They immigrated to Israel in 1961 together with my parents.
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Dan Mizrahy
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In college, my sister kept on being a good student and she became a respected physician. She was an obstetrician in the first ten to twelve years, and then she changed her specialization after she left the country, becoming a good internist.
She had the misfortune of being ‘forced’ to take piano lessons at the same time with me; the main reason why my parents did that was not because they wanted to secure her musical education, but because they didn’t want to give her an inferiority complex. It took seven years of nightmare until our dear parents could be persuaded that Mira and music had nothing in common!
After having lived for three years in rented rooms, my parents, who both worked as clerks, were able to build the house where I was later born; they paid installments to the ‘Cheap Housing Society.’ When they moved in, my sister was three months. The house was furnished with the best taste: the living room, with two comfortable armchairs and six chairs with identical upholstery, the ‘Aubisson’ corner, the floor lamp, the splendid bronze chandelier with twelve arms, matching the two bracket lamps of the same material, which guarded the fireplace. The right-hand rooms were turned into one single room when the house was renovated in 1935. The side towards the street sheltered my father’s desk with the adjoining armchair and a superb bookshelf with crystal doors; the side towards the courtyard had the oak dining room set, with an extendable table for 24 people relying on two massive, sculptured legs, a huge sideboard that covered an entire wall, a buffet next to another wall, and, finally, a wonderful crystal cabinet placed in a niche that had been specially added when the house was renovated. The window was made of crystal poured over a drawing inspired by Strauss’ ‘Wein, Weib und Gesang’ waltz [German for ‘Wine, women and song’], picturing an elegant lady with a hat sitting at a table in front of a glass cup, with a saxophonist standing next to her. An electrical installation used to illuminate this crystal with a light bulb placed between the exterior window and the crystal.
My parents got married on 31st October 1920. The religious ceremony took place in the fashion design shop of my mother’s step-brother, Iosef Schonfeld. The blizzard was so strong, that carriages couldn’t enter Lipscani Street.
I’m pushing the limits of my memory in order to be able to recall one single vacation spent with my father in the 1930s, but I’m afraid I fail. When we were small children, my mother would first take us on vacation to the seaside [at the Black Sea] for a month, then to the mountains for another month – usually to Predeal or Timisul de Sus [mountain resorts in Brasov County]. We stayed at the Excelsior boarding house, later known as Savoy. It belonged to the Pincas Company and my father got a discount, of course.
There were no extravagances though! Our parents didn’t take the taxi, and neither did we, obviously. Moreover, when my father’s streetcar pass expired, he would ride in 2nd class; I remember the ticket cost 4 lei, as opposed to the 1st class ticket, which was 5 lei.
As far as our education is concerned, I can say that no resources were spared in order for us to get the best schools and the best teachers.
We employed one or two maids, usually from Transylvania [4], and we also had a governess for a while – until we were seven or eight.
Our family’s standard of living was the normal one for an intellectual who worked as a higher clerk and supported a wife and two children.
In order to continue our education, we were registered at the high schools that belonged to the Jewish community in Bucharest: it was ‘Focsaneanu’ for my sister and ‘Cultura’ [7] for me. Several scores of children were crammed into a 20-square-meter room and had to sit three at a desk, in an inadequate building, first on Zborului Street, then on Sf. Ioan Nou Street. The teachers, who were all Jewish, did their best to make classes look professional. I remember some of them: Fayon – severe and virulent – at math, Kanner – refined and polite – at geography, Mircea Brucar, the pianist, at German.
Right before I was about to begin the 5th secondary grade at the ‘Spiru Haret’ High School and the 6th year at the academy, in September 1940, the anti-Jewish laws [5] were passed. With them, the wings of my childhood’s smooth flight were broken. Mihai Popescu – the secretary of the Conservatoire at the time – called me on the phone and told me to come and hand in my 6th-year student card, as I had been eliminated from the academy. He received me with kind words and, despite the green shirt with baldric which he wore [reference to the Legionary [6] uniform], he shook my hand and wished me luck. The expulsion from high school was less spectacular. No one called me or handed me an official notice. I was simply expelled. I kept running around like a hunted prey, trying to find a way out. My sister, in her turn, was about to enter the 7th grade at the ‘Regina Maria’ High School. She was left outside too.
Here is a story that deeply marked me in my childhood. When I was eleven or twelve, my father wanted to surprise me and took me to a boxing match. I had never been to such an event before and I have never been ever since. Moti Spakov, then the champion of Romania in the heavyweight category, was fighting an African. I can’t remember who won and it doesn’t matter. What matters – and this I cannot forget – is that all around me, scores, hundreds of ‘patriotic’ spectators were yelling: ‘Hit the jidan [offensive word for Jew in Romanian]! Let the jidan have it!’ All the years that passed didn’t manage to soften the shock I had that night.
One of the reasons why I was a normal child was the fact that my parents never made me feel like a wunderkind. Thus, to the extent of their material possibilities and trying to avoid spoiling me, they made sure I had all the toys a boy could want; these included the balls and the circle, the tricycle, the sleigh, the mechanic train, the sling, the bow, mechanic games and children’s games, like ‘Mensch argere dich nicht’ [German for ‘Don’t get upset, man’], which I played with my grandmother on Thursday, when she came to visit us at noon… I went ice skating on Saturday afternoon at the Otetelesanu. The cycling track behind our house – which wasn’t used at the time and which later became the Dinamo stadium – was the ‘kingdom’ of my childhood. I used to spend all the spare moments of my summer afternoons there with my friend, Andrei Poenaru-Bordea.
She went to the right, to ‘Regina Maria’ High School, and I went to the left, to ‘Spiru Haret’ High School.
When the time of my religious coming of age, the bar mitzvah, drew near, my father wanted to observe the tradition and programmed this ‘confirmation’ ceremony at the Spanish temple. For this, he hired me a Hebrew teacher named Cohen who taught the Tannakh at the school of the Spanish Jews’ community, on Negru Voda Street. Mr. Cohen was rather young, punctual and fair, and came to our place in the evening. He always found me tired after a day of school, homework and playing… However, I obeyed. So, when I turned 13, the ceremony took place; I found myself on the altar of the temple, where I read various prayers in Hebrew, then I held a speech in Romanian, which had been prepared by the rabbi, committing myself before the rabbi to observe the faith and the precepts of the holy writs. Everyone congratulated me and we had champagne and wafers in the festivity room. Happy and relieved, I went home to change my clothes and went straight to the cinema.
On holidays, I sometimes went with my father to ‘Cahal Grande’ [‘The Great Temple’ in Ladino]. It was spectacular. A monumental building, with marble floor and pillars, with lavishing chandeliers and an organ whose sounds magnetized me. They sang traditional tunes at the Great Temple. Josef Rosensteck was at the same time the Romanian Opera’s choir master and the organist and choir conductor of the Spanish temple in Bucharest. The main cantor was Alberto della Pergola, an Italian singer hired by the community of the Spanish Jews in Bucharest. The services at ‘Cahal Grande’ turned into real musical shows that were quite impressive. At that time, the ‘master of ceremonies’ was Great Rabbi Sabetay Djaen, who had been born in Argentina and had been brought here to fill this particular position, which he did with a lot of stateliness.
At that time, the academy was still based on Stirbei Voda Street, in an old and totally inadequate building. A year later it moved to Brezoianu Street, a splendid aristocratic house, with large, bright rooms, and with a superb hall where exams were held. I had classes with Mrs. Aurelia Cionca on Wednesday afternoon. Of course, I was by far the youngest student. There were two pianos in the classroom placed one next to the other. The teacher sat at the one on the left, and the student at the one on the right. The keyboards were oriented so as to form a right angle with the chairs placed next to the wall, where the ones who listened sat. Mrs. Cionca’s method was to let the student go through the entire piece without interrupting him unless he made serious mistakes. Then she commented on the performance and supported her arguments by playing the piano herself. It was a true delight!
When I got to the 4th elementary grade I was admitted to the 1st year at the Royal Academy of Music and Drama. I was nine years and a half… During that academic year, 1935-1936, they opened the Scala Cinema. To advertise it, they offered discount tickets to students. If my memory serves me well, they ran ‘Robin Hood’ with Errol Flynn. I put on a jacket and a tie, with shorts, of course, placed the lyre on my lapel, the pin of the Conservatoire students, and went to Scala, where I asked for a discount ticket. The window of the box-office was very high, or at least this is how it seemed to me. A hand came out from there and stopped on my head, while a sweet female voice addressing me as ‘kid’ explained that the discount tickets were not for children and that I would have to wait to become a student before I could take advantage of that favor. With perfect calm, I stretched my arm and laid down my student card in front of her. This was followed by an, ‘Oh, please forgive me!’ and by the release of the requested ticket. I felt very proud!
So I started the 1935-1936 academic year as a pupil in the 4th elementary grade at School no.31 and as a student in the 1st year at the Royal Academy of Music and Drama.
So I started the 1935-1936 academic year as a pupil in the 4th elementary grade at School no.31 and as a student in the 1st year at the Royal Academy of Music and Drama.
The winter of 1941-1942 was not an easy one. The tension that floated in the air was reflected by our material situation. Food and other necessities were becoming harder and harder to get. For instance, in that period, you could only purchase a simple tooth paste if you gave a used tube in return. As for the press, the only English-speaking newspaper was ‘Palestine Post,’ which cost 10 mils – the equivalent of a falafel.
In 1948, a short while after the proclamation of the State of Israel, in the middle of the independence war, a letter from my uncle Soly informed me that Iosif Fraier had perished in the battles fought around Jerusalem. I was and remained tremendously impressed.
I remember my fellow-students from the Conservatoire: Ora Abulafia, the daughter of a rich Argentinian-born merchant, lived in an elegant apartment house located in the vicinity of the Conservatoire, on Ben Yehuda Street. After the war, the Abulafia family moved to Argentina, and they later settled in Brussels. Another fellow-student, Braha Eden, was, at that time, a fair-haired, petite girl with a snub nose. I saw her again twice, when I visited Israel. She became a concert pianist, a teacher at the Rubin Academy, the former Palestine Conservatoire of Music, and she had a great national and international career. Another character that I want and have to evoke is Iosif Fraier. He was born in Iasi and he came to the Conservatoire one or two years after I had got there. He was about 20 years old, had been in Palestine for some time, and was, at the time of his arrival, already formed as a pianist. Tall, brown-haired, with a pointed nose and a beautiful mouth, with extremely big hands, and long, beautiful fingers. Much to our envy, he could easily encompass a tenth, and he speculated this gift of nature in his piano repertoire. A serious, ambitious boy, he studied a lot and he outshone us with his technique.
1st September 1941 was an important day for me. Loaded with luggage, I ‘landed’ at 23 Detudela Street. I shared a room with three other boys who were supported by the Alyat Hanoar and were lodged by Mrs. Uberal. The oldest – they were all more than 20 years old – was named Ruven and came from Germany. He studied printing, working for a company in this industry. The second, Arie, a tall, blonde lad who came from Czechoslovakia, specialized in leather products. Finally, the third was, to my pleasant surprise, from Piatra Neamt. His name was Zeev Gutherz. He came from a kibbutz in the north. He had a heart condition and had been transferred to Jerusalem, where he studied accounting. He was to return as an accountant to the kibbutz where he had come from.
We had two evenings with a fixed schedule. On Thursday night, rather late, a Hebrew teacher sent by Alyat Hanoar came.
We had two evenings with a fixed schedule. On Thursday night, rather late, a Hebrew teacher sent by Alyat Hanoar came.
The other evening with a ‘fixed schedule’ was on Friday. The Uberals celebrated the eve of Sabbath. That night, neatly dressed, we became the guests of the family. Mrs. Uberal’s room turned into a dining room and the table stretched from one side to the other. A shining, white table cloth enlightened the entire room. Two tall candlesticks, with the candles lit, created the special atmosphere, and the food was served using the ‘festive’ covers of the Uberals, which had been saved, along with few other things, from the house they had left in Vienna. The meal was never a feast, but the menu was quite abundant, consisting – without exception – of a soup, usually chicken, a main course and a dessert. What I remember with accuracy is the beautiful challah, the white plaited bread which filled the bread baskets.
The approval came from the Alyat Hanoar: they agreed to facilitate my trip to Jerusalem, where I was to audition at the Conservatoire, before the end of June 1941. It was the chance of my life, so to speak. I was really supposed to leave them speechless in order to persuade them to create a precedent: taking an immigrant pupil from an agricultural school and supporting his studies at the Jerusalem Conservatoire. The Palestine Conservatoire of Music, located on Jaffa Road, in the very heart of Jerusalem, stretched along one border of Zion Square. I can’t say it impressed me by its stateliness. An old house, probably Arabian, with the entrance through a petty side street. I think the entire institution didn’t have more than ten rooms. I took the left-hand stairs… At that time, I wasn’t familiar with the Fantastic Symphony and its March to the Scaffold. I remember it was very hot that day, and I was wearing a suit and a tie! ‘Der kleine Gernegross,’ which means something like ‘the kid who wants to show off’! [Editor’s note: the German colloquial expression ‘er ist ein kleiner Gernegross’ translates as ‘he likes to act big.’] After the exam they decided to admit me to the 1st year at the Music Academy, an upper level of the Conservatoire, as a sponsored student. Half of the scholarship was to be covered by the Conservatoire, and the other half – by the Alyat Hanoar. The Alyat Hanoar was also supposed to support me for the entire duration of my studies, two years. Located in the elegant Rehavia residential quarter, the Alyat Hanoar ran with very few, but very efficient employees. After I had the honor of being introduced to Mrs. Henriette Szold, I was sent to those clerks. After going through a series of formalities, they informed me that I was to move to Jerusalem on 1st September, when classes started, and that I was to live with the Uberal family, in a house located in the same neighborhood, two or three streets away.
In that period, when Romania was still neutral, we received postcards from home. [Editor’s note: Romania engaged in World War II on Germany’s side on 22nd June 1941, fighting in the campaign against the USSR.] They were written in French, in order to escape more easily the British censorship, which was official during the entire war. Those postcards mainly contained news from and about the family. Yet, my father, with his unequaled humor, would slip a joke from time to time… After Romania entered the war – and, particularly, towards the end of 1941 – the direct correspondence was no longer an option. For a year or two, I still got mail via Turkey, where my father knew a man who got his letters, put them in another envelope, and sent them on to me. Then this way of communication could no longer be used either. The only news we got from one another were the messages sent through the International Red Cross; we were only allowed to send them once every three months and they could not exceed 25 words.
In May or at the beginning of June 1941, in the middle of the night, we were woken up by the sirens. We were warned not to turn on the lights and to go to the shelters. Soon after, we where shaken by repeated explosions. In a totally unprecedented act, the German air force was bombing the oil refineries in the Gulf of Haifa, located very close to ‘Ahava.’ We went to the ‘shelters’ – actually some ditches one meter wide, ten meters long and, I think, about one meter deep. Some tin barrels filled with sand placed on the two sides of the ditches leaned on one another, forming a sort of ‘roof’ that protected the ditches. Sometimes the planes came all at once, sometimes they came in waves. At that time of the year, the sky was always clear – there is no drop of rain from April till October – so the ‘show’ was absolutely fantastic, especially in the nights with a full moon. The searchlights installed along the coastline, all the way to the harbor of Haifa, were lighting the skies, crossing their blue rays and sometimes catching the planes that glittered like aluminum toys.
A week later I was assigned to an agricultural ‘hostel’ – in fact, an agricultural school, ‘Ahava’ [Hebrew for ‘love’] located in the Gulf of Haifa. As for my musical education, merely mentioning it would have caused laughter! ‘Ahava’ was a unit subordinated to the Alyat Hanoar [Youth’s Emigration], based in Jerusalem. Founded by a venerable lady, born in America and named Henriette Szold, this organization aimed at saving the young Jews from Nazi Europe and training them within the Jewish state, that didn’t exist ‘de jure’ yet, but was solidly implanted ‘de facto.’ Since one of the priorities of the emerging state was agriculture, many of the young immigrants were directed towards this field. The kibbutzim were, at that time, the real base of the country. More than 80% of the people’s food came from kibbutzim. The vast majority of the inhabitants of these kibbutzim were immigrants.
‘Ahava’ was composed of three to four modern buildings with two floors, which sheltered about 200 children – adolescents to be more precise – that had emigrated from Europe in the last two or three years. Most of the pupils, teachers and the auxiliary staff had come from Austria and Germany. The headmaster was from Austria and his name was Rosenkranz.
‘Ahava’ was composed of three to four modern buildings with two floors, which sheltered about 200 children – adolescents to be more precise – that had emigrated from Europe in the last two or three years. Most of the pupils, teachers and the auxiliary staff had come from Austria and Germany. The headmaster was from Austria and his name was Rosenkranz.
In the dining room there was a very tired and out of tune upright piano. I remember that on one of the first evenings after I got there, I tried to play Chopin’s Polonaise in A major. There was silence all around me and many children came to the room, attracted by the sounds. When I had finished, a gray-haired lady of about 50 years came up to me and addressed me in German, asking me what my name was. She introduced herself and invited me to visit her the following day, after classes, in the house next to the gate. The lady was the headmaster’s wife. Her profession: pianist and piano teacher!
It was with excitement and shyness that I went to her place the following day. She had a beautiful concert piano that she let me play. With an austere voice, without any display of exuberance or enthusiasm, she asked me whether I was interested in continuing my musical studies. I showed her my certificates, as well as the splendid recommendation written – in German, fortunately – by my teacher from the academy, Aurelia Cionca. It seems that those papers impressed her. She offered to work with me and, depending on my results, to put in a word for me in Jerusalem, at Alyat Hanoar, so that I may be able to continue my studies at the Jerusalem Conservatoire. You can imagine the excitement that seized me. What I realized in that moment was that I was being given the chance to hope; that, after I had abandoned ‘ogni speranza’ [Italian for ‘any hope’], my fate might change!
It was with excitement and shyness that I went to her place the following day. She had a beautiful concert piano that she let me play. With an austere voice, without any display of exuberance or enthusiasm, she asked me whether I was interested in continuing my musical studies. I showed her my certificates, as well as the splendid recommendation written – in German, fortunately – by my teacher from the academy, Aurelia Cionca. It seems that those papers impressed her. She offered to work with me and, depending on my results, to put in a word for me in Jerusalem, at Alyat Hanoar, so that I may be able to continue my studies at the Jerusalem Conservatoire. You can imagine the excitement that seized me. What I realized in that moment was that I was being given the chance to hope; that, after I had abandoned ‘ogni speranza’ [Italian for ‘any hope’], my fate might change!
29th March was my mother’s birthday and a holiday for the Mizrahy household… So the day of 29th March 1941 came. It was a late winter morning with clouds and thaw. We woke up at dawn. We wished our mother ‘Happy birthday!’ with voices drowned in tears. She thanked us with the same emotions. My father, who had been discharged recently and had had his dignity of being a good Romanian citizen offended, sought to encourage us and to inspire us with a minimum of optimism. ‘Trust me’ – these were the last words which he told me on the platform of the North Railroad Station, as I was leaving towards the unknown, towards Palestine. ‘Yes, I trust you, but I don’t trust Antonescu!’ Many years later, my father would still recall this dialogue.
In Palestine
The hours that separated us from Constanta simply flew. The customs. The waiting. The embarkation. When the ship set off the evening was falling. I can’t even remember if the sea was calm or not. At dawn we had reached the Bosphorus. The disembarkation. The customs. Apart from the three suitcases and my accordion, I carried a knapsack in whose leather borders I had sewn four bills of 5 sterling pounds. This was the ‘total amount of foreign currency’ that my father possessed. He had given it to me to get by. We boarded the train in Istanbul. From this point forward, my memory began recording. 3rd class cars. Small, yellow wooden benches crammed in a car without compartments. We were wearing the same clothes we had on when we left. We didn’t have access to our luggage, which was stored in another car. We had been ordered not to leave the cars, regardless of how long the train waited in stations. And the train kept waiting… It waited more than it rode. It took four days and three nights to cross Asia Minor in the conditions described above. We reached a station and we saw French soldiers on the platform. We found out we were in Aleppo, Syria. There was a burst of joy. That same evening we stopped in Beirut, Lebanon. To our surprise, we were invited to get off the train and board the buses that were waiting for us, and we were taken to the… hotel! The following morning we found out that we were to enter Palestine by road, not by rail. I remember Beirut was full of lights, that the hotel was located downtown, that many restaurants and bars were open and that… I had no money! On the morning of 4th April 1941, a line of Palestinian buses was carrying several hundreds of passengers, most of them underage, who were coming from Romania, to the ‘Promised Land.’ At the frontier between Lebanon and Palestine, the British customs officers didn’t let us just pass. I still recall my passport with blue covers – on the first page, in the right upper corner, there was a stamp with only one word written in uppercase letters: JEW.
A few hours later, to our total amazement, the buses passed the barbed wire gates of a settlement of shacks, whose name we learnt as soon as we got off: the Atlid Camp! Armed British soldiers, policemen I think, pointed out the areas where the women and the men were supposed to gather separately. That day, soon after this ‘separation,’ my uncle had a nervous breakdown. He cried like a baby, in despair and helplessness, and I, a 15-year-old boy, was the one who comforted him and encouraged him…
Once we got over the initial shock, we realized we weren’t in a concentration camp, but in a sorting camp, and that, after our identities had been checked, we would be taken by the representatives of the Sohnut and assigned to various places.
In Palestine
The hours that separated us from Constanta simply flew. The customs. The waiting. The embarkation. When the ship set off the evening was falling. I can’t even remember if the sea was calm or not. At dawn we had reached the Bosphorus. The disembarkation. The customs. Apart from the three suitcases and my accordion, I carried a knapsack in whose leather borders I had sewn four bills of 5 sterling pounds. This was the ‘total amount of foreign currency’ that my father possessed. He had given it to me to get by. We boarded the train in Istanbul. From this point forward, my memory began recording. 3rd class cars. Small, yellow wooden benches crammed in a car without compartments. We were wearing the same clothes we had on when we left. We didn’t have access to our luggage, which was stored in another car. We had been ordered not to leave the cars, regardless of how long the train waited in stations. And the train kept waiting… It waited more than it rode. It took four days and three nights to cross Asia Minor in the conditions described above. We reached a station and we saw French soldiers on the platform. We found out we were in Aleppo, Syria. There was a burst of joy. That same evening we stopped in Beirut, Lebanon. To our surprise, we were invited to get off the train and board the buses that were waiting for us, and we were taken to the… hotel! The following morning we found out that we were to enter Palestine by road, not by rail. I remember Beirut was full of lights, that the hotel was located downtown, that many restaurants and bars were open and that… I had no money! On the morning of 4th April 1941, a line of Palestinian buses was carrying several hundreds of passengers, most of them underage, who were coming from Romania, to the ‘Promised Land.’ At the frontier between Lebanon and Palestine, the British customs officers didn’t let us just pass. I still recall my passport with blue covers – on the first page, in the right upper corner, there was a stamp with only one word written in uppercase letters: JEW.
A few hours later, to our total amazement, the buses passed the barbed wire gates of a settlement of shacks, whose name we learnt as soon as we got off: the Atlid Camp! Armed British soldiers, policemen I think, pointed out the areas where the women and the men were supposed to gather separately. That day, soon after this ‘separation,’ my uncle had a nervous breakdown. He cried like a baby, in despair and helplessness, and I, a 15-year-old boy, was the one who comforted him and encouraged him…
Once we got over the initial shock, we realized we weren’t in a concentration camp, but in a sorting camp, and that, after our identities had been checked, we would be taken by the representatives of the Sohnut and assigned to various places.