, do some work. And I only accepted to be held by this aunt of mine. She had business of her own to take care of – she too had to get something, I forget what – and she left us alone there, she asked other people to see to it that we didn’t go outside – because she was afraid someone would take us away, kill us. And I would scream until she returned: ‘Aunt Ruhala! Aunt Ruhala!’ As soon as she returned, I would jump in her arms and she couldn’t do anything anymore, while I was gripping her and dangling in her arms. It was probably because of the whole situation, too: I was scared, apprehensive. I remember that afterwards, when we returned, I would come across people here, in Botosani, where I went to high school, and hear them in the street: ‘Aunt Ruhala!’ ‘But Sir, I do not know you!’ ‘Well, I know you. Weren’t you the one standing there yelling <<Aunt Ruhala!>> and didn’t let us sleep?’ Of course, I did not know these people anymore, but they were grown-ups then [when we were in Transnistria]. That’s why I know that very many people were there.
Well, there was straw there, and they told the people: ‘Gather straw, everybody, here in the corner, make yourselves a place to sleep on, cover it with whatever you have can – a blanket, a bed-sheet – and that will be your spot. You are only allowed to go out only up that point’ – they told us up to what point we were allowed to go out in the confines of that neighborhood. So, we settled there. We stayed there the whole time [until we returned home].
They didn’t give us food. Some people who had no children or obligations had brought along more things: clothing, bed-sheets, this and that. Others had wedding rings, some rings, some jewelry. They traded with the peasants: for a wedding ring, they received in exchange a few kilograms of flour, potatoes. And so, little by little, people – including our family, both my mother and grandparents – gave everything they had on them. They kept only the suit of clothes they were wearing, which they couldn’t part with. And thus they would buy an extra half a kilogram of flour. Some people were even scavenging the trash, where the inhabitants of Moghilev dumped their trash, in search of potato scraps and other kinds of leftovers.
My mother had a hard time in this respect, because she had a little baby she had to breast-feed. She couldn’t produce any milk, she needed to eat more nutritious food in order to have milk. She couldn’t even work because she had a little baby. Some people used to go and do some work for the peasants living around Moghilev, they helped them herd sheep and cattle, animals in general.
My mother had a younger sister, Ruhla, and she would leave us in her care whenever she went to get some food, do some work. And I only accepted to be held by this aunt of mine. She had business of her own to take care of – she too had to get something, I forget what – and she left us alone there, she asked other people to see to it that we didn’t go outside – because she was afraid someone would take us away, kill us. And I would scream until she returned: ‘Aunt Ruhala! Aunt Ruhala!’ As soon as she returned, I would jump in her arms and she couldn’t do anything anymore, while I was gripping her and dangling in her arms. It was probably because of the whole situation, too: I was scared, apprehensive. I remember that afterwards, when we returned, I would come across people here, in Botosani, where I went to high school, and hear them in the street: ‘Aunt Ruhala!’ ‘But Sir, I do not know you!’ ‘Well, I know you. Weren’t you the one standing there yelling <<Aunt Ruhala!>> and didn’t let us sleep?’ Of course, I did not know these people anymore, but they were grown-ups then [when we were in Transnistria]. That’s why I know that very many people were there.
Well, there was straw there, and they told the people: ‘Gather straw, everybody, here in the corner, make yourselves a place to sleep on, cover it with whatever you have can – a blanket, a bed-sheet – and that will be your spot. You are only allowed to go out only up that point’ – they told us up to what point we were allowed to go out in the confines of that neighborhood. So, we settled there. We stayed there the whole time [until we returned home].
They didn’t give us food. Some people who had no children or obligations had brought along more things: clothing, bed-sheets, this and that. Others had wedding rings, some rings, some jewelry. They traded with the peasants: for a wedding ring, they received in exchange a few kilograms of flour, potatoes. And so, little by little, people – including our family, both my mother and grandparents – gave everything they had on them. They kept only the suit of clothes they were wearing, which they couldn’t part with. And thus they would buy an extra half a kilogram of flour. Some people were even scavenging the trash, where the inhabitants of Moghilev dumped their trash, in search of potato scraps and other kinds of leftovers.
My mother had a hard time in this respect, because she had a little baby she had to breast-feed. She couldn’t produce any milk, she needed to eat more nutritious food in order to have milk. She couldn’t even work because she had a little baby. Some people used to go and do some work for the peasants living around Moghilev, they helped them herd sheep and cattle, animals in general.
In November, both my father’s and my mother’s parents received a written order to be somewhere in the city of Saveni in 24 hours with what hand luggage they could carry. And what could my mother carry? She had a two-year-old baby, I was four, and a baby girl only a few months old. So my mother carried the baby girl in her arms, while my father’s and mother’s parents were holding my hand. And what could my grandparents carry back then? They certainly weren’t young anymore – if my father was 27, my grandparents were around 50-55 years old. [The grandparents on the father’s side were 58 and 59, respectively, while the grandparents on the mother’s side were 71.]
They told us they were taking us somewhere where they could put us together as we couldn’t live in those areas anymore, since there were too many Jews there, the village was no place for Jews to be living in. Well now, they didn’t offer too many explanations, for they had called the army to handle this. And they took us by cart to the nearest train station. These carts had been rented by the local Town Hall. Whether my parents paid for them or not, I couldn’t tell. When we arrived at the first train station – there is a train station some 10 km away from Saveni, it is called Ungureni – they put us aboard freight cars and took us to Transnistria. They took us by train to Moghilev [3]. Everybody ate whatever food they managed to grab when they left their homes – for they had told people to take food to last them three days. We weren’t given any food whatsoever on the train. It just kept moving on – it stopped, then started moving again, depending on how they needed to switch tracks.
They told us they were taking us somewhere where they could put us together as we couldn’t live in those areas anymore, since there were too many Jews there, the village was no place for Jews to be living in. Well now, they didn’t offer too many explanations, for they had called the army to handle this. And they took us by cart to the nearest train station. These carts had been rented by the local Town Hall. Whether my parents paid for them or not, I couldn’t tell. When we arrived at the first train station – there is a train station some 10 km away from Saveni, it is called Ungureni – they put us aboard freight cars and took us to Transnistria. They took us by train to Moghilev [3]. Everybody ate whatever food they managed to grab when they left their homes – for they had told people to take food to last them three days. We weren’t given any food whatsoever on the train. It just kept moving on – it stopped, then started moving again, depending on how they needed to switch tracks.