My mother was left behind in the village, with three children to raise. Naturally, she left that village and returned to Saveni. She lived with my father’s parents in Saveni, while my mother’s parents returned to Saveni, too, and my father’s parents lived together with my mother’s parents in my father’s parents’ house in Saveni. And actually that was in early 1941, around January-February.
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Saul Rotariu
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At the beginning of 1941 my father – together with the rest of the Jewish men in the village – was called up, drafted and taken to a forced labor camp. He was summoned to the military headquarters in Saveni, as men are called up for military service, with a suit of clothes, and was taken to Transnistria, which was occupied by Romanian troops at that time. And he was taken to build strategic roads in that area. He wasn’t wearing a military outfit, meaning he hadn’t been called up to do his military service – that is called a military call-up – he was taken as a civilian. He had already done his military service.
I had my bar mitzvah in Saveni. It was for my 13th birthday. Before the event, I learned the prayers to be recited during the ceremony. There was a teacher who taught children to read siddurim, and he prepared us for it. Each according to their possibilities. It depended on the training the child had received. I had attended cheder, so when I had my bar mitzvah it was easier, I could already read. He only taught us strictly the ceremony proceedings, so that we knew what to do. He also taught us the speech we had to give. You had to give the speech in Hebrew, but you could deliver it in Romanian as well if you didn’t want to do it in Ivrit. And you had to say a few words: you thanked your parents for raising you until then, you thanked the teacher for teaching you, you promised that, by becoming a man, you would strive to behave like a man, you said what conclusions about life you had reached from what you had learned – for those who attended – at cheder.
In those days when I had my bar mitzvah they didn’t have large festivities as they sometimes do nowadays. At the synagogue people were offered sweets, a glass of wine. Now they have a sort of a name day anniversary, sometimes there are parties. And I received a tallit, siddur and tefillin – to wear on the head and on the arm – and for a while I put them on and took them off [the tefillin] each morning – they are to be worn only in the morning. I did this for two to three years, until school started in earnest, the higher grades, after which I gradually stopped wearing them. By now, with modernism came new interests, new ideas.
In those days when I had my bar mitzvah they didn’t have large festivities as they sometimes do nowadays. At the synagogue people were offered sweets, a glass of wine. Now they have a sort of a name day anniversary, sometimes there are parties. And I received a tallit, siddur and tefillin – to wear on the head and on the arm – and for a while I put them on and took them off [the tefillin] each morning – they are to be worn only in the morning. I did this for two to three years, until school started in earnest, the higher grades, after which I gradually stopped wearing them. By now, with modernism came new interests, new ideas.
I attended cheder in Saveni. Usually children attended cheder after they were four. I also attended it while going to regular school. I attended the cheder when I was three or four, and they taught us to read, translate from the Torah.
Then we celebrated Purim. During the day the men attended the religious service at the synagogue, they read the story of Esther – Megillat Ester is the name of this story. [Editor’s note: Megillat Ester literally means ‘The Book of Esther.’] And on Purim we had that thing for making noise – in Yiddish they called it a greggar – made out of wood. We didn’t have one at home, usually there was one at the synagogue. It was used for making noise on reading Haman’s name in the synagogue. They use it in football stadiums as well. You spin it, it has a certain type of spring that touches against a mechanism and makes a racket and imitates noises.
People baked many cakes and families would bring one another cakes. [Mr. Rotariu is referring to shelakhmones food gifts for friends.] We gave our neighbors cakes, received cakes in return from them, from our relatives. And in the evening, every household made merry: there was wine, there was food on the table…
They still had this custom when I was little: during my childhood in Saveni, they organized meals, they had children wear masks, they created teams that performed little plays about Esther, the whole story. And they would go to people’s houses, like they do on New Year’s Eve. I used to go, too. Sometimes we went in groups, sometimes alone, depending on how you paired up.
If a few children managed to form a group they organized a sort of a small play. We dressed for several parts: Esther was played by a man in a white dress, wearing a mask, many bracelets and all sorts of adornments; Haman was played by someone wearing a uniform, something, whatever one could manage to find – a military coat and peaked cap, anything. We played all kinds of parts, every year a different one. Some went all by themselves – I went alone, too, sometimes. You wore the oddest clothes you could find at home, and you went to people’s houses, sang something, recited something – a poem, let us say, intoned a few lyrics about it [the story of Esther]. Usually you went to classmates’ houses, afterwards you had some fun with your classmates, were offered a treat…
We received a pack of sweets and money – but we cared to receive mostly money, for sweets we had at home as well. We wanted money, which we used afterwards in order to buy a football, and what not… what you could buy in those days. Christians wore costumes, too, and called on Jewish homes. Everybody knew they were Christian, but they called on Jewish houses, they were enjoying themselves. Those who could play instruments brought them along and played Jewish songs, usually on a concertina – an accordion – and a violin.
People baked many cakes and families would bring one another cakes. [Mr. Rotariu is referring to shelakhmones food gifts for friends.] We gave our neighbors cakes, received cakes in return from them, from our relatives. And in the evening, every household made merry: there was wine, there was food on the table…
They still had this custom when I was little: during my childhood in Saveni, they organized meals, they had children wear masks, they created teams that performed little plays about Esther, the whole story. And they would go to people’s houses, like they do on New Year’s Eve. I used to go, too. Sometimes we went in groups, sometimes alone, depending on how you paired up.
If a few children managed to form a group they organized a sort of a small play. We dressed for several parts: Esther was played by a man in a white dress, wearing a mask, many bracelets and all sorts of adornments; Haman was played by someone wearing a uniform, something, whatever one could manage to find – a military coat and peaked cap, anything. We played all kinds of parts, every year a different one. Some went all by themselves – I went alone, too, sometimes. You wore the oddest clothes you could find at home, and you went to people’s houses, sang something, recited something – a poem, let us say, intoned a few lyrics about it [the story of Esther]. Usually you went to classmates’ houses, afterwards you had some fun with your classmates, were offered a treat…
We received a pack of sweets and money – but we cared to receive mostly money, for sweets we had at home as well. We wanted money, which we used afterwards in order to buy a football, and what not… what you could buy in those days. Christians wore costumes, too, and called on Jewish homes. Everybody knew they were Christian, but they called on Jewish houses, they were enjoying themselves. Those who could play instruments brought them along and played Jewish songs, usually on a concertina – an accordion – and a violin.
Chanukkah was a merry holiday, too. For the children, Chanukkah was a more important holiday because of the custom of giving presents and money, generally speaking, Chanukkah gelt. And we awaited Chanukkah and made plans about the gifts we would receive. For we received gifts not only from our parents, but also from our relatives and acquaintances who were more like family friends. And it was a cheerful holiday.
We had a chanukkiyah – which I use as a decoration nowadays – and our parents lit the proper candles each night. My father would light them. If there was a window where the chanukkiyah could be placed, he would place it on the windowsill, if not, we kept it on the table. But normally, according to tradition, it is placed in the window, in order for the light to be seen from outside. When I was little, my childhood was a bit more ascetic since, after the war, we didn’t have too many toys. On Chanukkah I used to play with a spinning top every year. It was different when we were little, nowadays they make spinning tops in industrial quantities.
We had a chanukkiyah – which I use as a decoration nowadays – and our parents lit the proper candles each night. My father would light them. If there was a window where the chanukkiyah could be placed, he would place it on the windowsill, if not, we kept it on the table. But normally, according to tradition, it is placed in the window, in order for the light to be seen from outside. When I was little, my childhood was a bit more ascetic since, after the war, we didn’t have too many toys. On Chanukkah I used to play with a spinning top every year. It was different when we were little, nowadays they make spinning tops in industrial quantities.
On Sukkot – ever since I was old enough to remember – my father built the sukkah for a year or two, when I was young. Our rented house in Saveni had a small courtyard, and that’s where he built a sort of a reed tent: he made some sort of shelving from wooden planks and he covered it with reed. We didn’t have too many decorations, for it was after the war and one couldn’t find certain fruits – there weren’t any exotic fruits – people used apples, walnuts, I don’t know what else there was. And we ate our meals there for a few days – both in the evening and at lunch. Before we ate, Father said a prayer and a few intonations. We, the children, rejoiced, it was play for us.
Then there is the strictly religious holiday of commemorating the dead, Yom Kippur. Before Yom Kippur, everybody had to sacrifice a fowl. That was the custom in these parts. People would buy a fowl – roosters for men and chickens, hens for women – and in the morning [before Yom Kippur] they would say a short prayer and swing the fowl above the head three times, then again three times, as it was prescribed there… Each member of the family said their prayer individually, depending on their possibilities. Father, for instance – because he was working – came home, said the prayer, then returned to work. Mother said it together with us. She read it first, then my brother, then me.
The fowl were afterwards sacrificed by the hakham, in a ritual. Usually, it was us, the children, who went [with the birds to the hakham]. Mother put them in a basket and gave it to us; we took them there and brought them back. These fowl were sacrificed and then prepared [for the meal marking the end of the fast]. But there were other dishes as well. If the family was more numerous, one used other kinds of meat as well, prepared other products. However, sacrificing the animal was obligatory. When my parents were alive, I did this together with them. Now I no longer perform this sacrifice.
Everybody fasted on Yom Kippur. Only those suffering from severe illnesses didn’t fast. We, the children, fasted as well, we didn’t even drink water. Boy, were we hungry… it was as if we hadn’t eaten for a month. Before the fast started, you weren’t allowed to eat too late in the evening, only until the rise of the first star. After the rise of the first star it was night already and it was the night before the fast, the eve of Yom Kippur, and you weren’t allowed to eat anymore.
Our parents fasted, too, went to the synagogue, both my father and my mother, they stayed there the whole day. We went there as well but we – as we were children – went there, stayed for a short while, then went outside. And we kept returning to see if the prayer was over, for we were hungry. We kept saying: ‘When will it end? When will it end?’ And we only talked about food. At least my brother and I didn’t eat [secretly]. We had a lot of respect for our father. We did our share of mischief, as children will do, but if he told us something in earnest, we obeyed him.
Of course, at the end of this day [the Yom Kippur day], they served a special meal in the evening. Usually they had coffee before the meal, they had an alcoholic drink, which was not a custom in our house. For instance, as long as my father lived, I saw no alcoholic drink in our house. There was none. But then [in the evening after the end of the fast] there was. The parents drank a few tens of grams – 20-50 grams – of an alcoholic drink; we, the children, didn’t. They ate a few light appetizers, had a break of half an hour, an hour and then everybody sat down to eat. The meal was a specially prepared dish, and it marked the end of the fast.
The fowl were afterwards sacrificed by the hakham, in a ritual. Usually, it was us, the children, who went [with the birds to the hakham]. Mother put them in a basket and gave it to us; we took them there and brought them back. These fowl were sacrificed and then prepared [for the meal marking the end of the fast]. But there were other dishes as well. If the family was more numerous, one used other kinds of meat as well, prepared other products. However, sacrificing the animal was obligatory. When my parents were alive, I did this together with them. Now I no longer perform this sacrifice.
Everybody fasted on Yom Kippur. Only those suffering from severe illnesses didn’t fast. We, the children, fasted as well, we didn’t even drink water. Boy, were we hungry… it was as if we hadn’t eaten for a month. Before the fast started, you weren’t allowed to eat too late in the evening, only until the rise of the first star. After the rise of the first star it was night already and it was the night before the fast, the eve of Yom Kippur, and you weren’t allowed to eat anymore.
Our parents fasted, too, went to the synagogue, both my father and my mother, they stayed there the whole day. We went there as well but we – as we were children – went there, stayed for a short while, then went outside. And we kept returning to see if the prayer was over, for we were hungry. We kept saying: ‘When will it end? When will it end?’ And we only talked about food. At least my brother and I didn’t eat [secretly]. We had a lot of respect for our father. We did our share of mischief, as children will do, but if he told us something in earnest, we obeyed him.
Of course, at the end of this day [the Yom Kippur day], they served a special meal in the evening. Usually they had coffee before the meal, they had an alcoholic drink, which was not a custom in our house. For instance, as long as my father lived, I saw no alcoholic drink in our house. There was none. But then [in the evening after the end of the fast] there was. The parents drank a few tens of grams – 20-50 grams – of an alcoholic drink; we, the children, didn’t. They ate a few light appetizers, had a break of half an hour, an hour and then everybody sat down to eat. The meal was a specially prepared dish, and it marked the end of the fast.
They started performing it at the canteen around 1970. In the old days they didn’t have these activities with canteen service. Afterwards, there was a canteen here in Botosani where 50-100 persons ate [lunch] every day.
Romania
On Passover my mother prepared the dishes: she took them out of the cupboards where we kept the special dishes for Passover and she cleaned them. She had separate dishes for Pesach, all families had them. And before Passover all the things that contained leaven would be gathered and burned. Usually, my father would do this. He would put a piece of leftover bread or pasta, well, whatever else there was, inside a bowl, place a piece of paper on top and set it on fire. But it was mostly symbolic; it would burn for a short time, then be extinguished and then be thrown away. The significance of this was that you were cleansed of food that had leaven.
As for the large amounts of flour that people had in their homes – nowadays they no longer do, but in those days people kept large quantities of flour in their homes – the sacks were tied tightly, sealed and placed somewhere out of reach: in a larder, in a depot, in a lumber room. In any case, it was laid down you shouldn’t have any bread – you wouldn’t buy it, you wouldn’t bake it. It wasn’t so when I was little, but I heard it told by others: in order to have nothing to do with this [things with leaven], you would draw a contract whereby you sold it to someone and that someone accepts to give it back to you when you gave them the money back, but neither the sale, nor the purchase would take place [actually]. These customs didn’t exist anymore when I was born.
Passover lasted eight days. During the first days my father attended the service at the synagogue. During the first two days seder was celebrated.
In the old days it wasn’t held at the synagogue [at the community canteen], it was celebrated at home. But there were two seder evenings. Now they hold the seder evening at the synagogue as very few people are able to or know how to celebrate it at home, which is to say they can’t read Hebrew, there aren’t enough persons to perform it. The families aren’t that numerous, and to start performing an entire ceremony for a person or two…
The meals were mostly made of chicken, soups in general. That’s what Jews ate the most: chicken soup, fried chicken. They made sweets using unleavened bread and unleavened bread flour. They ate a lot of potatoes, cooked in all sorts of ways, for the sake of diversity. The same goes for eggs. When you sat down at the Passover table, eggs had a place of honor together with a piece of meat, vegetables, each representing certain traditions.
My father organized that special ceremony for Passover at home. It was like a theater play, a certain ritual, everybody tried, tasted each dish on the table, filled a cup of wine, raised their cup whenever the ritual specified it – they read the Haggadah, as they call it in Hebrew, the Passover story, the religious one: ‘Why is Passover celebrated? What happened in those days?’ It was my youngest brother who asked the four questions [the mah nishtanah]. And this dinner lasted long into the night, for they read something from the book, tasted the food, then they read some more. We were little back then, it was like a theater play for us, like a theatrical performance.
They filled a glass for the prophet, they opened the door – it was the father who opened it – when they reached the respective chapter. Everybody – all religions – are waiting for the Messiah. They waited, it was as if He came, tasted it, liked it, and left.
They hid a slice of matzah [the afikoman] and the tradition was that whoever found it received a present from father. And my father hid it somewhere where you could find it, of course, so as not to interrupt the ceremony because we couldn’t find it. We found it and started negotiating. My father said to us: ‘Give me back the slice, why did you steal it from me?’ ‘I will, but will you give me 5 lei?’ ‘What do you mean 5 lei? I can buy three loaves of bread for 5 lei!’ ‘There, give me 3 lei and …’ Money, it was money he usually gave us.
The first time he performed the seder ceremony after we returned from there [from Transnistria] I was of school age, I must have been six. When we were little we didn’t realize he was performing this ceremony. And he hid the slice of matzah, we forgot all about it, you see, he had told us beforehand how it was going to be, he had told us to simply find it, that he would see, he would give us a present, something, he would give us some money. But we forgot. We found it [the afikoman] and we secretly went into another room while father didn’t notice, as we did everything in secrecy, and ate the slice of matzah. We weren’t really hungry, but there wasn’t so much matzah as nowadays, and father would buy only a few slices, as was the custom. We didn’t have much money, for it was just after the war, there was widespread poverty. It wasn’t like today, when you go and buy a whole box, or two, or three. And when we returned [from the other room], Gather said: ‘Well, let us see the afikoman’ – that’s what it’s called. And we looked at one another, we exchanged some glances… ‘Come on, let us see it, that is the rule, you must show it! We will give you something for it.’ ‘Well, we ate it!’ There was no question of reward anymore, we had taken it ourselves.
We didn’t sing at the end of the evening, father sang and intoned – it is intoned using a certain song. We didn’t recite, because we were little, and afterwards, as we grew up, we didn’t attach that much significance to it. My father observed all the rules, we read a book, we did this and that in the meantime. Until his death, Father always observed seder on Passover. But in those years when it was performed at the canteen, he attended it at the canteen.
As for the large amounts of flour that people had in their homes – nowadays they no longer do, but in those days people kept large quantities of flour in their homes – the sacks were tied tightly, sealed and placed somewhere out of reach: in a larder, in a depot, in a lumber room. In any case, it was laid down you shouldn’t have any bread – you wouldn’t buy it, you wouldn’t bake it. It wasn’t so when I was little, but I heard it told by others: in order to have nothing to do with this [things with leaven], you would draw a contract whereby you sold it to someone and that someone accepts to give it back to you when you gave them the money back, but neither the sale, nor the purchase would take place [actually]. These customs didn’t exist anymore when I was born.
Passover lasted eight days. During the first days my father attended the service at the synagogue. During the first two days seder was celebrated.
In the old days it wasn’t held at the synagogue [at the community canteen], it was celebrated at home. But there were two seder evenings. Now they hold the seder evening at the synagogue as very few people are able to or know how to celebrate it at home, which is to say they can’t read Hebrew, there aren’t enough persons to perform it. The families aren’t that numerous, and to start performing an entire ceremony for a person or two…
The meals were mostly made of chicken, soups in general. That’s what Jews ate the most: chicken soup, fried chicken. They made sweets using unleavened bread and unleavened bread flour. They ate a lot of potatoes, cooked in all sorts of ways, for the sake of diversity. The same goes for eggs. When you sat down at the Passover table, eggs had a place of honor together with a piece of meat, vegetables, each representing certain traditions.
My father organized that special ceremony for Passover at home. It was like a theater play, a certain ritual, everybody tried, tasted each dish on the table, filled a cup of wine, raised their cup whenever the ritual specified it – they read the Haggadah, as they call it in Hebrew, the Passover story, the religious one: ‘Why is Passover celebrated? What happened in those days?’ It was my youngest brother who asked the four questions [the mah nishtanah]. And this dinner lasted long into the night, for they read something from the book, tasted the food, then they read some more. We were little back then, it was like a theater play for us, like a theatrical performance.
They filled a glass for the prophet, they opened the door – it was the father who opened it – when they reached the respective chapter. Everybody – all religions – are waiting for the Messiah. They waited, it was as if He came, tasted it, liked it, and left.
They hid a slice of matzah [the afikoman] and the tradition was that whoever found it received a present from father. And my father hid it somewhere where you could find it, of course, so as not to interrupt the ceremony because we couldn’t find it. We found it and started negotiating. My father said to us: ‘Give me back the slice, why did you steal it from me?’ ‘I will, but will you give me 5 lei?’ ‘What do you mean 5 lei? I can buy three loaves of bread for 5 lei!’ ‘There, give me 3 lei and …’ Money, it was money he usually gave us.
The first time he performed the seder ceremony after we returned from there [from Transnistria] I was of school age, I must have been six. When we were little we didn’t realize he was performing this ceremony. And he hid the slice of matzah, we forgot all about it, you see, he had told us beforehand how it was going to be, he had told us to simply find it, that he would see, he would give us a present, something, he would give us some money. But we forgot. We found it [the afikoman] and we secretly went into another room while father didn’t notice, as we did everything in secrecy, and ate the slice of matzah. We weren’t really hungry, but there wasn’t so much matzah as nowadays, and father would buy only a few slices, as was the custom. We didn’t have much money, for it was just after the war, there was widespread poverty. It wasn’t like today, when you go and buy a whole box, or two, or three. And when we returned [from the other room], Gather said: ‘Well, let us see the afikoman’ – that’s what it’s called. And we looked at one another, we exchanged some glances… ‘Come on, let us see it, that is the rule, you must show it! We will give you something for it.’ ‘Well, we ate it!’ There was no question of reward anymore, we had taken it ourselves.
We didn’t sing at the end of the evening, father sang and intoned – it is intoned using a certain song. We didn’t recite, because we were little, and afterwards, as we grew up, we didn’t attach that much significance to it. My father observed all the rules, we read a book, we did this and that in the meantime. Until his death, Father always observed seder on Passover. But in those years when it was performed at the canteen, he attended it at the canteen.
My mother used to bake kneaded bread – coilici – for Saturday. [Coilici is a variant for challah, similar to the word “kajlics” used by some Hungarian speaking Jews in Romania. Both words have their origin in the Hungarian word “kalacs.”] She used white flour and eggs. Usually, they made meat dishes for Saturday. Throughout the remaining days of the week, we ate like everybody else, but we had meat dishes on Saturday.
On Sabbath eve my mother would light the candles – she would light a candle for every dead person she prayed for. Usually, she lit two candles for her parents, a candle for a sister who died in Transnistria, and she lit a few more candles, I forget exactly how many.
She would cover her head and recite the prayer for lighting the candles. After that, my father would return from the synagogue and we would sit at the table. Which is to say we welcomed Sabbath – Sabbath is welcomed in the Jewish religion as a queen. My father would bless the bread, the wine, the food; after we ate, he would say a prayer in which we thanked God for giving us the chance to welcome Sabbath and rejoice in it.
On Saturday, my father would wake up early in the morning, put on his good clothes and take his siddur and tallit and he would go to the synagogue. Sometimes we went, too. Everybody wore their good clothes and we would return from the synagogue around noon, we would eat and then go visit our relatives or friends. Nobody did any work. In later years, our parents would light a fire, but in the beginning they didn’t. We had someone who lit the fire for us, we had Christian neighbors who knew it was a holiday, and they would come over: ‘Do you need the fire lit?’ And we called them and they would light the fire for us.
On Sabbath eve my mother would light the candles – she would light a candle for every dead person she prayed for. Usually, she lit two candles for her parents, a candle for a sister who died in Transnistria, and she lit a few more candles, I forget exactly how many.
She would cover her head and recite the prayer for lighting the candles. After that, my father would return from the synagogue and we would sit at the table. Which is to say we welcomed Sabbath – Sabbath is welcomed in the Jewish religion as a queen. My father would bless the bread, the wine, the food; after we ate, he would say a prayer in which we thanked God for giving us the chance to welcome Sabbath and rejoice in it.
On Saturday, my father would wake up early in the morning, put on his good clothes and take his siddur and tallit and he would go to the synagogue. Sometimes we went, too. Everybody wore their good clothes and we would return from the synagogue around noon, we would eat and then go visit our relatives or friends. Nobody did any work. In later years, our parents would light a fire, but in the beginning they didn’t. We had someone who lit the fire for us, we had Christian neighbors who knew it was a holiday, and they would come over: ‘Do you need the fire lit?’ And we called them and they would light the fire for us.
My sister, Haia, was born in 1941 in Hanesti, and she died that very same year of starvation during the deportation to Transnistria.
Rica is still in Romania, she lives in Bucharest, is married and teaches computer science at the Lauder High School. The Lauder School was founded – as far as I know – by the Embassy of Israel and with the support of the Jewish community. It is a school for children entering 1st grade and up to higher grades, high school included. It is a private school, attended in general by the children of accredited staff in Romania – ambassadors, embassy personnel – and other children of various nationalities. Classes are taught in Romanian, but there are also foreign languages classes such as English, French, what do I know… This school is attended both by Jews and Christians – and other nationalities.
They moved to the countryside, to Hanesti, my mother’s native village, and my father opened a small food shop in Hanesti using the money he saved from the salary he received [at the manufacture where he was apprenticed] and the experience he gathered while working there. They rented a house close to the village center. That’s where the shop was, too, and they sold food products. Actually, these shops resembled general stores: there were food products, a few kilograms of nails and a bucket, and anything else you could sell to country folk. You see, there weren’t many shops back then. And my mother worked as a dressmaker for the villagers. And just when they started to make ends meet the war was upon them…
In those days, young people coming from well-to-do families could enjoy their youth, could live their youth. These other ones [from poorer families], as soon as they were old enough to be able to work, entered apprenticeships for various trades. And when they finished their apprenticeship and were their own masters, only then would they marry. A dowry was out of the question in these simpler families, as they had no means to amass various sums of money, objects, properties or what not, to give their children. And you had to make your own money to start a life. In those days, when you started a family, you needed a place to stay, a bed, a table, this and that, and you needed some money, in order to look after yourself, buy clothes, buy your own bedclothes. In the same manner, my father saved money so he could manage these things. Neither my father, nor my mother received any dowry. My mother saved money and bought a sewing machine. My father saved some money so he could buy some merchandise, and that’s how they started their life together.
My parents met as was the custom in those days – through matchmaking. The parents of a boy would start looking for a young woman for their son, while the parents of a girl would start looking for a young man for their daughter. ‘Look, there is this young girl in Hanesti, she is hardworking, a dressmaker by trade, she has a steady job.’ The young man’s parents: ‘He has a job, too; he learned the trade of a shop assistant.’ And one thing led to another… Well, that’s how they met.
This village – Hanesti – is located 10 km from Saveni and back then, if you wanted to go to the city, let us say, you hired a cart, or two, or three, and the young girls and men in Hanesti would all go to Saveni – here they met young girls and men from Saveni. They met at a certain place for tea and, by starting relationships of this kind, willingly or unwillingly, they would get to know each other. So my parents met, they were probably pleased with each other – for they must have been, since they gave birth to us – and they got married.
They married in 1937, my father was 27 and my mother was 29.
This village – Hanesti – is located 10 km from Saveni and back then, if you wanted to go to the city, let us say, you hired a cart, or two, or three, and the young girls and men in Hanesti would all go to Saveni – here they met young girls and men from Saveni. They met at a certain place for tea and, by starting relationships of this kind, willingly or unwillingly, they would get to know each other. So my parents met, they were probably pleased with each other – for they must have been, since they gave birth to us – and they got married.
They married in 1937, my father was 27 and my mother was 29.
My mother, Leia, finished four grades and was apprenticed to a dressmaker, she learned tailoring and it became her trade.
My mother had a brother, Sulim Leibovici, who, too, was older than her. He was married; his wife’s name was Saly. They lived in Stefanesti, where my uncle was a cereal tradesman.
My mother had an older sister, her name was Sura Bercovici, she lived in Stefanesti – a locality near Botosani [55 km east of Botosani]. Her husband was a cereal tradesman in Stefanesti. They, too, left during those years when everybody was leaving for Israel – in the 1950s – they lived in Petach Tiqva.
Some of the children learned trades. My mother and one of her sisters, Ruhla, learned tailoring. They didn’t get much schooling, they finished four grades. Only the youngest of them, Zlota, finished as much as seven elementary grades – when my grandfather’s obligations for the older children started to dwindle, as they had married.
My grandparents were living in Sarbi when my mother was born, a village near Saveni [41 km north-east of Botosani]. Afterwards, they lived in Hanesti, a neighboring village, located at about 10 km from Saveni [Hanesti is located 13 km south-east of Saveni]. It was a small village, with a large pond, and my maternal grandfather was a watchman there.
The grandparents on my mother’s side had seven children – in those days people had more children than they do now – and my grandfather supported the family with what he earned as watchman of the pond. Every week, the pond owner would give him a few kilograms of fish, flour, and sugar. That’s how it was in those days: part of the pay due to those who performed certain tasks was paid in goods. That’s how he managed to raise seven children.
The grandparents on my mother’s side had seven children – in those days people had more children than they do now – and my grandfather supported the family with what he earned as watchman of the pond. Every week, the pond owner would give him a few kilograms of fish, flour, and sugar. That’s how it was in those days: part of the pay due to those who performed certain tasks was paid in goods. That’s how he managed to raise seven children.
My grandparents were living in Sarbi when my mother was born, a village near Saveni [41 km north-east of Botosani]. Afterwards, they lived in Hanesti, a neighboring village, located at about 10 km from Saveni [Hanesti is located 13 km south-east of Saveni]. It was a small village, with a large pond, and my maternal grandfather was a watchman there.
He worked there for a while, and in the meantime he also did his military service. When he was in the army – around 1934 – he was a private first class in the gendarmerie. He was drafted, he served his due time, I don’t know exactly where, but in any case it was somewhere in Oltenia. Back then the military service lasted – I couldn’t tell you for sure – about two or three years.
Then he worked with my grandfather – his father – in his workshop, as a blacksmith. Afterwards, he started an apprenticeship in a shop. There was a manufacture shop right there, in Saveni – a manufacture in those days was a shop where they sold fabrics, cloth, accessories for clothes, for tailoring. Well, he worked there for several years. In the beginning, he was basically the owner’s servant for the first two or three years; he took care of the owner’s children – he took them to and from school – he did the shopping for the shop owner’s wife. I’ll admit, employers in these small towns were not great businessmen or what not, but compared to the rest of the people… [they were wealthy].
My father finished elementary school. That’s about all the education a child coming from a poor family could get in those days. Thus, my father finished the four elementary grades.
All our relatives left for Israel, both on my mother’s side of the family and on my father’s.
All my father’s four sisters lived in Saveni [until they made aliyah] and were housewives. Beti Lutfac’s husband was a strap maker: he manufactured leather products, harnesses for horses, things like these.
The brother, Moise Rotaru, lived in a village near Dorohoi – the village of Saveni. He was a farmer, he owned land and animals.
My grandparents lived in Saveni [37 km south-west of Botosani]. Back then it was a rural town – just as it is today, in fact. The town itself, with houses that had no courtyards – in order to be distinct from those in the village – was as follows: if you set out from one end, where the City Hall was, it would take you less than half an hour to reach the town limits barrier. The people lived a traditional Jewish life.
There were five to six synagogues in this little town on several streets. Two of these were proper synagogues: a large one that still exists today, and another one, smaller yet apt. The remaining ones were houses where people had formerly lived and were later turned into synagogues [prayer houses] to meet the demands. Formerly, in the days when the Jewish city was populated, religious services were held twice a day in the synagogues – in the morning and in the evening. The morning service was held before the working hours started, and the point was that the place of prayer be as close as possible to people’s homes so that they could go and pray, and go to work afterwards. There were services every evening, too, as well as on holidays, on Saturdays.
There were five to six synagogues in this little town on several streets. Two of these were proper synagogues: a large one that still exists today, and another one, smaller yet apt. The remaining ones were houses where people had formerly lived and were later turned into synagogues [prayer houses] to meet the demands. Formerly, in the days when the Jewish city was populated, religious services were held twice a day in the synagogues – in the morning and in the evening. The morning service was held before the working hours started, and the point was that the place of prayer be as close as possible to people’s homes so that they could go and pray, and go to work afterwards. There were services every evening, too, as well as on holidays, on Saturdays.
I know that my father’s father was a craftsman, a blacksmith. Which is to say he shoed horses, made carts, installed wheels on them, things like these. That’s why we are named Rotaru [Romanian for ‘wheel maker’], as in those years town halls in small towns and villages were probably run by clerks lacking proper training and instead of registering the Jewish name – which is different from Romanian names – that was then our name, they said: ‘What does he do? He is a wheel maker. Let’s register his name as Rotaru.’
I don’t know the former name. This [the changing of the name] probably comes from our forefathers, from times immemorial. So that’s what they did for a living. My grandfather also treated animal disease – empirically, as they did in those days. Back then, craftsmen were considered poor people. A handicraftsman would earn enough to support his family, put food on the table, have a roof above his head. But they took care of their children’s upbringing and would educate them as much as they could in those days. My grandfather’s name was Iancu Rotaru, and my grandmother’s, Devoira.
I don’t know the former name. This [the changing of the name] probably comes from our forefathers, from times immemorial. So that’s what they did for a living. My grandfather also treated animal disease – empirically, as they did in those days. Back then, craftsmen were considered poor people. A handicraftsman would earn enough to support his family, put food on the table, have a roof above his head. But they took care of their children’s upbringing and would educate them as much as they could in those days. My grandfather’s name was Iancu Rotaru, and my grandmother’s, Devoira.