So I hadn’t been admitted to drama school, and I took an entrance exam for the Law School in Iasi, where I wanted to be a part-time student, in 1955 or 1956. Back then, a worker’s or a peasant’s child had more chances to succeed than the child of an intellectual. In order to become a part-time student, one had to hold an employment in order to prove that he or she wasn’t able to attend courses on a daily basis. I wasn’t employed, but I managed to provide the required certificate for a while, until it didn’t work anymore. I went to Law School for two years, but had to quit. In that period, I would only go to the faculty at certain times.
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Displaying 45991 - 46020 of 50826 results
Cornelia Gatlan
My mother insisted that my sister and I marry Jewish men – I know that she wanted us to marry Jewish men. And my sister’s first marriage was to a Jewish engineer from Iasi whose name was Weissenberg. But they were not married for long, only for a couple of years. I went to visit them during the period when I worked at Sfantu Spiridon Hospital in Iasi. Yet they didn’t get along well and they separated.
Afterwards, my sister returned to Braila, where she met her second husband, Dumitrescu, through my father. Dumitrescu was a Christian-Orthodox Romanian. But religion is not important in choosing your spouse, what matters is education, social standing, character. What one does is not important, what matters is that one receives a good education.
Afterwards, my sister returned to Braila, where she met her second husband, Dumitrescu, through my father. Dumitrescu was a Christian-Orthodox Romanian. But religion is not important in choosing your spouse, what matters is education, social standing, character. What one does is not important, what matters is that one receives a good education.
In the beginning, my sister attended the Charity Nurses School – these were similar to today’s pediatric nurses – after which she attended the Institute for Economical and Commerce Studies in Bucharest, as it was called in those days.
Afterwards, I went to the theoretical high school on Calarasilor Street, today’s ‘Murgoci’ High School. I got my graduation certificate – which was called ‘maturity diploma’ back then – in August 1955, while at the Secondary School for Girls no.1.
My favorite subjects were history, geography, Romanian literature, logic, and psychology. I didn’t like math and grammar. Among my favorite teachers was Miss Hinkes, who taught history; she died a few years ago, at the age of 80. Then there was Miss Filipescu, the geography teacher. We didn’t have a close relationship with our teachers, like nowadays – we only had a student-teacher relationship. I remember Mrs. Popescu, who taught math, and was a Sorbonne graduate. I never sensed anti-Semitism from the part of my teachers or classmates.
I had some Jewish classmates in high school, but most of them left for Israel. Miriam Schroner, Isabela Goldschmidt, and Bertha Solomon, whose father was a tailor, are all in Israel.
My favorite subjects were history, geography, Romanian literature, logic, and psychology. I didn’t like math and grammar. Among my favorite teachers was Miss Hinkes, who taught history; she died a few years ago, at the age of 80. Then there was Miss Filipescu, the geography teacher. We didn’t have a close relationship with our teachers, like nowadays – we only had a student-teacher relationship. I remember Mrs. Popescu, who taught math, and was a Sorbonne graduate. I never sensed anti-Semitism from the part of my teachers or classmates.
I had some Jewish classmates in high school, but most of them left for Israel. Miriam Schroner, Isabela Goldschmidt, and Bertha Solomon, whose father was a tailor, are all in Israel.
In the first years, until I got to the 4th grade, I attended a Catholic school for nuns, ‘Sancta Maria.’
It was a boarding school run by Catholic nuns, and the teachers were nuns too. They had all the classes, from the 1st elementary year to the senior high school year. It was located on the spot where the old maternity on Campiniu Street used to be. My sister went for more than four years at this school. Eventually, it was dissolved – I believe it happened during the Dej [9] regime, when the Communists came to power. My sister completed her secondary education at the Theoretical High School.
I went to the ‘Sancta Maria’ School for a few years, but I didn’t go to high school there. Although we were Jewish, the nuns admitted us. Tuition was really high, but my father was a doctor and could afford it. So, he paid, and we got in. Classes were held in Romanian. Then I went to the Elementary School no.4 on Galati Street.
It was a boarding school run by Catholic nuns, and the teachers were nuns too. They had all the classes, from the 1st elementary year to the senior high school year. It was located on the spot where the old maternity on Campiniu Street used to be. My sister went for more than four years at this school. Eventually, it was dissolved – I believe it happened during the Dej [9] regime, when the Communists came to power. My sister completed her secondary education at the Theoretical High School.
I went to the ‘Sancta Maria’ School for a few years, but I didn’t go to high school there. Although we were Jewish, the nuns admitted us. Tuition was really high, but my father was a doctor and could afford it. So, he paid, and we got in. Classes were held in Romanian. Then I went to the Elementary School no.4 on Galati Street.
I went through all the states of education: kindergarten, elementary school, then the others. I first went to school at the age of seven, because I was born on 1st September. There was a Jewish school in Braila, but they didn’t send me to that one. I have Jewish friends who went there.
We hastily moved out from the house on Galati Street, and we had to leave the bookcase behind. This was not the only piece of furniture we didn’t take: in fact, we gave up a lot of furniture, because it didn’t fit in the new apartment. We sold the old furniture and the piano, because we didn’t have room for them anymore. I should have gone with my mother and retrieve the books, or, at least, sell them. My father’s old gynecological table and all the instruments were carried in the attic, and this is where they stayed. We grabbed what we could take, and sold the rest. I have almost nothing of what we used to have. I still have some books, but I keep them inside the sideboards.
After my father died, difficulties began for my mother, my sister, and me. We didn’t own our house – we never had any real estate. We paid rent. We exchanged the place for an apartment in an apartment house. My sister worked at the ‘Progresu’ Enterprise. A family there had been assigned an apartment. But, since there were many of them – with grandparents and children – they needed a larger place, so they agreed to the exchange. It’s not this apartment, but the one on the opposite side of the hallway. It was a newly-built house that had just been opened.
At a funeral, a prayer is recited both in Hebrew and in Romanian. There is only one God above all of us. The prayer is recited by the rabbi. There is now a rabbi in Galati, who comes to Braila too. I don’t know his name. What’s special about Braila and the surrounding area is that the deceased Jewish men are not dressed in the traditional way – in the white shirt they wore when they got married. Here we take a few meters of cloth and make a pair of pants with no holes for the feet, like the ones babies wear. We also dress him in a blouse, and pull a hood over his head. We wash the deceased with wine and hot water, then we get him dressed. A small pillow is put under his head, but it is filled with clay instead of down. There are no blankets or anything underneath the dead. The little pillow with earth signifies the fact that the dead is buried in earth.
The deceased isn’t kept in this outfit for three days, like Christians do. The funeral takes place the next day. We don’t keep our dead in the house for three days. The casket looks different from the typical Christian one – it is nothing more than a box made of planks joined together with nails. We put sawdust and the little pillow with earth. Everything is very simple. Of course, one may be buried in a more modern fashion, but those who really care about the tradition would never do that.
We don’t give alms immediately after the funeral, because people are really upset at that time. One may hold a commemoration of the deceased every year. You go to the synagogue and prepare a traditional meal, with fish – not steak – with cheese and cakes. Serving ‘rachiu’ [strong liquor obtained generally by distilling fermented sweet fruit juices or by diluting distilled ethyl alcohol with water] used to be considered a Jewish tradition. But nowadays brandy or vodka will do. In the morning of the commemoration, twelve men come to the meal at the synagogue.
The deceased isn’t kept in this outfit for three days, like Christians do. The funeral takes place the next day. We don’t keep our dead in the house for three days. The casket looks different from the typical Christian one – it is nothing more than a box made of planks joined together with nails. We put sawdust and the little pillow with earth. Everything is very simple. Of course, one may be buried in a more modern fashion, but those who really care about the tradition would never do that.
We don’t give alms immediately after the funeral, because people are really upset at that time. One may hold a commemoration of the deceased every year. You go to the synagogue and prepare a traditional meal, with fish – not steak – with cheese and cakes. Serving ‘rachiu’ [strong liquor obtained generally by distilling fermented sweet fruit juices or by diluting distilled ethyl alcohol with water] used to be considered a Jewish tradition. But nowadays brandy or vodka will do. In the morning of the commemoration, twelve men come to the meal at the synagogue.
Romania
My father died before my mother. His views were different from ours: he told us to have his body cremated, and put the ashes in an urn. But it didn’t happen like that. We buried him in the Jewish tradition, at the town’s Jewish cemetery, with everything that tradition required. He was only 59 when he died, in 1963.
After my father got a public job at the hospital, my mother was the one who did the shopping and the cooking. Our situation was pretty good until my father got sick, which happened about the time I turned 18. As long as my father was alive, he had a clientele and a reputation – he was renowned in our town and we didn’t lack anything.
But I would like to spend a month or so in Israel. Of course, I’d like to go there. What we can see [from here] is nothing compared to what really is there – and we should see it with our own eyes. Although it’s a small country, it’s very beautiful, and people work really hard there.
There’s a lot of fighting going on there, because Israel is surrounded by enemy states. Naturally, their security forces are unequalled – the Mossad is the best of all the secret services. Life goes on there. But, things have got quite unpleasant lately, because you never know what might happen to you if you get on a bus or enter a club. The situation has worsened these last years, but still, life goes on. I don’t think there is one single family who didn’t lose someone because of what’s going on, because of the Palestinians. I hope it will all end once and for all, in peace.
There’s a lot of fighting going on there, because Israel is surrounded by enemy states. Naturally, their security forces are unequalled – the Mossad is the best of all the secret services. Life goes on there. But, things have got quite unpleasant lately, because you never know what might happen to you if you get on a bus or enter a club. The situation has worsened these last years, but still, life goes on. I don’t think there is one single family who didn’t lose someone because of what’s going on, because of the Palestinians. I hope it will all end once and for all, in peace.
I wanted to go too, with my parents [at the end of the 1940s], but our application was rejected and my father wouldn’t file another. I was 12 or 13 back then and I would have been better off if I had left.
Now it’s difficult for me to do that.
Now it’s difficult for me to do that.
When the State of Israel was created, in 1948, I was still young. My grandmother left for Israel because her daughter was already there. And, besides, she really wanted to get to Israel. She felt all right here too, but she wanted to go.
As a child and a teenager, I used to stroll more than I do now, when I’m retired, and even more than I did when I was working. Now I no longer have someone to go for a stroll with, and I don’t usually do that on my own. In the summertime, I walk downtown especially, to the historical center of Braila, not the modern one. I take a detour in order to see all the old buildings; there are in quite a bad state, but they bring many memories to my mind: here was the library; there was the shooting range, and all the side streets coming from the Main Garden.
As for the Talmud Torah, I enjoyed it a lot and went to classes. Rabbi Sucher, who comes to Braila from Galati, is the one who teaches these classes today. Mr. Sucher is not very old, I’m not sure he turned 50 yet. He doesn’t hold the actual title of rabbi, but he attended some special courses. He is the representative of the religious Jews in Galati. He lives in Galati, but he also comes to Braila. There was no one left to teach religion here in Braila, because the ones who could do it were very old. Before him, Mr. Berenstein taught these classes, but he underwent a heart operation and gave up performing the service, because he was no longer able to do so.
Some four years ago, there were classes for learning the Hebrew alphabet, writing, and phrasing. I attended them for one year, but it was very difficult for me and I gave them up because of my old age. I am currently attending a class for reading, learning, and interpreting the Torah. I started going to this class last year. It is taught by Nadia Ustinescu, and it is held once a week, on Sunday. Most of those who attend are young people, especially in Sucher’s class of grammar and language. I chose to attend the class for the study of the Torah, which lasts two hours a week. It is a continuous process, because it isn’t so easy, and it is done every year, yet you do not receive a diploma after graduating.
Some four years ago, there were classes for learning the Hebrew alphabet, writing, and phrasing. I attended them for one year, but it was very difficult for me and I gave them up because of my old age. I am currently attending a class for reading, learning, and interpreting the Torah. I started going to this class last year. It is taught by Nadia Ustinescu, and it is held once a week, on Sunday. Most of those who attend are young people, especially in Sucher’s class of grammar and language. I chose to attend the class for the study of the Torah, which lasts two hours a week. It is a continuous process, because it isn’t so easy, and it is done every year, yet you do not receive a diploma after graduating.
For example, traditional cookies are baked on Purim; they are called hamantashen, are made with walnuts and honey, and have a three-cornered shape. I’m not very good at baking these cakes, and so, I go to another lady to bake them together with her. On Purim, they are distributed in the synagogue, because some are baked to be taken to the synagogue, too. The hamantashen are placed inside a little bag together with a small slice of sponge cake, called lekakh. [Editor’s note: Lakakh is honey cake, eaten generally on Rosh Hashanah.] These cakes with walnuts and honey are traditional on Purim. This year [2004], Purim will be celebrated on 7th March and will last for a couple of days. At the Community headquarters, there are a few elderly ladies who are better at baking these cakes.
Years ago, I used to go and lend a helping hand, but now, there are other ladies who bake many cakes. Jews aren’t the only ones who come to the Community – there are also our ‘sympathizers.’ So, there are plenty of people, and many cakes have to be baked. There is this story about Purim, with King Ahasuerus and Esther. ‘Pur’ means ‘lots,’ and people wear masks.
Years ago, I used to go and lend a helping hand, but now, there are other ladies who bake many cakes. Jews aren’t the only ones who come to the Community – there are also our ‘sympathizers.’ So, there are plenty of people, and many cakes have to be baked. There is this story about Purim, with King Ahasuerus and Esther. ‘Pur’ means ‘lots,’ and people wear masks.
The Jewish community life in Braila is very active. Ours is one of the most active communities in the country, despite the low number of members. The president of the Community is a man named Esrich, an engineer by trade. The secretary of the Community is David Segal. Most of the members are elderly, and some of them are unable to play an active part.
The rest of us, the ones who are still more or less all right, often come from inter-ethnic families, but we get along well with one another and observe the religious tradition. The Christians who are married to Jews are ‘sympathizers,’ and some of them enjoy coming to the synagogue for the holidays. Those who are still young, that is, under 40, are the ones who have an active life within the Community.
We have the Talmud Torah classes, the Hebrew classes, the choir, the dances; they organize seminars and are invited to all the seminars held in Bucharest, Timisoara, Brasov. Many of the younger members took trips to Israel, touring the country, visiting various places, getting to know how people study there.
Like I said, Jews in Braila have a very active life; and so do those in Timisoara, I suppose, where there’s a rabbi, but also those in Oradea or in Brasov. Compared to us, Jews in Galati have a less active community life. This is true for Focsani too. I can say that in this particular part of the Kingdom, in Braila, the Jewish community is very much alive and interested to stay connected to what is going on. We like what we do.
Of course, there aren’t as many weddings as there used to be. I haven’t seen a traditional one in ages. But we still have bar mitzvahs and circumcisions, scarce as they may be. Once in many years, a young woman gives birth to a boy, and the baby is circumcised. I don’t know if they used to have a bat mitzvah for the girls, but I’m sure about the bar mitzvah tradition.
At the bar mitzvah, they use those mantles and the boy then becomes a man, and enters manhood. I don’t remember exactly the year, it was about ten years ago, around 1994, when I went to the bar mitzvah of Itak Bulikovici, the son of some friends of mine; I also went to the bar mitzvah of the son of the Ustinescu family. His mother is a member of the Community’s council, too. Her name is Nadia Ustinescu, she has two sons, and she organized bar mitzvahs for both of them. One of her sons has already graduated from college in Bucharest, and the other lives in Braila.
They are both active members of the Community. There are many young people active in the Community. I am no longer in my prime, but there are young people who sing in the choir in Hebrew. There is a conductor, who comes from Bucharest, and they all sing using their partitions; the words are in Hebrew. They sing beautifully, on holidays. They bring accordions and violins and they play beautiful songs.
The rest of us, the ones who are still more or less all right, often come from inter-ethnic families, but we get along well with one another and observe the religious tradition. The Christians who are married to Jews are ‘sympathizers,’ and some of them enjoy coming to the synagogue for the holidays. Those who are still young, that is, under 40, are the ones who have an active life within the Community.
We have the Talmud Torah classes, the Hebrew classes, the choir, the dances; they organize seminars and are invited to all the seminars held in Bucharest, Timisoara, Brasov. Many of the younger members took trips to Israel, touring the country, visiting various places, getting to know how people study there.
Like I said, Jews in Braila have a very active life; and so do those in Timisoara, I suppose, where there’s a rabbi, but also those in Oradea or in Brasov. Compared to us, Jews in Galati have a less active community life. This is true for Focsani too. I can say that in this particular part of the Kingdom, in Braila, the Jewish community is very much alive and interested to stay connected to what is going on. We like what we do.
Of course, there aren’t as many weddings as there used to be. I haven’t seen a traditional one in ages. But we still have bar mitzvahs and circumcisions, scarce as they may be. Once in many years, a young woman gives birth to a boy, and the baby is circumcised. I don’t know if they used to have a bat mitzvah for the girls, but I’m sure about the bar mitzvah tradition.
At the bar mitzvah, they use those mantles and the boy then becomes a man, and enters manhood. I don’t remember exactly the year, it was about ten years ago, around 1994, when I went to the bar mitzvah of Itak Bulikovici, the son of some friends of mine; I also went to the bar mitzvah of the son of the Ustinescu family. His mother is a member of the Community’s council, too. Her name is Nadia Ustinescu, she has two sons, and she organized bar mitzvahs for both of them. One of her sons has already graduated from college in Bucharest, and the other lives in Braila.
They are both active members of the Community. There are many young people active in the Community. I am no longer in my prime, but there are young people who sing in the choir in Hebrew. There is a conductor, who comes from Bucharest, and they all sing using their partitions; the words are in Hebrew. They sing beautifully, on holidays. They bring accordions and violins and they play beautiful songs.
The apartment I’m living in was bought rather recently, after my mother and her sister died. In fact, the one who paid for this apartment was the Community. They helped me buy it. They gave me a donation, through a notary. It cost me 92,000 lei 12 years ago [in 1992]. I will spend the remaining years of my life in this apartment.
When I die, the apartment will go to the Community, like I have already stipulated in my will. I don’t regret being all alone. My niece from Craiova lives in an apartment left by her mother. I decided to give my apartment to the Community, because they help me so much. Hadn’t it been for the Community, I think I would have starved to death. I bought the furniture I have here, by installments.
When I die, the apartment will go to the Community, like I have already stipulated in my will. I don’t regret being all alone. My niece from Craiova lives in an apartment left by her mother. I decided to give my apartment to the Community, because they help me so much. Hadn’t it been for the Community, I think I would have starved to death. I bought the furniture I have here, by installments.
There is, for instance, the Joint Organization [16], a large contributing Jewish organization, and there’s another one, whose name I don’t remember. Their contributions have diminished lately – affecting our Community – because the Joint and the State of Israel especially help the Jews from Russia – there are a lot of Russian Jews.
However, the Community is helping us both financially, and through packs with gifts and clothes – new clothes, not second-hand.
Helena Najberg
My second uncle, Leon, went to Palestine immediately, that is still before the war. And he died there some 10,11 years ago.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
We were very glad to hear about the creation of the state of Israel with my husband. Yes, we were pleased. We’d say: ‘If something happens, then we are, we can be, citizens of that country. So we’re not bezprizorni [Russian, not belonging, homeless], as they say. We were happy, but we never thought about emigrating. Anyway, my husband and I, we never visited Israel. I wouldn’t have been able to stand that climate. I hate heat. I wouldn’t have survived there for long. I prefer very cold weather to heat. My husband was never drawn there either.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My son was active in Solidarnosc [12] We didn’t forbid it. Later, when Solidarnosc became legal, he rode along Piotrkowska Street and appealed to people not to drink alcohol, he organized these anti-alcohol manifestations. Once they even arrested him for disturbing public order, because he was shouting at the top of his lungs that people should stop drinking. Now he’s active in some conservative club. When my husband was alive and our son visited us I’d beg Jakub not to start discussing political issues with Jerzy. Because they’d always argue. My husband was a leftist from before the war and my son was and still is a rightist, and a leftist and a rightist usually don’t agree. They always had different opinions. And later they just talked about the weather, cars and such things.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My husband was also involved in the party. Until the 20th Congress [10]. Later, he simply became depressed.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I never really got involved in politics on purpose, but as soon as I started working I had to joint the party [9]. I don’t remember who asked me to do it, but it must have been someone from the establishment. I had to read out my curriculum vitae at a meeting. My curriculum vitae was quite short, because I wasn’t old, so only what I’d lived through during the war and that was it. I didn’t know what the party was, what kind of a party. They told me to sign up, so I did. I was active in the party, I can’t deny that, but those were short periods of time. I was in the so-called executive. Well, because I could speak well and write nicely, so they wanted me to be in it. I went to those meetings. I had to. Well, you wouldn’t dare not to come. A bit out of fear.
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After WW2
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He belonged to a party, it was Bund [1]. But he never said anything about this. I don’t think that he was very involved in the activities of that organization.
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Before WW2
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Mother died the very same day. All the women were together, but Mother wasn’t with them anymore. Neither was her friend. They were older [Mrs. Najberg’s mother was 51 years old] and there weren’t suitable for them [Germans] for labor, so they went straight into the gas chamber and that was the end. I never saw mother again. This ‘aufejzerka’ [Polonized version of the German word Aufseher – guard, supervisor], this leader, a German, said: ‘Do you see this chimney? That’s where your mothers are frying.
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During WW2
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Mother died immediately after we came to Auschwitz, in a gas chamber. This was in 1944. I know for sure, because women were separated [from men]. If Mother had been alive, she would have been with me.
He died during the war, in a camp. After the war a cousin of mine, I don’t remember, from my father’s side I think, visited me and said that they sent Father to Mauthausen [concentration camp, set up by the Germans on 8th August 1938, located in northern Austria, near Linzem. The prisoners worked in rock quarries; the camp was liberated on 5th May 1945 by American troops] and that’s where he died, on 25th April 1945. Can you imagine, just a few days before the war ended. Yes, I got Father’s death certificate from the Red Cross.
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During WW2
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