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Displaying 45541 - 45570 of 50826 results
Leizer Finchelstein
My friends lived in the same neighborhood as me, we were all apprentices. On Saturday I would go out with them for a stroll or to the cinema. Later, as we grew up, girls started to accompany us during our strolls through the city. We strolled down Lapusneanu St. We spent our childhood in the neighborhood where we lived. We were all like the newly hatched chickens of a hen. Especially since there was some anti-Jewish hatred in the air, and we avoided leaving our neighborhood and being in the center of their attention. In fact, the first time that I traveled outside of Iasi was on the death train during the pogrom of June 1941.
Romania
Afterwards, all my brothers entered various trades, except for a brother who worked as a store clerk, and my eldest brother who was an accountant, he worked as a buchholter [Yiddish: accountant]. He also graduated a few grades under the evening studies system, he was basically the only brother who didn’t enter an actual trade. Two of my sisters worked as dressmakers, and the third worked as a hatter, she made peaked caps.
Romania
The rest of my brothers attended a Romanian school as well, only my youngest brother studied at “Junimea,” a Jewish school, as this was happening during the period when Jews were no longer allowed to attend Romanian schools.
Romania
I continued to work as a carpenter after I finished my apprenticeship. I enjoyed very much what I was doing, working with wood. I brought joy to all the people I worked for. Whenever I built something in people’s homes, I could feel their joy, regardless of whether it was an apartment door or a piece of furniture.
Romania
Otherwise, we were absorbed by our work, by the apprenticeship. You had to clean the employer’s shop, go to the market with the employer’s wife, carry her basket. Besides, the employer wasn’t forgiving at all. He said that he didn’t employ you only so that you could learn the trade, he had to gain certain benefits from this. I worked for 10-12 hours on end, sometimes even 14, depending on how much work there was to be done. They all wanted to hire you as much as possible during the season when there was work to be done. It was fortunate that Jews observe the Sabbath, which was indeed free, otherwise I think we would have had to work even on that day. We could enjoy the Sabbath.
However, I did attend a few grades under the evening studies system during the socialist period, but I always read very much.
I remember how my primary school teacher asked me to bring wooden rulers to school, as I was apprenticed to a carpenter. On other occasions, together with other classmates, I brought firewood to school in order to heat up the stove. Times were hard. Our teacher was harsh, we were administered 10 rulers across the palm of our hand if our fingernails weren’t clipped, our hands were unwashed, or if we didn’t do our homework assignments. That’s how it was in those days. Be that as it may, despite the fact that he was a harsh teacher and punished me with many rulers across the palm of my hand, I remained grateful to him for passing on to us elementary knowledge to help us start our life.
Although it was a Romanian school, most of the pupils were Jewish as the school was located in the Jewish quarter. I remember that when the priest came to teach religion classes, we weren’t obliged to attend. I graduated school around 1933-1934. After that, I only worked, I didn’t go to school anymore.
Although it was a Romanian school, most of the pupils were Jewish as the school was located in the Jewish quarter. I remember that when the priest came to teach religion classes, we weren’t obliged to attend. I graduated school around 1933-1934. After that, I only worked, I didn’t go to school anymore.
Because the work system before the war, especially in our Jewish neighborhoods, didn’t allow you to allot too much time to reading. I worked in a workshop from morning till evening. You lived in an environment where you couldn’t develop. That’s why, when I secured a job with the CFR [Caile Ferate Romane (Romanian National Railways), the national railway transport company], I felt how my life brightened up. It was a different kind of work, different people, I had to deal with engineers, architects and you had to read willy-nilly, get some further training in order to keep the pace. But prior to that you worked in a workshop with rather backward people.
However, very many adventure installments were published in those days, and we, the children, were eager to read them. I recall an interesting children’s magazine, it was called “The Doxa Submarine.
Nowadays, we spend the holidays at the Community where we are invited to go; that’s where we meet some of our acquaintances. There is nothing else left for us. Our house was either full, in the past, or empty, at present. I think we are now the only Jews left in this entire neighborhood [Podu Ros]. But we are on very good terms with all the neighbors in our block of flats. I did a bit of handiwork for all of them. Whenever someone moved in, they had work to be done: whether the windows didn’t shut properly, or the wardrobe didn’t fit through the door. It had to be taken apart and reassembled inside the apartment. The neighbors aren’t the same as of yore, either. But our friendship wasn’t the same as it would have been with Jewish neighbors. The latter knew even where the front door key was. It was a different kind of relationship. My wife gave advice to little girls, how to dress, how to wash. Whenever we go to Israel, we meet these children of our former neighbors, and they welcome us as if we were their own parents. Although God didn’t give us the blessing of having children, we have these children of our former neighbors, but our nephews as well.
Romania
The Jewish Community was organized only later on. Certainly, the Community as an institution existed before the war as well, but I’m referring to the period when it was modernized. This happened in Iasi in the 1960’s-1970’s under the presidency of pharmacist Simion Caufman. A social care service was organized then, there was a choir for young people, and many other things. That’s when Joint [20] aid started to arrive; we benefited from it and still do to this day. We are nowadays assisted by the Community and we benefit from free medical care; we also receive certain food parcels when they are distributed. So we thank God that we are thus able to get by.
But we are pleased now, we live in cleanliness, we have everything we require. All we need is good health, nothing else. I am very glad when I receive my retirement pay, especially since our forerunners didn’t even know what retirement pay meant. Small as it is, you can’t imagine how welcome it is when the month is over and the postman knocks on your door. I must admit that I also received a strong support from my brothers who settled abroad. Whenever I visited them, I never returned empty-handed. I can say that I haven’t bought clothing in the last 20 years or more. I received all my clothes from them along with other gifts; we even received money from them, they never deserted us in times of need.
But I don’t know what the Revolution truly brought in our lives. Especially since after the Revolution I saw again these anti-Semite newspapers being published, such as Porunca Vremii [The Time’s Commandment] or Sfarma Piatra [Break-Stone], which I was familiar with from before the war. Although one couldn’t say that anti-Semitism was eradicated during the socialist period, it was somewhat illegal. One couldn’t publish such articles in newspapers. After the Revolution, all anti-Semite proponents could write whatever they wanted. For me, as a simple human being, this change didn’t seem too good. Perhaps it was also because of my old age, when you’re young you are tempted by many things and have different kinds of needs. This transition stage arrived for us at a time when we were already too old to change our way of life.
Romania
We weren’t in Romania when the Revolution took place [19], we were in Israel. We had left as tourists and we stayed there for six months as we couldn’t return home, and no airplanes were flying to Romania in the beginning, either. We left for Israel before Christmas, in November, and the Revolution broke out in December 1989. And we returned in March. So we didn’t experience the days when the Revolution took place.
Israel
My wife lit candles on Friday evening, blessed the Sabbath and prayed for the health and well-being of our family. The soup we ate on Friday and Saturday evening always had a special taste. On Saturday we spread a clean tablecloth over the table, everything had to look as it should on a holiday. Saturday was a day for resting, but that was until the communist period when I started working for the CFR. One couldn’t observe the holiday on Saturday and I worked on Saturday as well. You had to somehow turn Sunday into a day for resting, but it didn’t resemble Saturdays.
Likewise, we tried to observe the Sabbath as much as we could: we ate soup, and as long as there was a shochet, we took the fowl there to be slaughtered according to the ritual. There was a shochet in Iasi until around 1975-1980, then somebody from neighboring towns would come about once a month. People brought fowls to the Community so that the shochet could perform the ritual slaughter. You paid a small amount of money for this service.
I always fasted on Yom Kippur, although I am not a religious fanatic.
Romania
I can say that I never ate bread on Pesach, even though I am a heavy bread-eater. I was used since childhood to eat a lot of bread; in a home with so many children, bread was the main food. And there was also a saying in Jewish homes with many children: ‘Eat a small piece of meat and a large piece of bread.’ And despite all that, it’s as if I don’t even know what bread is during the 8 days of Pesach. I ate with my colleagues at work. I ate unleavened bread, they ate normal bread. To this day, my wife still prepares the Pesach observing the traditions she learned at home, from her parents.
I observed holiday traditions after the war as well.
After the war, we continued to maintain friendship relations mostly with Jews; I had Christian co-workers and we got along very well, but we didn’t really go out together.
I traveled abroad during Communism, but only to Israel. I managed to travel there approximately 18 times as a tourist. I was among the few tourists who were on the first airplane after tourism with Israel was resumed in 1969. My parents had already left to Israel some 18 years earlier. I only saw my father over there. I didn’t get to see my mother anymore, she had already died. And since then, I left every 2, 3 years, for that’s how it was in those days. If you had a passport, you were allowed to travel abroad once every 2 or 3 years [18]. Certainly, that is if you had “good grades” [with regard to the check performed by the Securitate]. Otherwise, you weren’t issued a passport.
Progress was everywhere. Radio appeared and it was a great wonder. I was still living in the Targu Cucului neighborhood when I bought this radio equipped with a record player, and the entire courtyard gathered together whenever I turned on the record player and especially when I played certain records. These were songs from the soundtrack for The Tramp [Ed. note: The movie referred to is “Awara,” with the English title “The Tramp,” directed by Raj Kapoor. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043306/] and many other songs whose tune everyone hummed. We managed to buy a television set later on. We were among the first people in the neighborhood to own a television set, and when we turned it on, people sat on the floor, I had no place left to seat my neighbors. We had 2 rooms separated by a door. The television set was in the back of the rooms and people sat on small chairs from in front of the television set all the way to the front door. And there were some 30 people inside the house, all of them friends of ours. That was around 1956 when the Romanian Television first started broadcasting. Nobody dreamed in those days about remote controlled color television sets, computers, the Internet and so on.
Yet what I admired about this socialist system was the obligation to go to school [17]. Previously, education wasn’t compulsory. If your parents wanted to send you to school, they did so, if not, they didn’t. When the war was over, after August 23, almost 50% of the general population was illiterate.
To receive an apartment, you had to file a request at your industrial unit workplace. The industrial unit was then allotted by the Popular Council [Ed. note: the socialist equivalent of the city hall; local state authority in a given administrative-territorial unit] a certain number of apartments. A waiting list was drawn and, depending on each family’s situation, you were appointed one such apartment if a family with many members lived in a very small space or if you received special merits at your workplace. Based on this distribution, the one who received an apartment signed a leasing contract with the Popular Council, for these apartments were owned by the state. Starting with 1972, there was the possibility of also contracting such an apartment from COCRU [the County Office for Constructions and Residence Utilization]. You were communicated an estimate value of the apartment and, depending on that, you could secure a down payment or a loan from the BSC [Bank for Savings and Consignments] in order to pay the first payment or to secure a loan reimbursable in 25 years. That’s how you became the owner of an apartment. However, very many people rented these apartments, just as we did.
After August 23, many people were given apartments in blocks of flats. They were fitted with a bathroom, central heating and electricity. People’s lives changed. When we were given the apartment, I can say that I kissed its walls. One couldn’t even compare it to our home located on Conductelor St. Formerly all of us, our parents, 9 siblings, 6 brothers and 3 sisters, lived in 2 rooms and a kitchen which were rented, in fact. We slept 3 people in 1 bed, there was no electricity, no running water, the toilets were outside in the courtyard, and we shared the courtyard with 14 other tenants. Now, everything was new, the house was very clean, the windows were wiped, everything was very bright, the conditions were very good, even though the apartment that we received was located on the top floor of the building, on the 4th floor, that is. I remember that some television crews came there when these blocks of flats were given to people. The blocks of flats had been designed by students for their diploma paper.
Romania
We had electricity only after August 23, so that moment represented a great change for us, in the sense that the majority of the people living in the suburbs secured a job, had to wash and clothe themselves. We weren’t rich, but there were people who were poorer than us. Some poor people had nothing whatsoever, no clothes and no means to keep themselves warm, and they were in dire straits.
You, who live today, didn’t get to experience unemployment, especially in the field of constructions before 23rd August [1944] [before World War II], winter was a dead season. Nobody could find any work. And we were forced to work 12-14 hours a day during summer so that we could save some money. There was no child support offered by the state in those days, no unemployment indemnity, no retirement pay, nothing. You didn’t have a job, you were a dead man. All the more so since you had to gather wood for the winter, for there was no central heating, no running water, no electricity. I learned my trade by the light of the gas lamp.
Given the fact that I was a working-class man, I wasn’t affected by all the socialist restrictions that affected the rich or those who had properties which were nationalized [16]. I had nothing that they could take from me. I worked during the previous regime, I worked just as well during the newly-instated regime of those days. I worked the same trade as before and I focused on my work, and at first it seemed that things had changed for the better, as you were guaranteed a workplace.
After 23rd August [1944], we, Jews, felt human again, for we were considered to be worthless during the Holocaust period. Especially since I had the misfortune to be on the “death trains,” and then in a concentration camp. When the gates were opened and those who guarded us vanished, we couldn’t believe that we could go out of there once more, that we were free, so to speak. And I hoped that it would get better, that a better world would emerge, but people are still evil and they are becoming more evil still, more selfish.
Romania