Jewish men wear tefillin on their left arm and on their head while praying [for the morning prayers]. After becoming bar mitzvahed, we also had to wear them. I think I gave our tefillin to my cousin, who left for America after World War II, as I studied at university and I didn’t use mine.
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Displaying 18331 - 18360 of 50826 results
Dr. Gabor Lazar
Boys’ coming-of-age is celebrated when they reach the age of 13, nowadays it’s the same for girls too, that’s what I saw in Israel, what I heard. [Editor’s note: it remains age 12 for girls, in Israel and throughout the world.] When we turned 13, my brother and I were brought into adulthood; this celebration is called bar mitzvah.
One has to prepare for this, like for confirmation. We didn’t go to preparatory classes, because we could already read Hebrew. My bar mitzvah was celebrated in the Orthodox synagogue in Szatmar, which is where we lived when I was 13.
They take the Torah out of the Holy Ark, and invite the 13-year-old boy to read the portion of the Torah designated for that week, since there is a section for each week. After his bar mitzvah he is a full member of the congregation, not a child anymore and can count towards the ten Jewish men that are needed for a service [minyan].
One has to prepare for this, like for confirmation. We didn’t go to preparatory classes, because we could already read Hebrew. My bar mitzvah was celebrated in the Orthodox synagogue in Szatmar, which is where we lived when I was 13.
They take the Torah out of the Holy Ark, and invite the 13-year-old boy to read the portion of the Torah designated for that week, since there is a section for each week. After his bar mitzvah he is a full member of the congregation, not a child anymore and can count towards the ten Jewish men that are needed for a service [minyan].
Wherever there is a Jewish community, there is a ritual bath next to the synagogue; it's called a mikveh. Jewish men go there on Friday afternoon, I saw this in my childhood. There were two bathhouses in Szatmar: there was a town bath, which was quite neglected, and the Jewish bath, the mikveh, which was close to the synagogue.
The Jewish community maintained it, and it opened regularly. Non-Jews attended it too, as it was the better bath. [From a Halakhic point of view, non-Jews cannot be excluded from attending the mikveh. In former times, and mainly in smaller towns and villages the mikveh had a public bath function as well.] People didn’t have bathrooms back then, so we went there to take a bath. It had cubicles, a basin, a bath, shower and toilet and a steam bath as well.
The Jewish community maintained it, and it opened regularly. Non-Jews attended it too, as it was the better bath. [From a Halakhic point of view, non-Jews cannot be excluded from attending the mikveh. In former times, and mainly in smaller towns and villages the mikveh had a public bath function as well.] People didn’t have bathrooms back then, so we went there to take a bath. It had cubicles, a basin, a bath, shower and toilet and a steam bath as well.
This rabbi was from Hungary, but there were great rabbis in Romania too, for example the Hasidic rabbi of Bikszad was very famous, he lived in Szatmar. The rabbi of Bikszad was the leader of Orthodox Jewry in Szatmar and lived in a street next to ours.
He also led a Talmudic school there, where they were exclusively engaged in studying the Talmud, the scriptures. Back then we had a farm, we had poultry, and I remember my mother had to send him fresh eggs every day, because the rabbi ate only what was kosher.
He also led a Talmudic school there, where they were exclusively engaged in studying the Talmud, the scriptures. Back then we had a farm, we had poultry, and I remember my mother had to send him fresh eggs every day, because the rabbi ate only what was kosher.
The Jews had wonderful rabbis. The rabbi of Nagykallo was such a wonderful rabbi too. Allegedly the song, ‘Szol a kakas mar’[a well-known traditional Hungarian Hassidic tune], was composed by this wonderful rabbi of Nagykallo.
There were a lot of Jews in Szatmar, within the town itself 13,000 Jews lived, which was a third of the town’s population. So there was a serious religious life. There were Hasidim [13] too, who wore special kaftans. Most of these observant Jews from Szatmar emigrated to America.
My cousin is there too, in New York, where a Hasidic community has been established. There was a Jewish district in Szatmar, the ghetto was made there. A few hundred people came home to Szatmar after being deported, and many people moved there too, but they left. Now there are no more than forty. They are responsible for the cemetery.
My cousin is there too, in New York, where a Hasidic community has been established. There was a Jewish district in Szatmar, the ghetto was made there. A few hundred people came home to Szatmar after being deported, and many people moved there too, but they left. Now there are no more than forty. They are responsible for the cemetery.
Romania
There were two marvelous synagogues in Szatmar. We frequented the Orthodox one and there was a smaller synagogue next to the Orthodox one, which is still there. But Jews sold the Neolog [12] one; it was then demolished, and the County Police station was built there.
Romania
Moreover, there was a synagogue in Hungary, in Csenger too, which we went to. We didn’t go to the synagogue in the morning, at noon and in the evening, only on Friday evening, on Sabbath and the high holidays.
There weren’t any Jewish families in Vetes, just us. There were some in the surroundings, but in Vetes it was only us. There wasn’t a synagogue [prayer house], but while we stayed in Vetes, we went to Szatmar for holidays. We too, the boys, not only my father.
Romania
I’m a member of the Jewish community in Brasso. They usually organize seder night, they invite me each year, but I can’t go to Brasso, it’s too far. [Brasso is 54 km south-west of Kovaszna] I got the invitation for the fall holidays just today.
They organize Purim too, the table is laid, everybody can eat and drink, and usually a great celebration is organized, with a show, they set up plays about Haman, Esther, this is usually on Sunday. I could go to see this, I think we went there twice.
They organize Purim too, the table is laid, everybody can eat and drink, and usually a great celebration is organized, with a show, they set up plays about Haman, Esther, this is usually on Sunday. I could go to see this, I think we went there twice.
In 1990 I retired. I had had a high salary before they had taken me away, and I wanted to have a pension based on that salary. When I came home from the prison, I was 58 years old, and I had to work until I would be sixty [the retirement age], but I tried to retire as soon as possible for my pension to be based on a high salary.
There was a law that at retirement one had to choose five of the last ten years of work, whichever you wanted them to take into account when calculating the pension. I could see my salary was low: when I came home from prison, first I got employed as an assistant, then I had a beginner doctor’s salary; so when I turned sixty years old, I applied for retirement.
There was a law that at retirement one had to choose five of the last ten years of work, whichever you wanted them to take into account when calculating the pension. I could see my salary was low: when I came home from prison, first I got employed as an assistant, then I had a beginner doctor’s salary; so when I turned sixty years old, I applied for retirement.
I didn’t join any party again after 1989, I’m not a member of the RMDSZ [Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania] either. My wife doesn’t even go to vote. I did, but she’s right, because in fact they don’t do anything right.
In 1989, when the so-called revolution took place, I had a lot of patients in Kovaszna, a lot of people respected me; they all welcomed me like a national hero when I had come home from prison. And when the change occurred, a council was established at the hospital.
Then the local council had to be organized, so we marched to the town hall with flags; the flags [the arms in the middle] were cut out, and they elected me to be a member of the Democratic National Salvation Front council as a representative of the hospital, so I became part of the town leadership.
However I could see after three or four months that things were changing back to how they were, everything was turning to its former shape, so I never went there again. I didn’t even ask for a revolutionary certificate, I left everything and let them do it. Politics didn’t suit me.
Then the local council had to be organized, so we marched to the town hall with flags; the flags [the arms in the middle] were cut out, and they elected me to be a member of the Democratic National Salvation Front council as a representative of the hospital, so I became part of the town leadership.
However I could see after three or four months that things were changing back to how they were, everything was turning to its former shape, so I never went there again. I didn’t even ask for a revolutionary certificate, I left everything and let them do it. Politics didn’t suit me.
In the meantime they introduced Law No. 18 in 1987 against those who had acquired their possessions illegally. They asserted it officially against everybody who had been imprisoned for bribery. They started proceedings against me as well.
I had some saved money in the savings bank, they demanded me to pay back from that money 112 thousand lei to the state. I won the trial at the court of first instance, but the prosecutor from Kezdivasarhely appealed against the judgment; he’s a great crook, he’s still a prosecutor, unless he's retired by now. So my case was transferred to Sepsiszentgyorgy.
We visited a former classmate of my wife, who was the county party secretary, she was in a high position, to show her that all the calculations were false, and they compiled the document against me with all kind of addition and subtraction errors. I mean intentionally, in order to obtain a certain amount. She told me, ‘I’m not here to re-calculate this for you,’ she picked up the phone, and sent us to the president of the court, to a person called Andras Ordogh; he is dead too by now.
We went to him indeed, well he received us, because the county party secretary had called him, and when we sat down, he told me to stay calm, because all this was very clear for him too. He told me I should leave the paper there, because he would get the case anyway, even if the prosecutor appealed, there wouldn’t be any problem. So, he reassured me that justice would be done.
Well, indeed, the first trial took place, I presented my arguments, how things were, and that their claim was unjust. They declared the sentence about two weeks later. We went there and I was confident that they would rule to my advantage.
But no! They ruled that the amount owed to the state, 112 thousand lei, was a lot of money. They knew I had some saved money in the ‘Csekk’ [CEC, that is Casa de Economii si Consemnatiuni, the Romanian National Savings Bank]. And when I went back to the president, he said he couldn’t help it, the sentence was final.
My lawyer told me to go to Bucharest, and start the retrial procedure again. The court president answered to this, ‘This could drag on for twenty years. You have to pay this out, because this is final. Then, he said, you can sue this further.’
I said I wouldn’t sue over this. In a few days I received the demand that it had to be paid, I had no choice, I drew out my money from the Savings Bank, I gave it to them, let them be happy. The head of the financial department, who is now the mayor, told me, ‘Doctor, you are the first to have to pay.’ I don’t know how many others suffered such proceedings, but here in Kovaszna I was the only person who had to pay.
When the revolution was over in 1989 [26], my wife went to the court to take out the file, because all the invoices and receipts were there, everything. And she was told that the file wasn’t in the archives anymore, because they had given it out to a prosecutor or judge for re-examination.
It wasn’t enough that they robbed me, they wanted to start the proceedings again. So luckily for me the change came, I had luck with the revolution, and they couldn’t start any proceedings, so the matter was dropped, it didn’t have any continuation. But that’s what they did.
I had some saved money in the savings bank, they demanded me to pay back from that money 112 thousand lei to the state. I won the trial at the court of first instance, but the prosecutor from Kezdivasarhely appealed against the judgment; he’s a great crook, he’s still a prosecutor, unless he's retired by now. So my case was transferred to Sepsiszentgyorgy.
We visited a former classmate of my wife, who was the county party secretary, she was in a high position, to show her that all the calculations were false, and they compiled the document against me with all kind of addition and subtraction errors. I mean intentionally, in order to obtain a certain amount. She told me, ‘I’m not here to re-calculate this for you,’ she picked up the phone, and sent us to the president of the court, to a person called Andras Ordogh; he is dead too by now.
We went to him indeed, well he received us, because the county party secretary had called him, and when we sat down, he told me to stay calm, because all this was very clear for him too. He told me I should leave the paper there, because he would get the case anyway, even if the prosecutor appealed, there wouldn’t be any problem. So, he reassured me that justice would be done.
Well, indeed, the first trial took place, I presented my arguments, how things were, and that their claim was unjust. They declared the sentence about two weeks later. We went there and I was confident that they would rule to my advantage.
But no! They ruled that the amount owed to the state, 112 thousand lei, was a lot of money. They knew I had some saved money in the ‘Csekk’ [CEC, that is Casa de Economii si Consemnatiuni, the Romanian National Savings Bank]. And when I went back to the president, he said he couldn’t help it, the sentence was final.
My lawyer told me to go to Bucharest, and start the retrial procedure again. The court president answered to this, ‘This could drag on for twenty years. You have to pay this out, because this is final. Then, he said, you can sue this further.’
I said I wouldn’t sue over this. In a few days I received the demand that it had to be paid, I had no choice, I drew out my money from the Savings Bank, I gave it to them, let them be happy. The head of the financial department, who is now the mayor, told me, ‘Doctor, you are the first to have to pay.’ I don’t know how many others suffered such proceedings, but here in Kovaszna I was the only person who had to pay.
When the revolution was over in 1989 [26], my wife went to the court to take out the file, because all the invoices and receipts were there, everything. And she was told that the file wasn’t in the archives anymore, because they had given it out to a prosecutor or judge for re-examination.
It wasn’t enough that they robbed me, they wanted to start the proceedings again. So luckily for me the change came, I had luck with the revolution, and they couldn’t start any proceedings, so the matter was dropped, it didn’t have any continuation. But that’s what they did.
In January the great amnesty was granted, when Ceausescu had his birthday, they granted general amnesty. So they repealed everything, and in January 1988 I got all my rights back. A substitute had been appointed in the meantime in my office. I was lucky that he was from Bucharest, and he wanted to go back no matter what.
His father was working in Bucharest, I don’t know what kind of job he had. And I was making arrangements, I even went to Bucharest, to have my file settled, to get my job back.
And I was waiting and waiting, it was January already, and despite the amnesty, we could see that they didn’t send back anything. So this one’s father went there, they took out my file from the minister’s drawer, and they arranged it. I got the paper about getting back my job, they assigned me as the works doctor again, but with a minimal salary, like for a beginner.
His father was working in Bucharest, I don’t know what kind of job he had. And I was making arrangements, I even went to Bucharest, to have my file settled, to get my job back.
And I was waiting and waiting, it was January already, and despite the amnesty, we could see that they didn’t send back anything. So this one’s father went there, they took out my file from the minister’s drawer, and they arranged it. I got the paper about getting back my job, they assigned me as the works doctor again, but with a minimal salary, like for a beginner.
Then after I got home I was trying to get a job, since I was released, but my practice permit had been suspended for one year. However I could obtain one thing, thanks to a former classmate of my wife, who was the party secretary for county organizational issues: they repealed that year at the court, and certified that I wasn’t forbidden from practicing my profession. I got employment, but as an assistant. I was an assistant for a few months in my own office.
The person who led the house search, who was the substitute inspector at the county militia, he was called Magureanu; he was an extremely malicious character. He organized everything, the interrogation, the house searches, everything.
At the age of 52 these militiamen could retire. Then he got a very lucrative post as some kind of manager at the health insurance company. I don’t know what kind of dirty trick they did, they sold something, and I don’t know what he did with that money; in brief this Magureanu hanged himself and left a farewell letter. The Antena1 channel showed him laying on the catafalque. He died.
At the age of 52 these militiamen could retire. Then he got a very lucrative post as some kind of manager at the health insurance company. I don’t know what kind of dirty trick they did, they sold something, and I don’t know what he did with that money; in brief this Magureanu hanged himself and left a farewell letter. The Antena1 channel showed him laying on the catafalque. He died.
This colonel from Bucharest, to whom I was the consultant, and who did nothing for me, even though he could have, because he was close to the militiamen and the prosecutors from the region, well, he was here in a hospital.
After I came home, he fell on my neck, he kissed me. Then he came to visit us. He told me why they didn’t do anything for me. They were afraid of Ceausescu [25], they were afraid of spies, and that was the reason for not being able to do something. Thank God I lived through it, well, this is an experience as well, not everybody goes through such an experience.
After I came home, he fell on my neck, he kissed me. Then he came to visit us. He told me why they didn’t do anything for me. They were afraid of Ceausescu [25], they were afraid of spies, and that was the reason for not being able to do something. Thank God I lived through it, well, this is an experience as well, not everybody goes through such an experience.
In January they took me to Codlea – Feketehalom in Hungarian, near Brasso [14 km north-west of Brasso], there's a huge prison there, where the trials took place. The charge against me was that I had been bribed, well, every doctor was given cash, people did that in those times, and they do today as well. This was the main charge, that’s why they planted that packet.
The woman who brought it was an undercover agent. They called on people from the factory for hearings, to give statements against me. Well, people found out that this woman had brought me that packet, and they gave her a good trashing.
After that she came to the consulting room, the nurse told me, and she was repeating that she was so sorry, that she felt so sorry for me, if only she had known, and so on, and so on; she was excusing herself. All this in vain, because I had already been caught and taken away.
It occurred to me, when I was already in Codlea, which way the wind was blowing. One of this woman’s relative was a party secretary in Sepsiszentgyorgy, at the county branch of the Securitate. And she set me up through that person.
I remembered this, because once [in Kovaszna] a woman worker came to me and asked me to prescribe her no matter what kind of medicine, because her son was working at the Securitate, so she could get it. So I started to think, well, these two women had the same name, they came from the same family.
They collected some 19-20 statements against me about having paid me this and that amount. However only three of them admitted at the court that they had indeed given me 50 lei or I don’t know what. So this was enough, I got sentenced to 18 months, the minimum.
I actually served half of it. I wasn’t a party member, that was the problem. Because if I had been a party member, I wouldn’t have been put in prison, they would have changed it into a deferred sentence.
The party was behind those. But nobody did anything for me. People collected signatures for me, to try to save me. There were people who told the others not to sign, because who knows what might happen to them.
Moreover, I had a patient who was a colonel in Bucharest, at the college of the militia, the police had a university, it still has. He came here every year with his pharmacist wife for summer holidays, and I was their doctor, they always came to me.
People called on him as well, but he didn’t do anything either. There was a public prosecutor in Bucharest, who knew all the prosecutors, people went to him too, what's more he was a Jew as well, but he didn’t do anything for me either.
They didn’t hurt me at all in prison. But one isn't taken for a human being, at least that’s how it was back then. Whenever we went out or came back, they counted us like one counts cattle. Every morning and evening there was a roll call, where they took stock of everybody to see if the number was right. One spring they took us to work in the bakery in Codlea.
I finished my work and sat down a little to take a rest. There was an officer, a very nasty character, who saw that I was sitting. So he grabbed a stick, and stroke once one palm, once the other. And he says, ‘Now you come with me.’ He gave me work until we went home in the evening, to keep me occupied.
When we entered the prison gate, they knew me there and greeted me from afar, hi doctor etc. So he found out I was a doctor. He found this out just right then. Well, from that point I got so much respect from him, he gave me exceptional treatment from that moment. They weren’t allowed to shake hands, but he shook hands with me. He was beating the others a lot, and he was the worst, he was a very cruel fellow.
I was exempted from army service, but at the police in Sepsiszentgyorgy, when they compiled my file, when they took me away, they wrote that I had completed my army service. This was my luck. This way, after a part of my sentence passed, they made me a supervisor, a ‘free,’ that’s how they called it in prison.
Instead of the striped clothes they gave me brown clothes, like the warders had, and a truncheon and whistle; we had training every morning in the prison’s yard, military exercises, they gave orders about what and how, and taught secret signs.
They took us to farms, factories, and we were the guardians, guarding the working groups. An under-officer came with us, there was about five or six of us who were guardians. The under-officer had a gun, we only had a truncheon and a whistle. But they didn’t escape. And when we were coming home, everybody had to be searched, to check that they didn't bring something in.
There were all kinds of prisoners in Codlea, half of them were gypsies. Sometimes there were even thirty or forty of us in the room, and sometimes only eight or ten. The rooms were large, with bunk-beds, sometimes we slept two in one bed, there were so many of us. And when they made me a supervisor, they separated me, I had better conditions.
After that it turned out that the prison doctor was a professor from Bucharest; he was sentenced to six years, and was taken to Bucharest. So the physician’s office was left without a physician. Before him a doctor from Brasso worked in the physician’s office, he was also a medical officer, his wife had reported him in revenge.
Then this professor. They helped me out with medicine etc., what one could get only with backing. Well, then I became the prison’s physician in their place. I worked for the men's section, a woman doctor from Brasso worked for the women’s section, she had a similar story. From that point I had a good life. The last two and a half months or so passed more easily.
Once the under-officer I mentioned before had a problem with his tooth; he came to my office, saying that he had a toothache and that it should be pulled out. I had never extracted a tooth in my life before, I can tell you that. I had an assistant there, a pharmacist, who had been sentenced to six years.
We had equipment in the office, all kinds, and the assistant said he would extract it. We sat the officer down, I was holding his head from the back, the assistant took the forceps and took hold of the tooth to pull it out. But he didn’t even move it, when he started to wail, ‘Ouch, ouch…’ What could we do? I said, well, let me see this.
I looked into his mouth and I see that his tooth was barely attached. The situation took a turn. I took the forceps and pulled the tooth out straight away. ‘Thank you, thank you’, he said. Sterility didn’t exist then, instead we gave him a lot of antibiotics to avoid infection. I became this officer's favorite, this one who stroked my palm at the bakery.
Once they scolded my wife badly in the prison for not speaking Romanian. She came to the office, and they were listening to what we were saying. She was speaking Hungarian. So they scolded her badly, as they wanted to understand what she was saying to me.
I will tell you what one goes through. A commission decides whether to release someone who has served half of their sentence, if they had a good behavior. The commission summons those whose sentence is prolonged. One afternoon the commission holds a meeting.
My case was due as well, since my file was submitted to the commission. I knew they would set me free within a few days. A prosecutor called Balea came from Brasso. So they came and told me, doctor, go to the commission. I was running, there was a club-hall, and the commission was there, one had to spring to attention of course.
I said: ‘At your command!’ The president of the commission told me to bring him some medicines. I took them, and also brought the blood-pressure apparatus. I measured his blood-pressure, then he told me it was alright. But the anxiety I went through, worrying what would happen, why had they called me in, I was running. Such circumstances, you see. And they let me go home a few days later.
I got home around 23rd August 1987. The nine months had passed, and they released me provisionally. People welcomed me in the town like a national hero.
The woman who brought it was an undercover agent. They called on people from the factory for hearings, to give statements against me. Well, people found out that this woman had brought me that packet, and they gave her a good trashing.
After that she came to the consulting room, the nurse told me, and she was repeating that she was so sorry, that she felt so sorry for me, if only she had known, and so on, and so on; she was excusing herself. All this in vain, because I had already been caught and taken away.
It occurred to me, when I was already in Codlea, which way the wind was blowing. One of this woman’s relative was a party secretary in Sepsiszentgyorgy, at the county branch of the Securitate. And she set me up through that person.
I remembered this, because once [in Kovaszna] a woman worker came to me and asked me to prescribe her no matter what kind of medicine, because her son was working at the Securitate, so she could get it. So I started to think, well, these two women had the same name, they came from the same family.
They collected some 19-20 statements against me about having paid me this and that amount. However only three of them admitted at the court that they had indeed given me 50 lei or I don’t know what. So this was enough, I got sentenced to 18 months, the minimum.
I actually served half of it. I wasn’t a party member, that was the problem. Because if I had been a party member, I wouldn’t have been put in prison, they would have changed it into a deferred sentence.
The party was behind those. But nobody did anything for me. People collected signatures for me, to try to save me. There were people who told the others not to sign, because who knows what might happen to them.
Moreover, I had a patient who was a colonel in Bucharest, at the college of the militia, the police had a university, it still has. He came here every year with his pharmacist wife for summer holidays, and I was their doctor, they always came to me.
People called on him as well, but he didn’t do anything either. There was a public prosecutor in Bucharest, who knew all the prosecutors, people went to him too, what's more he was a Jew as well, but he didn’t do anything for me either.
They didn’t hurt me at all in prison. But one isn't taken for a human being, at least that’s how it was back then. Whenever we went out or came back, they counted us like one counts cattle. Every morning and evening there was a roll call, where they took stock of everybody to see if the number was right. One spring they took us to work in the bakery in Codlea.
I finished my work and sat down a little to take a rest. There was an officer, a very nasty character, who saw that I was sitting. So he grabbed a stick, and stroke once one palm, once the other. And he says, ‘Now you come with me.’ He gave me work until we went home in the evening, to keep me occupied.
When we entered the prison gate, they knew me there and greeted me from afar, hi doctor etc. So he found out I was a doctor. He found this out just right then. Well, from that point I got so much respect from him, he gave me exceptional treatment from that moment. They weren’t allowed to shake hands, but he shook hands with me. He was beating the others a lot, and he was the worst, he was a very cruel fellow.
I was exempted from army service, but at the police in Sepsiszentgyorgy, when they compiled my file, when they took me away, they wrote that I had completed my army service. This was my luck. This way, after a part of my sentence passed, they made me a supervisor, a ‘free,’ that’s how they called it in prison.
Instead of the striped clothes they gave me brown clothes, like the warders had, and a truncheon and whistle; we had training every morning in the prison’s yard, military exercises, they gave orders about what and how, and taught secret signs.
They took us to farms, factories, and we were the guardians, guarding the working groups. An under-officer came with us, there was about five or six of us who were guardians. The under-officer had a gun, we only had a truncheon and a whistle. But they didn’t escape. And when we were coming home, everybody had to be searched, to check that they didn't bring something in.
There were all kinds of prisoners in Codlea, half of them were gypsies. Sometimes there were even thirty or forty of us in the room, and sometimes only eight or ten. The rooms were large, with bunk-beds, sometimes we slept two in one bed, there were so many of us. And when they made me a supervisor, they separated me, I had better conditions.
After that it turned out that the prison doctor was a professor from Bucharest; he was sentenced to six years, and was taken to Bucharest. So the physician’s office was left without a physician. Before him a doctor from Brasso worked in the physician’s office, he was also a medical officer, his wife had reported him in revenge.
Then this professor. They helped me out with medicine etc., what one could get only with backing. Well, then I became the prison’s physician in their place. I worked for the men's section, a woman doctor from Brasso worked for the women’s section, she had a similar story. From that point I had a good life. The last two and a half months or so passed more easily.
Once the under-officer I mentioned before had a problem with his tooth; he came to my office, saying that he had a toothache and that it should be pulled out. I had never extracted a tooth in my life before, I can tell you that. I had an assistant there, a pharmacist, who had been sentenced to six years.
We had equipment in the office, all kinds, and the assistant said he would extract it. We sat the officer down, I was holding his head from the back, the assistant took the forceps and took hold of the tooth to pull it out. But he didn’t even move it, when he started to wail, ‘Ouch, ouch…’ What could we do? I said, well, let me see this.
I looked into his mouth and I see that his tooth was barely attached. The situation took a turn. I took the forceps and pulled the tooth out straight away. ‘Thank you, thank you’, he said. Sterility didn’t exist then, instead we gave him a lot of antibiotics to avoid infection. I became this officer's favorite, this one who stroked my palm at the bakery.
Once they scolded my wife badly in the prison for not speaking Romanian. She came to the office, and they were listening to what we were saying. She was speaking Hungarian. So they scolded her badly, as they wanted to understand what she was saying to me.
I will tell you what one goes through. A commission decides whether to release someone who has served half of their sentence, if they had a good behavior. The commission summons those whose sentence is prolonged. One afternoon the commission holds a meeting.
My case was due as well, since my file was submitted to the commission. I knew they would set me free within a few days. A prosecutor called Balea came from Brasso. So they came and told me, doctor, go to the commission. I was running, there was a club-hall, and the commission was there, one had to spring to attention of course.
I said: ‘At your command!’ The president of the commission told me to bring him some medicines. I took them, and also brought the blood-pressure apparatus. I measured his blood-pressure, then he told me it was alright. But the anxiety I went through, worrying what would happen, why had they called me in, I was running. Such circumstances, you see. And they let me go home a few days later.
I got home around 23rd August 1987. The nine months had passed, and they released me provisionally. People welcomed me in the town like a national hero.
Mieczyslaw Weinryb
At present I also belong to the Social and Cultural Society of Jews and to the Jewish Community organization. I also belong to a social committee whose aim is to renovate the annex in Wolski Hospital [Before the war this was a Jewish hospital, called Orthodox Hospital]. We want to make it into a home for older people. I’m at the community building almost every day. I use the canteen there. My wife is very poorly now and hasn’t got the strength to cook me dinner. I’m a member of the Jewish Community Seniors’ Club. We meet a few times a week. Sometimes we have talks on Jewish topics but often we just tell each other about our lives.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
At present I also belong to the Social and Cultural Society of Jews and to the Jewish Community organization. I also belong to a social committee whose aim is to renovate the annex in Wolski Hospital [Before the war this was a Jewish hospital, called Orthodox Hospital]. We want to make it into a home for older people. I’m at the community building almost every day. I use the canteen there. My wife is very poorly now and hasn’t got the strength to cook me dinner. I’m a member of the Jewish Community Seniors’ Club. We meet a few times a week. Sometimes we have talks on Jewish topics but often we just tell each other about our lives.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I don’t take advantage of any re-compensation funds because I was never in any of the ghettos. I’m a member of the Association of Jewish Combatants, too. Three years ago I and some other combatants went to Germany. We were invited there by the Kolbe Foundation [Maxmilian Kolbe Werk: operates in Germany; its mission is offering aid to victims of concentration camps]. I feel a bit awkward about it. Kolbe was in a camp and he gave his life for another – that’s true, but before the war he was an anti-Semite. He even published these Jew-baiting newssheets. And they don’t know about Kolbe at all – about his pre-war activities. Life brings all sorts of surprises and people change their views, too, but to name a foundation after them just like that? Anyway, so they sent us an invitation in German and we went to meet them. We visited schools there. There were about 1,000 pupils and teachers there. One time they asked me to read something in Yiddish to them, so that they could compare if the language really is similar to German. So I read something by Sutzkever [31] .
,
After WW2
See text in interview
It’s the same in the Jewish community. There’s a few young people, but it all comes down, I suspect, to the fact that they get financial assistance from abroad. In any case, it’s hard to say anything on that subject. I’m not prejudiced. Perhaps in the Jewish religion people do find a way to live their life. Not long ago I read an article in the newspaper about a young girl who was complaining that in Poland it’s hard to buy kosher food. Suddenly problems like that appear, and that, when there were years and years when nobody went to the synagogue here. People moved to Israel and they made the right choice.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
As for the Warsaw community and Jewish circles today, I get the feeling that they overdo it in a lot of cases. The Yiddish school, for example – I don’t believe that the Yiddish language has a future. Yiddish is still around among older people. They were born in Europe and so on, but to revive it? I don’t even see the need. Perhaps just one thing, that wonderful literature written in Yiddish by Sholem Aleichem [29] and Peretz, An-ski [30].
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Did anything change in Poland after 1989? Well, of course things changed. Now there is more democracy, then the strict discipline ground us down. When I worked in those institutions back then, I remember how they used to keep us for hours on 1st May, you stood and stood, so that a few people at the top could look at us. And altogether there was this attitude – Stalin this, Stalin that. I always had a critical attitude to what went on because I listened to the BBC and I knew what was going on. But I have friends, even in Israel, who back then somehow got drawn into those communist wheels and they truly believed in Stalin. I don’t know, I was even puzzled because they were decent people, they had a grammar-school education. For me it was inexplicable that they could believe in something like that.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I remember that first trip. I had a lot of trouble getting permission to go, but in the end I succeeded. When our ship sailed into the port of Haifa, the whole family was already on the quayside. I went to Rywa and Josif’s house; they bred chickens at the time. They didn’t even have a gas cooker then. My brother-in-law had a donkey, which he harnessed up to a cart and drove me around so that I could look at the sea. Now when we go over there with the family, everything is totally different. The last time I was in Israel was in 1999. We had separate rooms to ourselves. During the day we went swimming and sunbathed. In the morning there was coffee, tea, milk and cocoa. And lots of vegetables because there are vegetables all year round there – not like here – they have everything there.
Israel? For centuries it has been the Jews’ dream to return to Israel. Every year at Passover they wished each other: ’ba-shanah ha-baa be-Yerushalayim’ [Hebrew: next year in Jerusalem]. For hundreds of years it wasn’t possible – Turkey, the Arabs, the British protectorate [British Mandate]. I grew up in a Zionist family, and my parents also strove for the establishment of a Jewish state.
I thought about moving to Israel many times. There were always various obstacles, though, that prevented me from doing so.
I thought about moving to Israel many times. There were always various obstacles, though, that prevented me from doing so.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Izabela comes from a Catholic family but she doesn’t go to church and I have the impression that she has a negative attitude to all that. In any case, she isn’t practicing. I have never forbidden her religion, of course. I have always gone to the synagogue on Yom Kippur, when they say the prayers for the dead. But other than that I don’t go. At home we don’t really celebrate any holidays. On Jewish holidays I go to the receptions that the committees put on, mostly the Social and Cultural Society of Jews [28].
We got married and in 1955 our son was born. We called him Eligiusz because it’s similar to my father’s name – Eliasz – and the times when he was born weren’t auspicious for giving Jewish names.
Eligiusz graduated from Warsaw University with a distinction in physics. He also did a doctorate and an assistant professorship. Now he works at various universities. At the moment he is at Yale University. He is a member of a research group there that works on problems of theoretical physics. What does the Jewish tradition mean to him? Eligiusz keeps in touch with his family in Israel. In the States he goes to Jewish meetings. He is interested in the Jewish tradition. He is an agnostic, though.
Eligiusz graduated from Warsaw University with a distinction in physics. He also did a doctorate and an assistant professorship. Now he works at various universities. At the moment he is at Yale University. He is a member of a research group there that works on problems of theoretical physics. What does the Jewish tradition mean to him? Eligiusz keeps in touch with his family in Israel. In the States he goes to Jewish meetings. He is interested in the Jewish tradition. He is an agnostic, though.
At the beginning of the 1950s I met Izabela, my wife. She worked with the trade union, she was a bookkeeper. Her father, Waclaw Tluchowski, left home to fight in the Warsaw Uprising [27] and never returned. He even has a monument in Powazkowski Cemetery [the most famous Catholic cemetery in Warsaw; many famous people are buried there].