At the ‘Cultura’ High School, where I was in the 5th grade, I found out from my former desk mate from the ‘Spiru Haret’, Osias Rolling, about a Palestinian Office. He told me it was in charge of the emigration of the youth to Palestine. But the information was vague, nebulous even. The idea to leave began to yield in my head. In February 1941 things became clear. Two groups of young Jews, 200-300 each, were set to leave one week apart from each other, accompanied by a few clerks of the Palestinian Office. They were to travel by boat to Istanbul, then by train. The two ships were scheduled to leave on 21st March – the ‘Dacia’ – and on 29th March – the ‘Regele Carol I’.
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Dan Mizrahy
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On the morning of 24th January an army patrol that searched every house rang at our gate. Once in the vestibule, the commanding officer was struck by my father’s military mantle that hung on the peg. It was a winter mantle that my father hadn’t had the chance to wear. It was cold outside. Acting with undisputable spontaneity, my parents offered the mantle to the young second lieutenant. Surprised and touched at the same time, he accepted it. Then my mother made hot tea. After the routine check, they left. A nightmare was over. But it was a nightmare that would mark the destiny of my entire life. The events of the last months, that had reached their climax in those January days, had carved in me the certitude that those circumstances, that reality, that society were no place for me any longer.
Of course, we knew something had changed around us from the radio, from the press, and from what we heard from others. We had felt it, at least on the moral level, once we had been expelled from schools. It was a state of tension that kept growing, like a circle that was gradually tightening around us in a threatening manner. It was in that atmosphere that on 21st January 1941, towards noon, I heard the first gun shots in my life. The phones were still working. They were later confiscated from the Jews, just like the radio sets. This is how we found out from my mother’s younger sister that the radio station in Bod, captured by the rebels, had announced that a dissident division of the army, led by General Dragalina, was heading for Bucharest. At the same time, the Bucharest radio station was announcing the decisions of General Antonescu [8], who was dissociating himself from the Legionary movement, as well as the actions taken in order to annihilate this movement. I remember the exact words: ‘From now on, no other uniform than the military and the police.’ But in those very moments, the police, which had been divided in two until that day – the regular police and the Legionary police – was fighting fiercely, both at the prefecture, and at the barracks on Geneva Alley, where the policemen, encircled by the Legionaries, were defending themselves. At the same time, the army was trying to conquer the Legionary headquarters on Roma Street. Our house lay at only a few hundred meters from the above-mentioned locations, in a straight line. We could hear the shots coming from there. We kept getting news on the phone about the horrors that took place in the Jewish houses of the Vacaresti and Dudesti quarters. On the evening of 21st January 1941, one of my father’s sisters, who lived on Banu Maracine Street, called us to tell us that the Spanish temple ‘Cahal Grande’ was in flames. We soon found out that, at the beginning of the Legionary rebellion, they had emptied many canisters of gas inside and outside the temple, and had set it on fire. It burnt to the ground. The ruins survived for many years, a testimony of the tragedy that occurred that night.
I have his old prayer books, where he thoroughly marked over the years the time of the Kol Nidre prayer, the time of the shofar, and the time when the service ended. I carry on this tradition and I mark the times when the services begin and end.
My father observed the main holidays of the Hebrew calendar, fasted once a year, on Yom Kippur, didn’t eat bread during the eight days of Pesach, and, if he came back from work in time to catch the Friday night service, he went to the temple and read from the prayer book alongside the others. He wasn’t devout, but had had a religious education. I have his old prayer books, where he thoroughly marked over the years the time of the Kol Nidre prayer, the time of the shofar, and the time when the service ended.
Romania
He was drafted at the end of World War I, went to an officers’ school, and graduated as a second lieutenant. After a call-up in 1927, he was promoted to lieutenant. There were some more call-ups in 1939, to Sibiu and Lipova [Arad County] – he was with the 5th Heavy Artillery Regiment. He remained in the army until 15th August 1940, when Jews were kicked out from the armed forces.
Romania
Right after he graduated from the former, he started to provide for himself by doing bookkeeping for various employers; he did this all the way through college. In 1924 he was hired as a clerk by a company owned by a very rich family, Marcus Pincas & Co. In just a few years, through hard work and competence, he made it to the top. Over the years, his career developed further: authorized accountant, expert accountant, and PhD in economics in 1935. After more than 20 years, my father changed his employment; he was appointed manager at IRCO [Romanian Crystals and Mirrors Industry] and delegated administrator of the administration board of the Scaeni Windows Factory [located in Scaeni, near Ploiesti].
Romania
He went to the Evangelic School, then to the Commerce Academy in Bucharest.
He was the most religious of the Mizrahy brothers, he took a very active part in the religious life, but he never covered his head. I remember him at the tomb of my parents, in 1976, soon after my mother’s death; he didn’t let us hire someone, but read the prayers himself.
Solomon was a Zionist and worked a lot for the Sohnut [1], being in charge of the integration of the newcomers to Israel. In this quality, he used to be sent abroad, to South America and Europe.
They immigrated to Palestine in 1944.
The other son, Lucian Rosman [known as Ramon in Israel], was born in 1937 in Bucharest and had a glittering university career as a chemical engineer. He worked a lot as a researcher at the University of Jerusalem and he also had contracts in the US, Spain and South Korea.
The house she received as dowry, and where she lived until 1951, when she made aliyah with her husband and children, was nationalized.
Romania
For as long as I was a child, we all went to her place after the [Yom] Kippur fast was over, and she welcomed us with the traditional teaspoonful of preserves.
She lived at 43 Banu Maracine Street, between the two Spanish temples.
Daniela Grunberg [nee Mizrachi] was born in Israel in 1946. She had an impressive career, reaching the top management of the company in charge with the irrigations in Israel.
Emanuel Mizrachi [known as Bar Kadmah in Israel] was born in 1932 in Bucharest. He worked as a theater reviewer for many years; he also painted, becoming a well-known modern painter in Israel.
Between 1941 and 1945 I visited him on a regular basis, first in Haifa, where he had built a house, then in Tel Aviv, where he tried to get in business with a diamond polishing workshop. He couldn’t practice law, because he didn’t manage to learn to express himself in Ivrit in such a manner that he could plead in front of an Israeli court. This hurt him. He had a very well shaped personality, his intelligence was doubled by a solid culture, and he was a sentimental nature.
It so happened that I immigrated to Palestine at the same time with him and his family.
Until he left the country, in 1941, he was a lawyer and the president of the Zionist associations in Romania.
Leon [pet name Nicu] Mizrachi was born in 1899 in Bucharest. Until he left the country, in 1941, he was a lawyer and the president of the Zionist associations in Romania.
It was in these ‘quarters’ that my father grew up together with his two brothers and two sisters. Both my father’s sisters lived on Banu Maracine Street, on neighboring plots, with a common courtyard.
All his five children – Moscu Mizrahy [my father, the eldest], Leon Mizrachi [the only one whose name had a different spelling, because of a transcription error that occurred in the official papers], Suzette Aronescu [nee Mizrahy], Carola Rosman [nee Mizrahy], and Solomon Mizrahy – spoke the literary Romanian fluently.
My grandfather still spoke Ladino, but the language spoken in their house was Romanian – without foreign accents, even without inflections.
The Mizrahy grandparents had their ‘quarters’ on Banu Maracine Street [formerly known as Spanish Street, because many of the residents were Spanish Jews – at that time, there were several thousands of them].
He owned a small clockmaker’s shop on Carol Street. The shop may have been small, but the sign was big, visible from a distance: ‘A. Mizrahy – house founded in 1884’!
my father-in-law, ‘Nea Ilie’, like I used to call him, had been arrested ‘administratively’ six months ago and was working at the Canal [the Danube-Black Sea Canal]…
The second piece of news was that my sister Mira had got married two months ago, on 6th December 1952. There had been an official ceremony at the city hall, then a religious one, at home.
After a trip that lasted for an interminable night, we reached our destination. I remember a high barbed wire gate; we walked through it into a large courtyard and we stopped in front of a shack. We soon found out we were at the military unit number I don’t know what, also known as the Bicaz Labor Camp.
In that period they were building a dam in Bicaz. It was designed to block the flow of the Bistrita River; a part of it was to be deviated, and the other part was to be collected in a reservoir. We, the inmates, had to carve several terraces on the two slopes that bordered the river, at various levels. The highest level was – as far as I remember – 550 meters. The terrace at this level stretched for about 200-300 meters and it was three to four meters wide. It had a very narrow track on which ran small carriages of 0.3 cubic meters, I think. ‘Ran’ is actually too much, because they had to be pushed by hand. The inmate’s work consisted of carving the rock with a pick or with a shovel, loading the carriage, pushing it all the way to the end of the terrace and unloading it by tilting it. This operation had to be performed ten times in one shift. I was assigned to a brigade that worked on the left bank of the river, at level 550. We were in the night shift and began working at 7pm. In my mind, those endless trips to the work site and back – especially those in winter – are all the same. They were horrible. First of all, we walked in the dark. We had to cover the distance of four to five kilometers marching – not a cadenced or a forced march, but still, a lively one. We were five in a row, flanked by armed soldiers. ‘Keep the lines tight!’ was the eternal leitmotif. Talking was forbidden. However, there was whispering. The road was difficult. We walked on trodden snow, sometimes on ice and glazed frost. No matter in what shift you worked – there were two 12-hour shifts, from 7am to 7pm and from 7pm to 7am – it was dark when you arrived and when you left.
Two or three days after I had arrived in the shack, a man was set to be released. I don’t know his name and I don’t think I knew it then. I had to use all my persuasive skills to make him promise he would write my folks that I was all right and I was in Bicaz. I told him that my parents hadn’t heard from me since 3rd May 1951. I gave him the name and the address. He memorized them, he promised he would write, and he did! God bless him! Out of caution, my folks didn’t keep the postcard, but they told me the man had signed Puiu. A few days later, on returning from the work site, I saw my father in front of the gate. He had uncovered his head in the blistering cold so that I could recognize him. He had gone to the gate and requested for permission to see me. He had been told to wait. And the poor man waited standing until we came back from the work site. I knew our time was limited and we had to make the best of it. I inquired about the essential things and I learnt that all my folks were alive and well, including my grandmother, who was 88.
In that period they were building a dam in Bicaz. It was designed to block the flow of the Bistrita River; a part of it was to be deviated, and the other part was to be collected in a reservoir. We, the inmates, had to carve several terraces on the two slopes that bordered the river, at various levels. The highest level was – as far as I remember – 550 meters. The terrace at this level stretched for about 200-300 meters and it was three to four meters wide. It had a very narrow track on which ran small carriages of 0.3 cubic meters, I think. ‘Ran’ is actually too much, because they had to be pushed by hand. The inmate’s work consisted of carving the rock with a pick or with a shovel, loading the carriage, pushing it all the way to the end of the terrace and unloading it by tilting it. This operation had to be performed ten times in one shift. I was assigned to a brigade that worked on the left bank of the river, at level 550. We were in the night shift and began working at 7pm. In my mind, those endless trips to the work site and back – especially those in winter – are all the same. They were horrible. First of all, we walked in the dark. We had to cover the distance of four to five kilometers marching – not a cadenced or a forced march, but still, a lively one. We were five in a row, flanked by armed soldiers. ‘Keep the lines tight!’ was the eternal leitmotif. Talking was forbidden. However, there was whispering. The road was difficult. We walked on trodden snow, sometimes on ice and glazed frost. No matter in what shift you worked – there were two 12-hour shifts, from 7am to 7pm and from 7pm to 7am – it was dark when you arrived and when you left.
Two or three days after I had arrived in the shack, a man was set to be released. I don’t know his name and I don’t think I knew it then. I had to use all my persuasive skills to make him promise he would write my folks that I was all right and I was in Bicaz. I told him that my parents hadn’t heard from me since 3rd May 1951. I gave him the name and the address. He memorized them, he promised he would write, and he did! God bless him! Out of caution, my folks didn’t keep the postcard, but they told me the man had signed Puiu. A few days later, on returning from the work site, I saw my father in front of the gate. He had uncovered his head in the blistering cold so that I could recognize him. He had gone to the gate and requested for permission to see me. He had been told to wait. And the poor man waited standing until we came back from the work site. I knew our time was limited and we had to make the best of it. I inquired about the essential things and I learnt that all my folks were alive and well, including my grandmother, who was 88.
After a one-hour ride we got off in front of a barbed wire gate, which guarded – I was to find out soon – the entrance to the Ghencea Camp [Editor’s note: Camp for sorting inmates founded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Bucharest]. Surrounded by guards, who were wearing Securitate uniforms this time, we were walked into the courtyard. It was snowing lightly. We were ordered to line up, strip to the bone, and place our things in front of us. Everything on the ground was white and I was terribly cold. I was escorted to a certain shack – there were many of them – which, I was to find out, sheltered about 330 ‘occupants.’ The shack’s leader, an inmate himself, pointed to a bunk bed where I was to ‘reside.’ We were allowed to walk around the camp freely during the day. We could go from one shack to another and we could communicate with the other inmates. In general, I got sympathetic looks as soon as they found out where I came from and how much time I had spent underground…
Towards the middle of January 1953, a commission of officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs gathered us on the field in the middle of the camp, where the ‘counting’ took place every day, and read us a sort of communique; they were offering us the chance to ‘rehabilitate ourselves through labor.’ They needed volunteers for a ‘labor colony’; the benefits included: visits, parcels, postcards. Without hesitating, I stepped forward and requested to be signed up immediately. Of course, there were others who did that too, but not too many. In my hopeless naivety, I didn’t realize that the call for volunteers was a bluff. The games had already been made and the lists of those who were to be sent to labor had been approved in advance. On 21st January 1953, in the afternoon, a large group of ‘volunteers’ and ‘non-volunteers’ traveled by van to a place outside Basarab station, where a prison rail car awaited.
Towards the middle of January 1953, a commission of officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs gathered us on the field in the middle of the camp, where the ‘counting’ took place every day, and read us a sort of communique; they were offering us the chance to ‘rehabilitate ourselves through labor.’ They needed volunteers for a ‘labor colony’; the benefits included: visits, parcels, postcards. Without hesitating, I stepped forward and requested to be signed up immediately. Of course, there were others who did that too, but not too many. In my hopeless naivety, I didn’t realize that the call for volunteers was a bluff. The games had already been made and the lists of those who were to be sent to labor had been approved in advance. On 21st January 1953, in the afternoon, a large group of ‘volunteers’ and ‘non-volunteers’ traveled by van to a place outside Basarab station, where a prison rail car awaited.