We took part in the parades during communism, in fact we had to take part. They were organized on November 7, the commemoration of the soviet revolution, August 23 and on other occasions. I took part as a simple worker, I was neither in the first ranks, nor did I carry slogan banners. I was merely present, I had to attend. On many occasions you had to sign an attendance book to force you to be present. We had a holiday on May 1, we went for picnics in the woods.
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Leizer Finchelstein
In the beginning, we somewhat thought that socialism will be better for Jews because there no longer was that difference of religions. And the initial propaganda itself pleaded for a good understanding among people regardless of nationality or ethnic origin. Everyone was considered as human beings. But after a while everything deteriorated, this happened around 1975. The anti-Semitic propaganda was resumed again and we realized that it was a utopia.
I haven’t been a member of the Communist party, nor did I wish to become one. And I couldn’t have become a party member, either, on the grounds that my brothers were living abroad; I was a mere trade union member, I paid my due contribution on time and that was as involved as I ever was in politics. Instead, I can say I was one of the best workers, there was no trade union event or distribution of vacation tickets without my being on the list, even if I was Jewish.
In any case, we wanted to leave to Israel. And we prepared for the departure and for 5 years they tormented us and repeatedly rejected our request. My neighbor was patient and kept addressing complaints, after 8 years she was granted permission to leave. But we stopped trying after 5 years, we lost patience writing addresses. The emigration requests were filed at the county Militia, there was a standard form to which you had to attach some photographs. If the request was accepted, you went to the Israeli Embassy where the emigration department offered you transportation money. However, our requests were never accepted. Most of those who filed the requests in the beginning of the 1950’s received negative replies. There was a big emigration wave in 1962, but we had given up trying to get our paperwork accepted. During these 5 years of waiting to leave, we worked and prepared ourselves and we gathered only things that we could take with us: bed linen, silverware. And finally, we said: ‘That’s enough, we can’t live like beggars anymore.’ And we started arranging our home.
And I can say that my parents left to Israel without ever going to the mountains or at the seaside in Romania. They saw the sea when they left by boat to Israel. We went at the seaside through the trade union. And when I saw the sea for the first time, it was a miracle for me to behold this immensity about which I had learned this and that during primary school; but I had never seen it with my own eyes until then. And after that we started to go on holidays every year, and we always had a very good time.
Romania
In 1951 I traveled to Sinaia through the intermediary of CFR with my wife on our first holiday together. It was a novelty for us. We had heard of Sinaia, Mamaia, Tataia [Ed. note: Tataia (fam. Romanian for “grandfather”) is not an actual existing locality, but Mr. Finchelstein uses it as a play on words.] or other resorts that, in those days, we never thought of ever seeing.
I worked for CFR until my retirement in 1983. I was on very terms with my co-workers, I can’t say that I had problems because of my Jewish origin. Although I was the only Jew in my entire team of 120 people, I can say that I was held in the highest esteem. My photograph as top-ranking worker was never removed from the poster of honor. I set it as my task to contradict that mentality according to which Jews are playing truant and don’t want to work. Those on my team wanted to work with me because they knew that if they worked with me they would earn more than other teams. I worked more orderly. So that I had no problems in this respect. Maybe if I had had problems, it would have urged me to leave. I didn’t have to sign any loyalty oath at the workplace. Back then, you had to bring an autobiography when you were appointed a certain job. And because my autobiography was good since my father was a working man, so I had a somewhat “healthy origin,” I didn’t have to sign anything like that. And this workplace offered us much better conditions than the primitive workshops where I had worked until then. Everything was better organized at CFR, we had a bathroom, some sort of safety equipment, the salary was ensured, whereas you had no such insurance if you worked for a private employer.
My father worked for the CFR until he left to Israel in 1952, when emigration peaked. He left by boat from Constanta, I accompanied there myself. My mother left with my father and I didn’t get to see her alive anymore when I first visited them in 1969. She died in Israel in 1960. My father died in Israel at 84 around 1970. Mother didn’t get another job in Israel, father did some carpentry, they lived from a social pension.
Thus, my father and I were hired. While he worked for the CFR, my father had a convention with the employers to the effect that he didn’t have to work Saturdays: ‘Either I come in and work on Sundays or, if not, I will work 5 days a week. I don’t work on Saturday, during the Sabbath’ my father told his superiors. He managed to observe the Sabbath during all these terror regimes. My father worked for the CFR until he left to Israel in 1952, when emigration peaked.
The Sabbath started on Friday, and mother began the preparations for it on Thursday. She went to the market on Thursday, brought home a pair of hens, a few kg of poultry or fish, depending on what we could afford. If father earned more money food was better as well, if he earned less money food was worse as well. But there was no Friday evening on which my father didn’t recite the Kiddush [at table, over a glass of wine].
We were a numerous Jewish family, but we weren’t very religious.
Romania
Father had a special talent for recounting everything he read. His brother from America, Strul, often sent him Jewish newspapers from over there. These were some very interesting weekly newspapers, with many articles, some on religion, others on the life of Jews in America. Also, stories and anecdotes about Jewish life were printed. We lived in a courtyard with around 14 other tenants, and it was a delight for all the tenants to gather together on Saturday evening under an acacia tree that was growing in the courtyard, and, as we drank tea, father had to tell stories, read one of the more interesting stories from those newspapers. Father was considered by the neighbors to be one of the most intelligent people of the neighborhood; very many people who had small differences, such as various misunderstandings, quarrels or business problems came to him. In those days, people didn’t go to lawyers, or they went to see the rabbi or an older man about their various disputes, someone who had a renown for knowing how to weigh and solve issues.
Father spoke mainly Yiddish, in fact, my parents only spoke Yiddish at home.
Father attended the synagogue on every Friday evening and on Saturdays. Normally, he didn’t go to the synagogue during the week as he was working and didn’t have the time for it. There was no reference about the parnusa [Yiddish with a Romanian influence: earning] in the siddur [Yiddish: prayer book].
Romania
Father worked from dawn to dusk so that he could support the entire family. During autumn, the preparations for the winter were taken care of, we were 9 children. Mother began by preserving everything that could be preserved, from plum jam, poultry fat, walnuts, honey, potatoes, garlic. Father couldn’t find work during winter, it was the so-called dead season in construction works. When winter arrived, nobody built anything anymore, people didn’t even strike a nail anymore, which is why you had to have everything prepared, from firewood to beans. Many a time, we ate a few slices of bread with butter and plum jam at dinner, a few walnuts and tea. The teapot was always on the stove. At other times we ate some baked potatoes smeared with a little poultry fat.
Sometimes, when the material situation of our household was better, mother used to hire a woman to do the laundry. She collected the dirty laundry during a week or two and, if she managed to hire a woman to help her with the laundry, they washed all the laundry and stretched it out to dry in the courtyard. All the courtyards were full of washed laundry. This was during summer, it was harder during winter, when we strung the laundry to dry inside the house.
We all lived in a modest, very poorly house, like most hoses in the Jewish neighborhoods in Iasi, in fact. There were also some Jews who enjoyed better material means, they lived downtown, but the majority of the population lived in Jewish neighborhoods with no comfort, no running water, no electricity, with a toilet in the courtyard. The gas lamp was lit in the evening, and water was brought from the water pump in the street. Back then, water carrying was considered to be a trade. There were the so-called vosertreger [Yiddish: “water carriers”] who brought water to people’s homes. When we grew up, we brought the water home ourselves.
In any case, I can say that in our home the relationship between my father and my mother was very good, in spite of the fact that it was a home with many children, and whenever there are children quarrels may always ensue. In turn, we inherited the spirit of this relationship based on good concord; we got along very well as brothers, but with our spouses as well.
Romania
I don’t recall my father talking about his period in the army, but I think he did the military service, as Jews were required to serve in the army until 1918-1920.
He worked as a carpenter in Iasi.
My father, David Finchelstein, was born in Pascani around 1884. He was a very smart and learned person. Despite having no studies, he learned to read and write by himself, as he was a self-taught man. He acquired a solid general culture on his own by reading Romanian newspapers, but also Jewish ones. Still, as a boy, my father was sent to the cheder, and he learned Yiddish there. He could read and write perfect Yiddish. He attended only “the small cheder,” there were several levels.
The second-born was Strul Finschelstein, he was a tailor by trade, and he left to America at a certain point before World War II, probably in the 1920’s. The family used to say that during the time that Strul was doing his military service in Romania, he had an argument with a minor superior, slapped his face a few times and was thus forced to flee the army. He came home and told my father: ‘Dear brother, I will not do my military service in Romania anymore.’ He left to Constanta and boarded a ship there and kept going. My father helped him with some money before he departed.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
The eldest brother’s name was Haim Finchelstein. He had an inn on Abator St. in Iasi.
The kashrut was observed in the household of both of my grandfathers, but also in my parents’ house.
Both grandfathers wore regular clothes, only the very religious Jews from Iasi wore sideburns and always donned a tefillin when they went out. I reckon that in Pascani, the town where my father was born, it was the same. The rest of the Jews wore a tefillin only during the morning prayers at the synagogue. But it was out of the question for my grandfathers to go out bareheaded, they always wore a cap. Whenever we ate over at their place, we had to wear something on our head, even though we were children.
Like most Jews back then, the grandfather from my father’s side spoke Yiddish. Many Jews of that generation didn’t even speak any language other than Yiddish.
The name of the grandfather from my father’s side was Avrum Finchelstein and he was a tailor of women’s clothes in Pascani.
My mother didn’t go to school; I believe her family gave her a religious education.
Aunt Pesl had 2 sons as well, who were born handicapped, they were deaf and dumb, despite the fact they were very intelligent children and physically very sound. They were both killed during the pogrom.
Aunt Sura had 2 children, they were approximately the same age as me. One of the cousins died during the Podu Iloaiei pogrom [1] and I buried him with my own hands in one of the common burial grounds of Podu Iloaiei.