Then my husband was sent to work in Ploiesti. Lucica and I went with him. During the war, there wasn’t one single Jew aged 16-55 in Ploiesti; it was an oil region and, you see, Jews were considered Communists and spies… The house we lived in also sheltered six Jewish families and six non-Jewish ones. We got along well with everyone, except for one single family – those were real pests, but there was nothing to do about it. We had female neighbors whose husbands or sons had been sent to labor camps. Some were in Buzau, some in Focsani, in the Vrancea region, and some were further away, in Transnistria. They weren’t all in the same place, so there could be no communication between them. Some returned, some didn’t. Of those who returned, some died in just a few months… I had three neighbors whose husbands were away and one neighbor whose sons had been sent to forced labor, because her husband was over 55. They didn’t earn anything; they were in a pitiful situation. My husband would bring food and would fill bags with some of it, and he would tell me: ‘Go to their places and give them these things and this food. Don’t call them over here, don’t insult them, don’t put them in an embarrassing position! You go to them!’ And I’d go and deliver those packages. My husband helped a lot of people, there’s no arguing about that!
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Estera Sava
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A few days before the war began [Ed. note: Romania entered World War II on 22nd June 1941, when the Romanian Army attacked the Soviet Union alongside Germany and its allies.], the army let my husband go, because the Telephone Company kept filing requests – they wanted him back because he was an expert and experts were needed. The colonel who was the head of the subunit was missing; a new petition was received from the Telephone Company, so the major who was in charge told my father: ‘Quickly, go to the clerk, arrange to get the papers, and tonight you’ll be out of here!’ Imagine my surprise when he showed up at our door. Everybody knew we were on the threshold of a war. When I saw him, I asked him: ‘What are you doing here? Are you a deserter?’ – ‘Yes, I’m a deserter’, he said, but he was laughing. And he told me how they had let him go. Only a few days later, the war began. His former subunit went to Russia and to the Don River; almost all of them died. If the beginning of the war had caught him there, I would have become an 18-year-old widow.
Romania
My sister wasn’t the only one in our family who was taken to Auschwitz, where she found her end; there was also a cousin with her husband and her three children, two boys and a girl. They were from Bacau, but they lived in Transylvania [10], which was occupied by the Hungarians at the time [Ed. note: Northwestern Transylvania was attached to Hungary as a result of the Vienna Treaty.] [11] So they were deported to Auschwitz. The only ones who returned were this cousin and her daughter; her husband and the boys never came back. The mother and the daughter spent 6 months in a hospital – in Germany, I think –, because, when the Americans liberated them, they only weighed 30 kilograms! Then they came home, were sick for a while, and eventually left for Israel.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
I was very young, so I can’t remember every detail, but I know Jews weren’t allowed to own anything, to run stores or to hold jobs; they were banned from everywhere! [Ed. note: A law was passed that was called the Statute of the Romanian Jews] [9] Jews had to survive from what they sold from their homes! We had such cases in our own family too. They didn’t just quit their job, they were forced to. My mother’s brothers, my father, and my brother became unemployed. My parents and my brother weren’t deported though; they were lucky enough not to. They remained in Bacau.
One evening, in Bacau, they gathered all the single girls aged from 16 to I don’t know what, including two former schoolmates of my sister’s from high school, and they took them to Transnistria [8]. None of them returned! They were 30, 40, maybe more! Those two girls were sisters. Their mother watched them being taken to the police station and waited for 4 hours. When she saw they were escorting them to the railroad station, she decided to join them. You can imagine why, they were her only children, a physician’s daughters. Their father had died a couple of years before. So the three of them went to Transnistria together But only the mother returned! One night, in Transnistria, they came and removed her girls from the camp, claiming they were taking them to work for the Germans. The inmates kept hearing gun shots all night, but they thought they came from the fighting. The girls never returned! After coming back, their mother looked for them everywhere! Eventually, she realized they couldn’t be found anymore. She died after two years. She died from pain and sorrow, you see. It was excruciating, what can I say?
This is how things were. You had to live with the fear that they would come to get you. Not to mention the forced labor. They took them out of town to work, with no food. Do you think my brother was spared? No way, although he hadn’t even turned 18! My father had to carry him food at the railroad site where they worked. At least he came home every night. It was awful. We counted the hours and the days, hoping it would all be over some day. The feeling of panic was unbearable! We went to bed in the evening not knowing what the next day would bring. Jews were being deported randomly. We just didn’t know [who would be the next to go].
You see, they also wanted to shoot my father! A truck pulled by our house. It carried four Legionaries and one German soldier. All but the driver came inside and robbed us. They loaded everything they wanted into the truck! We had a number of jewels, like normal people do, right? They also seized my brother, a 16-year-old kid; they were going to take him to the Green House [Ed. note: this is how the headquarters of the Legionary movement were called], to beat him all night long! This sort of things happened all the time. After they left, I got dressed immediately. Lucica, my little girl, was only a few moths old, or maybe 1 year – I can’t remember. I took a carriage and I went after them, to prevent them from beating my brother! I got to the Green House ahead of them. I went to the guys who were there: ‘Look, Sir…’ – ‘What are you doing here, Madam?’ – ‘I came to inform you that they took away my jewelry. Why did they do that? My husband bought those jewels!’ That was true, by the way. Times were hard for my family, and my parents had been forced to sell many things so that we can survive! I continued: ‘Now they’re bringing my brother over, a 16-year-old! What did he do to them?’ – ‘But what’s your name?’ – ‘Sava’ – ‘Sava?’ – ‘Yes, my husband is not Jewish, he’s Romanian, and he’s been called up for active duty.’ – ‘Well now, I wouldn’t mind having such a jidovcuta myself!’ Meanwhile, the others had arrived. They did return my jewels – that’s all they gave me back. There weren’t so many of them anyway: a ring, some earrings, and trifles like that. And they also let me take my brother back.
Romania
Not everyone gave us a hart time. However, of all our neighbors – people we had always been nice to –, there was only one, a young girl, a friend of mine, who stood up for us in the street. So this child of 16-18 years stood up, not her parents. She told them: ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Yesterday, you were kissing their asses,’ – this is exactly how she put it – ‘and today you’re out to kill the jidani!’ It was very hard! The Persecutions gave us a very hard time; they were a terrible blow for us! To think that one week ago everything was fine, and today the whole world’s turned upside down! Sure, there were some non-Jewish people who saved Jews, but there were so very few of them, because everyone was afraid. Those who got caught were sent to the front or were shot to death on the spot.
When it ended, we didn’t come back to the old place. Instead, we moved on a street at the outskirts – a very nice place. Then the Communists kicked us out from that one too and sent us to the end of the Earth.
We went through many hardships indeed! Our closest neighbor kicked us out of our home! This neighbor, named Blaga, a very good friend of ours, had served as a warrant officer or something in the army, but he now worked in a factory. He came to us and told my father: ‘You are to evacuate the house until tomorrow night!’ My father got frightened, as you can imagine. ‘I am to do what?’ It was the fall of 1939, and the winter was close. We paid rent and our landlord – in those days, houses were privately owned, not State-owned – didn’t have the courage to stand up for us. My father went out and came across an acquaintance of his who worked for CFR [Caile Ferate Romane, the national railroad company]. He wasn’t a clerk; he worked on rolling stock, but he wasn’t a train conductor either – I don’t know what he did exactly. So this man saw my father and asked him: ‘Mr. Rosenberg, what is wrong with you, why do you look so sad?’ – ‘Well, if you only knew what’s on my mind! I feel like throwing myself in the Bistrita River! I don’t know what to do!’ – ‘But what happened?’ And my father told him everything. ‘Relax,’ said the man, ‘stop tormenting yourself. I’ll tell you what. I’m going to let you stay at my place.’ He didn’t have children. ‘My wife and I will move to my mother-in-law’s! That’s it; I’ll come by your place tomorrow morning to give you a hand.’ My father only knew that man, they weren’t close friends. But he was a real human being! Of course, we could only pack the things that our neighbor let us pack, not what we wanted! And so we moved on Postei St., paying rent to that railroad employee. We stayed there during the war.
The Yellow Star [7] was introduced, and, good God, we weren’t allowed to go the marketplace before 11 a.m. Of course, we couldn’t find anything to buy at that time! There was a war! A curfew was declared after 6 p.m.! If the police caught you not wearing the Yellow Star, they would take you to their headquarters! One day I went out to buy bread or something like that. A neighbor of ours, Badica, who was a subcommissioner, spotted me: ‘Hey, where’s your Star?’ And he started to curse me. On seeing that, I went: ‘Oh my, I forgot!’ – ‘Sure, you forgot!’ I went back inside and we no longer felt like eating bread or doing anything else! He was the same neighbor who, before all that, would kiss me and call me ‘Hey, beautiful!
My father wouldn’t say anything in our presence. My sister was away, but my brother endured serious persecutions. He was sent to forced labor and my father did everything he could to have him spared. But it was impossible, because seizures were made by Romanian soldiers together with German soldiers, and there was nowhere to hide from them. You couldn’t ask for shelter either, because you would have also got the one who was protecting you in trouble! Hiding Jews was a serious crime!
Mark my words: we suffered a great deal during the Persecutions! I don’t know exactly the month when it all began, but I think it was in the fall of 1939. This is when the Legionaries showed up. Before that, things had been undecided. I know what happened under their reign, when the Legionary police had its way. My father knew the president of the courthouse. They met in the street one day, and he told him: ‘Listen, Rosenberg,’ – the other man was Romanian – ‘we’re doomed! Look what’s happening, look who’s leading us!’ The police was occupied by the Legionaries! The law enforcement officers did whatever the Legionaries told them to do, not what they wanted. Antonescu [6] unleashed the Legionaries only to annihilate them later. But Antonescu had a nervous condition; he was far from being normal!
Romania
When the Persecutions began, I was in Bacau. My husband had been called up, and I had come to stay with my parents. The things started all of a sudden. Can you imagine? The same neighbor who embraced my mother and kissed her three days ago wants to kill us now!
Romania
When my husband was fired from Cernauti, because his wife was Jewish, I came back to Bacau, where I stayed for a few weeks. They sacked him when I was with child, with two months left before giving birth! You can realize what a blow that was! I was young, I hadn’t even turned 18… I was still a child, what was I supposed to think? It was a real blow. So I hurried back home, to mother’s, and this is where my baby was born. It was the fall of 1938. So I stayed for about three weeks. And my father took my husband to Bucharest, to the headquarters of the Telephone Company, which was privately owned! My father spoke French. He went to my husband’s manager – there were several people in the office – and addressed him in French: ‘Parlez-vous francais?’ [Do you speak French?] And the man said ‘Oui.’ [Yes] Then my father told him: ‘Look, Mister, what is the reason for firing my son-in-law like that?’ – ‘Who fired him?’ – ‘The Legionary group in the Telephone Company!’ On hearing that, the manager asked him: ‘Do you suspect anyone?’ – ‘I don’t, because I don’t know them. But I suppose my son-in-law does.’ My husband was called, and the same question was asked to him: ‘Do you suspect anyone?’ – ‘I don’t know, I couldn’t tell.’ – ‘All right then, I’ll find out myself!’ Two or three years later, the head of the Legionary group in the Telephone Company committed suicide. He had pulled too many scams and I suppose the time had come for him to pay!
Dan Mizrahy
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Gabriel Segalescu left the country in 1961. When he got the French citizenship, his name became Segard.
She immigrated to France and died in Paris in 1982.
She got divorced in 1939 and remarried.
He went to the Polytechnic in Beirut [Lebanon], spent a few years in France, and then he settled in Australia, in Sydney, where he became the general manager of some factory.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Marian Solomon, my cousin, was born in 1921 in Bucharest. He left on a small boat to Palestine in 1942 and spent six months in Izmir [Turkey], until the British let him stay in Cyprus, in 1943. After one year and a half he got to Palestine.
He built himself a four-floor apartment house, with two apartments per each floor, in Bucharest, on Sfintilor Street. They were the only ones in the family who had a car and a chauffeur. In the early 1930s they had a Daimler, then a Marmon; I had never heard of this make before and I never heard of it again, but I remember the license plate: 676 B.
He was a self-made man, an oil man who had a small refinery at the entrance of the town of Ploiesti.
He fought and was wounded in World War I. He became a sergeant in the Romanian Army.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
They all worked as clerks until they got married.
It was in the small house at the entrance of the Filantropia cemetery that my grandparents’ three daughters were born and raised: Mina, Henriette, and Annie Schonfeld went to the ‘Moteanu’ boarding school, where they were taught to treasure the value of money and to earn their existence.
Iosef Schonfeld was a hatter and owned a fashion design house in Bucharest, on Lipscani Street [Bucharest’s commercial center].
She was a contemporary and a friend of Marioara Ventura [Editor’s note: Marioara Ventura (1886-1954): Romanian actress, famous at the beginning of the 20th century, member of the Comedie Francaise]. She had also met her mother. Stimulated by her entourage, she studied drama and the piano.
I started going to school to ‘Sf. Iosif’ [German school]. This happened in 1932. In 1933, after finishing the 1st grade, they transferred me [because of the events that took place in 1933 in Germany, where Hitler came to power] to School no.31 ‘Alexandru Vlahuta’, a neighborhood school on Scolii Street.
My sister was with me and we were accompanied by Fraulein Mitzy, a Swiss woman who helped our parents raise us appropriately and spoke to us in German.
I don’t think I had turned four yet when I went to the cinema for the first time. My sister was with me and we were accompanied by Fraulein Mitzy, a Swiss woman who helped our parents raise us appropriately and spoke to us in German. The name of the cinema was Trianon [today Bucharest Cinema] and we saw a silent film starring Charlie Chaplin. It was silent in the sense that there was no talking, but it did have a musical background. They played a very light tune. It stuck with me and, to the general surprise, when I got back home, I sat at the piano, an upright piano, actually, and I… reproduced that tune. I remember my sister called Fraulein, Fraulein called my mother, and my mother called my father, while I, the ‘star,’ was sitting on the revolving stool and was playing imperviously! Touched to tears, my father drew a second stool and started to accompany me as well as he could.