For my final years of high school, I went to the Jewish school [Cultura B], where I had some extremely good teachers. I studied Romanian Language and Literature with [Mihail] Sebastian [Ed. note: Mihail Sebastian (1907-1945), novelist, literary critic, playwright, essayist. PhD in economic sciences and public law from Paris. Editor for the 'Revista Fundatiilor Regale' - 'The Magazine of the Royal Foundations' - from 1936 until 1940, when he was fired because he was a Jew. In 1941, he started teaching at the Jewish high school Cultura B.]. I also had Sanielevici as a teacher.
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Aristide Streja
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We didn't have enough money for the tuition; my mother kept postponing the payment from one day to the next and I would get kicked out from classes when I didn't pay. My mother would go to the secretary's office and plead: 'I beg of you, look, my boy is a pretty good student, please, give me some more time because I can't pay right now.' It wasn't easy to get a postponement, because our situation was pretty poor. I would wear my school outfit for 2-3 years in a row, until it didn't fit me anymore. But I didn't miss school and I was never expelled because of the tuition. I always paid; it's true that I usually was behind schedule, but I would get postponements. I didn't owe the school one penny. And when I got kicked out, it was because all the other Jews had been kicked out from high schools.
Romania
When I was in high school, the strajeria [5] was founded. The movement was established by Carol II [6], who was the chief strajer. We would gather in a square in the schoolyard; it was a sort of paramilitary organization. In 1930's the anti-Semitic manifestations began in Romania. We felt it in our high school too, as we began to be seen as outcasts. All students were scouts, but the Jewish scouts were somewhat ostracized by their schoolmates. Our teachers didn't have anti-Semitic attitudes. Although the Latin teacher (Chiriac) and the History teacher (Ion Tatoiu) shared nationalistic views that were expressed in the textbooks they had authored, the diligent Jewish students - like myself - got high grades at their subjects.
Back then, elementary schools were free of charge and it was compulsory to attend them; but you had to pay in order to go to high school. Private high schools had higher tuitions than public schools. There was, for instance, this [Jewish] private high school called Libros, where tuition was higher than in the public high schools. The Jewish high schools were called Cultura [4]. I think they used to charge tuition too, but they stopped during World War II, when the Jewish students were expelled from the public schools.
Romania
Afterwards I went to the Matei Basarab High School, because my brother had gone there too. [Ed. note: The Matei Basarab High School is one of the oldest and most prestigious secondary schools in Bucharest. It was located in the vicinity of the Great Synagogue and of the Jewish quarter. The children of many outstanding Jewish families went to this high school.] I studied there from the 1st year until the 6th year, when I was kicked out because I was a Jew - this happened in 1939-1940. I had very good teachers. There was the principal, Stoenescu, who taught Math. There was the History teacher, Ion Tatoiu, an author of textbooks. He was a great teacher who came to class, sat down and taught us history as if he were narrating a novel or telling us a story. When we grew older, we had a teacher of Romanian, Perpessicius, who was a literary critic. [Ed. note: Perpessicius (1891-1971), literary critic, literary historian and poet. He managed the 'Universul literar' - 'Literary Universe' - magazine between 1925 and 1927. He was a literary reviewer for Radio Bucharest between 1934 and 1938. Between 1929 and 1951 he served uninterruptedly as a teacher of Romanian at the Matei Basarab High School in Bucharest.] Our Latin teacher was Chiriac, an author of textbooks too. I was a relatively good student in Latin. I remember he once caught me with my lesson not learnt and he gave me a 1. But I generally got good grades. I didn't take private lessons. I studied French and Italian in high school. Our Italian teacher was a young woman named Constanta, and learning from her was a pleasure.
The Matei Basarab High School was recognized as a very good high school. It was a public school, but there was some tuition to pay. Back then, elementary schools were free of charge and it was compulsory to attend them; but you had to pay in order to go to high school.
The Matei Basarab High School was recognized as a very good high school. It was a public school, but there was some tuition to pay. Back then, elementary schools were free of charge and it was compulsory to attend them; but you had to pay in order to go to high school.
I didn't go to kindergarten - we didn't have kindergartens back then. My school was on the Independentei Embankment, opposite from a tanning factory, the Mociornita factory. It was a public school and I went there for 4 years. I don't have any friends from that period, and I can't remember if I made friends with anyone in that school - I was too young. I was a relatively good student. While in primary school, I didn't enjoy any subject in particular, except maybe Math.
My brother was employed as an architect - he didn't have his own workshop. Thanks to his wife's entrepreneurial skills, they later opened a decorations and clocks store on a central street in Paris. For many years, this small business brought them more revenues than architecture.
My brother and my sister-in-law emigrated to France around 1960 and settled in Paris.
His fiancée, Lola Gotfried, came from a well-off family - her grandfather had a shoe store on Victoriei Ave. Back then, the shoes sold by the luxury stores on Victoriei Ave. had the name of the store imprinted on them. It was a famous store in Bucharest and her grandfather was very rich. He had a block of flats built at 36 C. A. Rosetti St. which is still there today. At the time, it was a very modern building, heated with terracotta stoves. He had three children and, when he died, they inherited these apartments. My sister-in-law is still the owner of those apartments (her ownership has been officially recognized), but there's no use, for there is someone living there and nothing can be done about it.
Romania
He first went to the Faculty of Law and Philosophy, and then he attended the Faculty of Architecture, which he graduated in 1945. He chose architecture despite his having already graduated in Law and Philosophy because the Jews were disbarred in 1940, so it was obvious that Law wouldn't make a good career. He was kicked out from the Faculty of Architecture [because of the Jewish Statutum] [3], but he continued his studies after the war and became an architect ahead of me.
Romania
Sebastian Sebastien, my brother, was born in 1915, in Bucharest. [He changed his name from Wechsler to Sebastien after World War I.
They are very religious. They observe the ritual on Friday evening, rest on Saturday, don't answer the phone on Friday and Saturday, stay home, pray, go to the temple.
He graduated in Paris, and then he went to Israel. He passed some exams there too, and he ended up holding a second architect's degree - an Israeli one. I don't know exactly the periods when he was a student and the times when he graduated from both faculties.
It's understandable how my mother got her religious education. We, the children, were not very religious, and every time our grandfather came by, he asked our mother why she tolerated her children being disrespectful. My sister was more liberal in thought, almost a Communist, not very religious. She didn't go to the synagogue very often, and all these would make our grandfather say: 'How come you let her stay home instead of going to the synagogue on Saturday? Is this the way to raise your daughter? With this kind of thoughts?
My grandfather dressed like a rabbi: in black, with a long caftan; he used a walking cane.
They used Yiddish at home.
My grandfather was very religious. He shepherded a shul in Ploiesti. My grandfather had received a 100% Jewish education, just like my grandmother.
My grandmother died at a relatively early age. My grandfather re-married, but not officially - with Jews, if you live with a woman for a long period of time, it's as if you were married to her. He had a woman whose name was Eva too. Eventually, they also got married at the civil status office. Being a rabbi and a shochet, widely known in the Jewish community of the town of Ploiesti, he wasn't allowed to re-marry immediately after he became a widower.
He got married in Ploiesti, in 1912.
My father, Haim Maier Wechsler, was born in Namoloasa, in 1883. He changed his name to Iulius Wechsler before 1910.
The son, Adolf Lupu, was a physician specialized in internal medicine. While he was serving as an army doctor, he was shot to death by a Legionary [1] officer [during World War II].
I can't tell you too much about Betti Lupu [nee Wechsler], my father's other sister. She had a housewife's education and no special training for any profession. She had learnt to tailor and she was into ready-made clothes, underwear mending, and women's clothes. Her husband had a fragile health and worked with her. They had a family workshop, not a real business. Betti was the main provider in the family. She worked very much as a housewife and as a tailor.
Blimette Benjamin [nee Wechsler], one of my father's sisters, married Aron Benjamin. Blimette had two boys, Mauriciu and Carol, and a girl, Bori. She emigrated to Israel early, around 1955. She lived with Carol in the Nir Yitzhak kibbutz, on Doar HaNeghev St.
When he got to Paris, Adrian Rubinger passed an admission exam in architecture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Foreigners were subject to 'numerus clausus': there was a limited number of positions for people who were not French. My nephew did well at one of the most difficult entrance exams for higher education in France and got admitted to the Faculty of Architecture in 1968.
Ilinca studied the French literature at Sorbonne and attempted to start a career in drama. She now works in the film industry.
Irina Rubinger, a student in Biology, graduated in Paris. She worked in research and she taught courses in higher education. Not so long ago, she used to be a lecturer for a medical school in Paris.
On their way to becoming immigrants in Germany, they passed through France and stayed there.
They lived in Bucharest until the 1970's, when they emigrated to Germany. It was a time when Germany accepted German- speaking immigrants of German descent. He had been born in Cernauti and spoke German; my sister spoke German too.
He met my sister by accident. He wasn't rich, and my sister wasn't rich either. They were relatively poor, but they married for love.
Her husband, Rubinger, was a painter. He was a man of an extraordinary beauty, tall, robust, highly cultivated and talented. My sister may have gone to the boarding school, but her husband had an artistic culture. His works are now in Israel, Germany and Romania. He worked as a set designer for all the major theaters in Bucharest: the State Opera, the Youth Theater, and the National Theater; he worked for the Jewish State Theater [2] for a long time too.
Romania