I chose were I was to go for the practice before the final exam. I chose Buftea [20km of Bucharest] because I wanted to be closer to my father. During the 6 month training I lived at the farm. On Saturdays and Sundays I would come and visit my father and my little sister. The other two sisters remained in Iasi all the time until they left for Israel. From time to time they used to come to Bucharest to visit my father and me. Since 1948, because I was appointed chief engineer, I lived at the farm. On the 1st March 1949 the kolkhozes were set up and Buftea become a state-run farm. 7-8 months later, it was merged with the state-run farm in Peris and I remained the chief engineer at Peris-Buftea.
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Iancu Tucarman
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I lived in our old house in Iasi all the time. I kept the shop. When I had some spare time I took care of the business and it is with this money that I managed to pay all my expenses during university years. My father could barely make a living from the job he had at his cousin’s in Bucharest. He had hoped for something better. He was an enterprising and very honest person which many time cost him in business after the war. Some people cheated him. He lived on the verge of poverty.
There were 10 of us Jews that joined the faculty of agronomy at the university in the first year. There were about 56 students enlisted in 1945. Imagine this: 10 Jews! The other 46 were Christians and one of them, a certain Rapeanu, used to be a Legionary [7]. He couldn’t help himself: ‘What are these kikes doing among us?’ He was finally expelled during the second year. All the others were good colleagues. I didn’t feel absolutely nothing embarrassing about the fact that I was Jewish. Our ancestors have originally been peasants, cattle breeders. The Bible shows this very clearly.
I believed that my student years were the best in my life. I was never sick, so I did not miss classes due to illness. I attended absolutely all classes. I was well aware that I was a city-born and city-educated Jew that had very few ties to what we call agronomy. I was in love with music, with nature. During the 4 years in faculty we had to spend one or two months a year working at a farm. I did all this training at the Targu Frumos experimental station where I met engineers whom I still have beautiful memories about. The Dalas engineers, husband and wife, that took great care of me and saw that I was lending all my attention to the trade. I attended all training sessions, even though some of my mates skipped classes; they would go out in Targu Frumos to wander around, to meet girls or I don’t know what. I never skipped a class during my training because I wanted to learn everything that was to be learned.
All these years when I had some time to spare I would study: I wouldn’t let one spare hour or two to pass by without studying according to the curriculum. I hoped then that I would live to come to study. And indeed there was a law [6] for all those who could not study because of the anti-Jewish regime. This law stated that these people could graduate school and the Baccalaureate in private. Of course I had pretty low marks but I graduated nevertheless and I was very happy when I became a student of the Faculty of Agronomy in Iasi on the 5th May 1948. I attended 6 months of training until I could give the national exam. In the summer of 1949, I passed the state exam and graduated as agricultural engineer.
My father had long wished to move to Bucharest. And now he thought that the time came as he could still do it. In October [1944], he and my sister Fany left to Bucharest. I don’t know how they could have the courage to do so, especially my sister who was 17, a real young lady. They left by truck under very harsh conditions. They reached Bucharest 2-3 days later. My father started working for his cousin Oscar Froimovici who worked at the men’s lingerie shop. When he was younger my father too had worked at the lingerie shop. With much trouble they managed to find a room to rent. It was very hard to find a place to stay in Bucharest. They settled there.
I lived in Iasi all this time. As the front line drew nearer I could even see how the shells were launched towards Iasi. I could see the flames from the cannons. Considering the place they were firing from I did the math and thought that a shell could not reach us. But a shell did reach us and hit the other side and the second floor of the house nearby. It made a pretty big hole and broke all the windows. The Russians entered Iasi on the 20th August [1944]. We were standing in front of our shop and could see 2-horse carriages that were pulled by just one horse and led by Asian-looking narrow-set eyed military coming from Copou towards Sararie. I didn’t realize. Nobody met them. They were the first, the first brigades to enter the city. Half an hour later, they were followed by the Soviet Army.
After the war
Of course we were happy and many wonder why the Jews met the Soviet Army with flowers. Why? Because, unless the Soviet Army had come to chase the Germans away and the Romanian Army switched sides and turned against them a few days later, instead of us greeting the Soviet Army with flowers, they would have laid the flowers on our graves. And I am certain that we wouldn’t have had this interview today. So, many judge wrongly. They were our saviors. 12 of my family died. 7-8 of my colleagues, my friends died. They were all exterminated in the trains [death trains].
After the war
Of course we were happy and many wonder why the Jews met the Soviet Army with flowers. Why? Because, unless the Soviet Army had come to chase the Germans away and the Romanian Army switched sides and turned against them a few days later, instead of us greeting the Soviet Army with flowers, they would have laid the flowers on our graves. And I am certain that we wouldn’t have had this interview today. So, many judge wrongly. They were our saviors. 12 of my family died. 7-8 of my colleagues, my friends died. They were all exterminated in the trains [death trains].
After the pogrom we had to obey several restrictions. You could really feel that you were different from all the people that you had very well lived with until that day. You were not allowed to go to the market by 10 o’clock in the morning. That was the time when we wore the yellow star [4]. I was out at work doing forced labor; my sisters were still too young. The shop was given to a Christian, a certain Maftei Constantin, and my father was able to work with him. He got a certain percentage of the profit. He was a special man, an understanding man. There were some who took the shops altogether and drove the real owners away [5]. This one was a wise man. I don’t remember how much he received, but anyway this is how we managed to survive.
We returned to Iasi and one week later we came to the Deployment Center to be sent to do forced labor to various places. All these 4 years I was never sent outside Iasi. In Iasi I worked at the Electrical Power Station, at a textile factory, all winter cleaning the snow. My father too cleaned the streets in winter. In 1941, my father was 52. People were taken to forced labor until their 50s, but he did not show his age and was taken for 2-3 months. He worked somewhere at Repedea, at a stone quarry. The work would usually start at 7am and lasted until 6 o'clock in the evening. I worked for a time at the Railroad Company [CFR] in Socola. It was very hard; some of those who supervised our worked were tougher, they would insult us: ‘Hey, kikes, faster! Don’t linger! Mind your work!’ They would even hit us. And this thing lasted for a while. At 1 o’clock we had a half-an-hour break when everyone brought something over if they could do so ... Many had nothing and I would share my meal with them, but I too didn’t have all the time. I shared a sandwich or so. And all this until 6 in the evening depending on the season. It was very hard for us. Because we were working together we could talk about how happy we could have been if we had had a weapon and knew that we were at war. Why were we subjected to these degrading situations regardless of education? Some of us were doctors, engineers, lawyers and worked side by side with everybody else. And this was not humiliating for them; the thing that was humiliating was that we could not be considered true citizens of our country like everybody else. In wintertime we were especially sent to the tramway company to clear the snow off the tracks. In Iasi sometimes it was as cold as -20. Your eyelids and nostrils froze together. We had to work from 7 in the morning until dark under very harsh conditions. Various people would pass by; some of them, indeed, you could see some kind of compassion in their eyes because they knew us. They were neighbors, acquaintances. Others behaved terribly: ‘Kikes! It serves you right!’ Why - I couldn’t understand. And this situation lasted until the end of the War: various labors in summer and cleaning the snow in winter.
The war broke on 22nd June 1941 [Romania entered World War II alongside Nazi Germany]. A week later the pogrom [3] took place in Iasi which would not spare me either. One third of Iasi’s population was Jewish, that is almost 45,000 people. And we all had a very pleasant life. On 29th June 1941 we found ourselves thrown in trains or killed on the street. It was like a cold shower. It was unexpected. There were frightfully few cases when nice people warned their neighbors and took them in their houses. It was a big question mark as to how this could happen in Iasi where we had lived until the War and till that day that turned into doomsday for many of us.
On the 29th, around half past 8 or 9 in the morning, when they took me out there was a long wall and 20-30 were already standing by that wall waiting for the others to be brought. A military passed by and at some point he drew his gun and wanted to shoot us. A major was passing by at that very moment and asked: ‘Soldier, have you been ordered to shoot?’ ‘No!’ ‘Get out immediately or you’ll be court-martialed!’ And he left. I don’t know who that was and I’m sorry I didn’t ask. We survived then but many of us who were taken to the Section [police headquarters] did not…
On the way there we walked with our hands up. Not a soul was to be seen on the street. The only people I saw were over to the Notre-Dame de Zion School – that is on Cuza-Voda Street. The building now hosts the Philharmonic. Germans stood at the windows and took pictures of us as we walked with our hands up. About 200 meters away, as we went further from our house towards the Section, there I was and my father walked on my left. We walked in lines of 7-8 persons towards the Section. A sergeant came towards me, slapped me twice over the face, took my wristwatch and said: ‘Hey, kike, you won’t need it anyways!’ It was then that both I and my father understood that something really bad was going to happen to us. And my father told me in Yiddish: ‘My dear, let this be an offering in exchange for your soul!’ And that’s exactly what happened. I managed to find myself among the survivors.
They took us to the police section. We spent all day there. Policemen with rubber batons stood on each side of the entrance and they would kick all those who entered. Since both I and my father were shorter we got away untouched. When we entered I saw piles of dead people one over the other and blood from those who had been hit on the head and died. When you came in the police section, in the middle, you could see some steps and two machine guns. One of them was aimed towards the gate, the other one towards the backyard fence. Anyone who tried to jump over the fence would be shot. They couldn’t bring in all of us and so they came up with a plan: the elderly and the children, but especially the men were given a 5/5 ticket with a stamp reading ‘free’. And they were told: ‘Tell the other Jews to come with their ID to receive a ticket like this one. Those who don’t present this ticket upon control will be shot!’ Out of fear, a lot of people came on their own. For the majority, the only freedom they got was the eternal one. And this is how they managed to bring everyone to the Section, even those who were not brought by the police or the army. My father got a ‘free’ ticket and managed to go back.
We spent the 29th at the Section. In the morning we were taken to the station, again walking in lines. On the platform in front of the station we were ordered to lie on the ground and we stayed like that until other people boarded the train. Then we got in the train as well and there was some guy there who kept counting. And I heard – because I didn’t know my number – I heard 137 and then: ‘Lock the train car!’
At the Iasi station a railroad employee shouted ‘Kikes, close the shutters!’ He came with a ladder and blocked our windows with some very big nails that were so long that they came out on the other side of the shutter and I had something to hang my raincoat on. I took off my coat inside. Because of the heat most people remained naked. I too took off my coat and my shirt. Inside the car some would go crazy and jump from side to side like at the circus. When there were only 10 or 12 of us left, the entire floor was covered with dead people. It was like a mattress they jumped on. They didn’t jump at first; at first everybody was normal. And one more interesting thing, a thing about dreams. I fell asleep in the train. And all these people that were jumping from side to side stepped on me, hurt my leg really bad and I woke up. But while I was asleep I dreamt that I was going to work at a farm. I saw a wheat field, fruit trees. Indeed, one week later I was sent to do forced labor at a farm and then this became my lifelong profession: agricultural engineer.
I believe in destiny and I wonder why I was among those chosen to stay alive. It was then that I noticed a very interesting thing biologically speaking. Namely that those who had least demands from life and the environment, that is the weak ones, were the ones to survive.
The first to die in the train was a sportsman. He died after an hour, an hour or so. I thought he just fainted, but he actually died of heat. And those who were least pretentious survived. All of us who got out were short and thin.
I can still remember as if it were today the moment when the train opened, at Podul Iloaiei. When the gates opened, I stepped back, although I was close to the door. But I just stood like that for about 2-3 minutes until almost everyone got out. I got out the last. Many of us when they breathed the fresh air fell down, fainted. The people got out on a field, there were very many puddles and they threw themselves in them because of thirst. Some wanted to cool down, others to quench their thirst. Many died right there on the ditch, others were taken to the hospital. One thing still haunts me: I was weary but I walked until I found clean grass with no mud in it. How could I refrain from jumping into the water then? I looked for a clean place so that my raincoat wouldn’t get dirty!
During the war
The Jewish community there was asked whether it would agree to receive, to host Jewish communists as we were labeled [The official propaganda called the victims of the pogrom Jewish communists to justify the repression.] So, after we spent about half an hour on the field, they lined us up and escorted us towards the synagogues in Podul Ilioarei. Lined up. There were some people from that town on the road that behaved really nasty: ‘Why did you come, kikes?’ Others even spitted on us. The Jews came first to look for their relatives, friends and acquaintances. A former classmate of mine and relative, one of the Idels, with whom I was to live during my stay in Podul Iloaiei, came before me: ‘Are you Iancu?’ I said: ‘Yes’. I looked at him curiously: ‘Are you asking me, dear former classmate?’ Other three survivors were in his house. And when I entered his house I stared in the mirror: ‘What is this?’ It was me. I didn’t recognize myself. I was haggard, nothing but skin and bones, my lips won’t close, my eyes almost popped out and then I suddenly realized why he asked me whether I was Iancu or not. If I couldn’t recognize myself, how could he then?
When they brought us to the synagogue, I sat down on a stair step and we were given tea. The first thing I thought about was this: until the day before yesterday I used to be a normal person and look at me now: who am I? A nobody! My turn came to receive a cup of tea. And I took the first sip. And it almost killed me. I chocked. It took me half an hour to calm down my cough and then I realized how dehydrated I was and I started to sip one drop at a time, like with a dropper, until I managed to swallow it.
After the first days in Podul Iloaiei passed, we were given a postcard to write on. And the first thing I wrote was this: ‘My dears, you cannot imagine the things I had to go through until...’ and I stopped and thought ‘Man, what are you writing about?!’ I took another postcard and I wrote: ‘My dears, I have arrived safely to Podul Iloaiei. All the best, Iancu’. Both I and my brother-in-law Leon Segal wrote the same. My sister got the postcard a few days later and learned that he was alive. My father had heard how many people had died there and counted me among the dead, delivered all the payers that should be delivered for the dead and got my postcard only a week later.
On the 29th, around half past 8 or 9 in the morning, when they took me out there was a long wall and 20-30 were already standing by that wall waiting for the others to be brought. A military passed by and at some point he drew his gun and wanted to shoot us. A major was passing by at that very moment and asked: ‘Soldier, have you been ordered to shoot?’ ‘No!’ ‘Get out immediately or you’ll be court-martialed!’ And he left. I don’t know who that was and I’m sorry I didn’t ask. We survived then but many of us who were taken to the Section [police headquarters] did not…
On the way there we walked with our hands up. Not a soul was to be seen on the street. The only people I saw were over to the Notre-Dame de Zion School – that is on Cuza-Voda Street. The building now hosts the Philharmonic. Germans stood at the windows and took pictures of us as we walked with our hands up. About 200 meters away, as we went further from our house towards the Section, there I was and my father walked on my left. We walked in lines of 7-8 persons towards the Section. A sergeant came towards me, slapped me twice over the face, took my wristwatch and said: ‘Hey, kike, you won’t need it anyways!’ It was then that both I and my father understood that something really bad was going to happen to us. And my father told me in Yiddish: ‘My dear, let this be an offering in exchange for your soul!’ And that’s exactly what happened. I managed to find myself among the survivors.
They took us to the police section. We spent all day there. Policemen with rubber batons stood on each side of the entrance and they would kick all those who entered. Since both I and my father were shorter we got away untouched. When we entered I saw piles of dead people one over the other and blood from those who had been hit on the head and died. When you came in the police section, in the middle, you could see some steps and two machine guns. One of them was aimed towards the gate, the other one towards the backyard fence. Anyone who tried to jump over the fence would be shot. They couldn’t bring in all of us and so they came up with a plan: the elderly and the children, but especially the men were given a 5/5 ticket with a stamp reading ‘free’. And they were told: ‘Tell the other Jews to come with their ID to receive a ticket like this one. Those who don’t present this ticket upon control will be shot!’ Out of fear, a lot of people came on their own. For the majority, the only freedom they got was the eternal one. And this is how they managed to bring everyone to the Section, even those who were not brought by the police or the army. My father got a ‘free’ ticket and managed to go back.
We spent the 29th at the Section. In the morning we were taken to the station, again walking in lines. On the platform in front of the station we were ordered to lie on the ground and we stayed like that until other people boarded the train. Then we got in the train as well and there was some guy there who kept counting. And I heard – because I didn’t know my number – I heard 137 and then: ‘Lock the train car!’
At the Iasi station a railroad employee shouted ‘Kikes, close the shutters!’ He came with a ladder and blocked our windows with some very big nails that were so long that they came out on the other side of the shutter and I had something to hang my raincoat on. I took off my coat inside. Because of the heat most people remained naked. I too took off my coat and my shirt. Inside the car some would go crazy and jump from side to side like at the circus. When there were only 10 or 12 of us left, the entire floor was covered with dead people. It was like a mattress they jumped on. They didn’t jump at first; at first everybody was normal. And one more interesting thing, a thing about dreams. I fell asleep in the train. And all these people that were jumping from side to side stepped on me, hurt my leg really bad and I woke up. But while I was asleep I dreamt that I was going to work at a farm. I saw a wheat field, fruit trees. Indeed, one week later I was sent to do forced labor at a farm and then this became my lifelong profession: agricultural engineer.
I believe in destiny and I wonder why I was among those chosen to stay alive. It was then that I noticed a very interesting thing biologically speaking. Namely that those who had least demands from life and the environment, that is the weak ones, were the ones to survive.
The first to die in the train was a sportsman. He died after an hour, an hour or so. I thought he just fainted, but he actually died of heat. And those who were least pretentious survived. All of us who got out were short and thin.
I can still remember as if it were today the moment when the train opened, at Podul Iloaiei. When the gates opened, I stepped back, although I was close to the door. But I just stood like that for about 2-3 minutes until almost everyone got out. I got out the last. Many of us when they breathed the fresh air fell down, fainted. The people got out on a field, there were very many puddles and they threw themselves in them because of thirst. Some wanted to cool down, others to quench their thirst. Many died right there on the ditch, others were taken to the hospital. One thing still haunts me: I was weary but I walked until I found clean grass with no mud in it. How could I refrain from jumping into the water then? I looked for a clean place so that my raincoat wouldn’t get dirty!
During the war
The Jewish community there was asked whether it would agree to receive, to host Jewish communists as we were labeled [The official propaganda called the victims of the pogrom Jewish communists to justify the repression.] So, after we spent about half an hour on the field, they lined us up and escorted us towards the synagogues in Podul Ilioarei. Lined up. There were some people from that town on the road that behaved really nasty: ‘Why did you come, kikes?’ Others even spitted on us. The Jews came first to look for their relatives, friends and acquaintances. A former classmate of mine and relative, one of the Idels, with whom I was to live during my stay in Podul Iloaiei, came before me: ‘Are you Iancu?’ I said: ‘Yes’. I looked at him curiously: ‘Are you asking me, dear former classmate?’ Other three survivors were in his house. And when I entered his house I stared in the mirror: ‘What is this?’ It was me. I didn’t recognize myself. I was haggard, nothing but skin and bones, my lips won’t close, my eyes almost popped out and then I suddenly realized why he asked me whether I was Iancu or not. If I couldn’t recognize myself, how could he then?
When they brought us to the synagogue, I sat down on a stair step and we were given tea. The first thing I thought about was this: until the day before yesterday I used to be a normal person and look at me now: who am I? A nobody! My turn came to receive a cup of tea. And I took the first sip. And it almost killed me. I chocked. It took me half an hour to calm down my cough and then I realized how dehydrated I was and I started to sip one drop at a time, like with a dropper, until I managed to swallow it.
After the first days in Podul Iloaiei passed, we were given a postcard to write on. And the first thing I wrote was this: ‘My dears, you cannot imagine the things I had to go through until...’ and I stopped and thought ‘Man, what are you writing about?!’ I took another postcard and I wrote: ‘My dears, I have arrived safely to Podul Iloaiei. All the best, Iancu’. Both I and my brother-in-law Leon Segal wrote the same. My sister got the postcard a few days later and learned that he was alive. My father had heard how many people had died there and counted me among the dead, delivered all the payers that should be delivered for the dead and got my postcard only a week later.
We had no problems until we started to feel a drift of anti-Semitism due to the Goga-Cuza government [2] all the more considering that professor Cuza came from Iasi. I remember that as early as 1939 when I was living on the Sarariei Street and one morning groups of students and of… I would call them citizens for want of a better word… broke the windows of every Jewish shop.
For me, although I left Iasi after I graduated faculty, in 1948, even today I can feel some kind of love for my birthplace with its special wonders. It was not a crowded city. It had about 150,000 inhabitants. The atmosphere was very nice by 1938-1939. We didn’t even know… there was no difference between Christian, Jew or any other ethnicities. I cannot say that I felt any inappropriate attitude towards myself as a Jew in primary or secondary schools. We were Romanians too. We all had Romanian citizenship. We got along very well in school as well.
My father used to go to the synagogue even during communism. That regime looked askance at the employees’ relationship with religion and tradition. As for myself, because I loved my father, I loved Judaic tradition that I have never denied or went astray from I would go to the synagogue on those days even in Ceausescu’s time. He used to go on Fridays and Saturdays but in the evening, especially in winter, I would go and take him home.
More often than not the holidays were about the relationship with God, about going to the synagogue. That was the atmosphere, especially in Iasi. There were a lot of shopkeepers and during the New Year or Kippur holidays, Iasi would be a commercially dead city. All shops were closed, all synagogues were full.
In my childhood and even later, in my 15 or 16, my father would take me with him to Friday and Saturday evening prayers. When others would go outside to play football, I had to go to the synagogue. But this is how I learned everything that it is to know about Judaic tradition. I liked it because I learned all kinds of useful stuff.
There is a street in Iasi in the area where we lived that was called just like that: the Synagogues Street. A lot of synagogues were there, separate synagogues according to trade: the Tailors’ Synagogue, the Publicans’ Synagogues, and the Grand Synagogue that remains today the only synagogue in the area to still be used for prayer and Jewish cultural events.
I attended the 5th grade at the ‘Alexandru cel Bun’ High School. But since the 6th had been disbanded I had to sign up with another high school. The two most famous high schools in Iasi were the Boarding High School and the National High School. I joined the latter to attend the 6th grade. I have never had any arguments or disagreements with my classmates.
I attended the ‘Stefan cel Mare’ Secondary School that was very close to our house. I had extraordinary teachers there. I cared very much about teacher Pausesti who was famous for his knowledge of French. Mr. Glica, the arts [teacher], lived nearby and every time he passed by he would stop and have a chat with us. I remember mostly Mr. Traian Gheorghiu, the Romanian teacher. He cared very much about me. I was hard-working, I learned hard. I would get a 10 at his subject. All these four years that I studied Romanian with him he had a custom. He noted the marks in the catalogue, mentioning the day, month and mark. Every time on the 10th October he would call me in front of the class, ask me questions to put down my mark and say: ‘I would like to have the pleasure of writing three 10 under your name today, on 10th October!’ I kept in touch with this teacher even after I finished secondary school. He was a supporter of the Peasants’ Party by tradition, through his parents. After the 23rd August [1944], he was arrested and jailed for 11 years [as a political detainee]. After he was released I kept in touch with him, we used to meet. I told him: ‘I care about you as a teacher. I know who you were and who you are. It doesn’t bother me and I am not afraid either’. After a while, he was rehabilitated and taught Romanian at the faculty. He wrote a play, ‘The Honeycombs of Vrancea Mountains’ that had its premiere at the National Theater in Iasi. He invited me and I had a box seat right next to the author. He was a special man of extraordinary education and honesty. The thing that impressed me and still hurts today is what happened to all those who were sent to the Channel, where the Romanian intelligentsia was physically destroyed.
Romania
I was an A pupil, I was awarded first prize every year. I tried to study hard. I knew that my parents worked hard to earn a living and that I had to get ready to help them at some point. I liked all the subjects, but I was mostly drawn to music. When I was 6 my father hired a teacher to teach me play the violin.
When I turned 7 I started going to the ‘Vasile Adamache’ Elemental School [public school]. My teacher’s name was Pantelimonescu, an extraordinary man whose memory will always stay with me because he took really good care of us. He taught us everything about manners. Two or three years after I graduated elemental school, the poor man died. All his pupils went over to his house and led him to his final resting place in the Eternitatea Cemetery in Iasi. This is how close he had become to us and how much we had come to love him. He was like a real parent throughout the four years of school.
When I turned 5 or so my parents sent me over to a melamed [teaching the children the alphabet and prayers] and I studied with him until I was 13. I managed to learn the Talmud and Tanakh. I learned Yiddish that was very important to me.
I remember just one time when I was a child and I went with my folks in a holiday to Targu Ocna for a fortnight. I think I was not older than 5 or 6. But it was our only time, the rest we couldn’t afford it. My father worked very hard and he could barely manage to keep us afloat.
Sofia could play the violin, unlike the others. Fany studied the piano for about one or two years, but my father could no longer pay for her lessons.
We lived on Apelor Street in Iasi [Street in the Targu Cucului quarter. There were several Jewish quarters: Targu Cucului – to the north, Sarariei – to the north, Tatarasi – to the south, or Podul Ros – to the south of the city]. It was a miserable little street, not paved. We had a grocery’s there. My father and mother kept it; it is how they provided for us. They bought the house. They even had three tenants back then. When I turned 11 and I started high school, we moved to Sarariei Street where we would live throughout the war. The house had eight apartments, a ground floor and a first floor. We had an old shop selling ferrous and nonferrous metals. The shop had two rooms and a kitchen. The apartment next door was ours too. We built a door: we broke through the wall to have a passage to the next apartment. This is how we lived. We had a small table at the back of the shop. We would sit at that table, study, read. We had a radio that we kept until the time when all radios were seized from the Jews. Very few houses had a second or a third floor. There were very many houses in the courtyard and around 67 families lived there. This quarter was mostly a Jewish one.
Like in any Jewish house, both they and my maternal grandmother would talk in Yiddish every time they did not want us children to understand what they were talking about.
My mother, Minta Tucarman [nee Moise], was born in 1889 in Iasi. She would not let a Friday evening go by without her lighting the candles. I can see her right before my eyes: she put her little shawl on her head, she lit the candles. ‘I pray for our welfare, your welfare, let us all be healthy and safe from evil!’ She would utter these words in Yiddish although my parents spoke Romanian flawlessly.
Betty lost her husband Marcu Madrisovici, and their three sons – Strul, Iancu, and Lupu – in the Iasi pogrom.
Strul and Pascal remained in the country where they had an alehouse.
Moritz left for London were he had a ready-made clothes shop. At some point he changed his name from Moritz Moise to Moritz Hoffman which meant ‘hope-man’.
He was the warden of the Haim Hoffman synagogue located behind our house. He kept the Jewish tradition in the sense that he would go to the synagogue every Friday evening, on Saturdays, yearly holidays such as Rosh Hashanah, and Yom-Kippur.