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Morocco, 1955
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Translated by Talia Hes
“When your house is burning down - run away, even through the window”. Pogroms[1] taking place at the end of the 19th century, antisemitism that began and grew in the villages and towns, and economic poverty led various Jews - in particular young ones - to go from one exile to another without waiting for the opportunity to immigrate to Israel. Young people from different cities in Bacău prepared to depart on foot. This group numbered 120 people. At its head stood F. Brownstein. On the 3rd of March, 1900, the group departed by foot in the direction of the port of Hamburg, which is in Germany, and from there, they sailed to the United States. Before their departure from Bacău, they took an oath in the synagogue of the grain merchants and organized a theatrical performance in order to raise money for their travels. Members of the group were dressed in blue uniforms and white hats.
A different group of 110 young people, whose goal was to sail to Canada, left the city on July 13, 1900. The group's name was “nouă viaţă” (The new life), and at its lead stood the educator B. Friedman.
On the 7th of July and on the 14th of July in the same year, five more groups of immigrants departed. They headed toward the direction of Roman, Focşani, and Burdujeni, and from there, through Galaţi, in the direction of Hamburg.
All in all, about 400 young people, boys and girls, and even some older people left Bacău. They joined thousands of Jews from different cities, who are known in history as the “Fusgeyers”[2]. This movement was greatly affected by the settlement activities in Argentina under the patronage of Baron Hirsch[3], and by the ideas of the Territorialist Movement initiated by the writer Israel Zangwill.
However, the migration march was not organized. The groups were formed by accident, usually without a central forum or any form of leadership. Groups left at the same time from different cities. It seems that this movement was characteristic of an “epidemic” that attracted the young Jews from Old
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Romania. In the period between 1900-1907, more than 30,000 Jews emigrated from Romania.
After many years, a small part of them returned to Romania because they were unable to adapt to the harsh living and working conditions of the “New World.” Some were not able to stand the yearning for their birth city. In the month of January 1916, the Romanian actress Agatha Barsescu visited the United States as part of a theater tour. She recounted that on the evening of her show, hundreds of Jews from Bacău, Iaşi, Dorohoi, and Botoşani arrived and kissed her hands, their eyes filled with tears of longing.
Translator's footnotes
By Lika Avrahami-Guttman
Translated by Jacob Klatzker and Naomi Sokoloff
Romanian Jewry joined the national revival movement, sparked by “Lovers of Zion” and “Love of Zion”[1] in the dawn of its days. In almost all the communities of Old Romania, committees were founded that spread the idea, but very few approached its realization. Among these few were also the Jews of Bacău and its surroundings. The heart of the community was the young David Șub[2] (a kosher butcher) in the town of Moinești. He left his post and at the head of 30 families moved to Bacău, the county seat, where they were joined by three local families. The community council imposed a special tax on all its members for a month for the general good, and he put in 450 French francs. Apart from that, the community financed the entire cost of the immigration documents, and then they left for the port city of Galați on the Danube, where they were joined by several local families, and more families from the Bârlad and Focșani communities were added. Upon arriving in Eretz Israel, they founded two colonies: Rosh Pina, previously Umm Jini, and Zichron Yaakov, previously Zamrin.
The emigration of the first families (1882) did not weaken the idea of aliya, but on the contrary, strengthened the spirit of those who wanted to make it happen, and thus up to 50 families were organized who intended to establish a colony called “Neuschatz” (an Austrian Jew with the title of Baron who lived in the city of Iași). The committee was headed by Avraham Balter and Avraham Groper. The plan was not carried out, but instead several more families left for Rosh Pina and Zichron Yaakov. Among these was the Aharonsohn family, whose sons headed the Nili organization that worked in favor of the English, and the family's daughter, Sarah, paid with her life when she was captured by the Turks.
Where did all this fervor come from among the Jews of Bacău and the surrounding area? It started in 1881 when Rabbi Iosef
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Aryeh Șub in the town of Moinești immigrated to Eretz Israel and established a small alcohol distillery in Haifa. A short time later he returned to his town and convinced another 30 young people to settle with him in Haifa. He also convinced his nephew David Șub to work for the restoration of the land. D. Șub took vigorous action and the result is known. Since then, the saying has been common among Romanian Jews: through Moinești, they go to the Land of Israel.
Unlike the rabbi of Moinești, the Rebbe[3] of Buhuși (another town close to Bacău) R. Yitzhak Friedman – a descendant of R. Yisroel of Ruzhin-Sadigura who had a huge influence on the Jews of Moldavia – passed on both points. At the request of Dr. Karl Lipa to support the settlement project, he delayed his answer until after receiving the opinion of three experts: one who understood the nature of the lands, the second who understood the policies of the Turkish authorities in the region, and the third, the local rabbi of Safed, where there was a kollel[4] of Romanian Jews under the influence of Buhuși. It is difficult to determine whether the Rebbe addressed these people, but it is clear that if he had responded positively at the time, the echo would have been enormous and the immigration to Eretz Yisrael would have intensified immeasurably.
The local rabbi of Bacău, Rabbi Bețalel Șafran did not express a firm opinion either. This did not prevent his sons years later from being active in the “Mizrachi” religious Zionist movement, and in 1930, one of the grandsons of the aforementioned Rebbe of Buhuși gathered around him a group of Zionist activists in Bucharest, the capital, that was active in the underground during the years of World War II (between 1940 and the end the war). After the war he immigrated to Israel and settled in Tel Aviv.
In contrast to the Rebbe of Buhuși, the local Rabbi R. Ben-Zion Roller was active in the Mizrachi movement all those years. He didn't have the privilege of immigrating to Israel, but his youngest son, a student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, enlisted immediately upon the outbreak of the 1967 war and fell on the battlefield. Over the years, the Jews of Bacău immigrated to the Land of Israel in many ways. Among them was Beryl, a farmer in Yokneam near Haifa, whose melons were renowned and were sold abroad even before the establishment of the state. The wood exporters sent different additional materials in their ships with every trip and the exporters of livestock did likewise.
The Moinești community went into decline from its greatness as a Zionist center because the waves of aliya emptied it out. Instead of enthusiastic Zionists, assimilators emerged, among them Tristan Tzara. The latter immigrated to France and was among the leaders of the Dadaist movement there. An exception among them was the young physician, Dr. Boțu Zelig z”l,[5] who translated from Yiddish into Romanian Fishke the Lame by Mendele the Bookseller. The youth movements nevertheless continued to operate there. Hashomer Hatzair, the Zionist Youth, Beitar and Gordonia brought many members to Eretz Israel, legally and illegally, sometimes also at the price of sacrifices such as the Trachtenberg couple.
The Târgu Ocna community did not excel in Zionist nor general Jewish activity, although it suffered in the 1920s from antisemitic riots when Romanian students destroyed synagogues and looted property unhindered. The youth movements raised pioneers over the years in all ways.
The Bacău community did not deplete its resources over the years, and between the two world
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wars it was visited by Nachum Sokolov, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and the writers Nachum Bistritzky and the late Avraham Shlonsky. Pioneering youth movements also developed and operated immediately upon their appearance on the national level: Hashomer Hatzair, Hanoar Hatzioni, Beitar, Gordonia and Dror. Bnei Akiva from the beginning of the Mizrachi youth appeared immediately after the end of the war. Members of these movements immigrated to Israel, some legally and some illegally, even before the mass immigrations. Most members of Hashomer Hatzair were absorbed into kibbutzim. Likewise, to a certain extent, the Gordonia movements were absorbed, while the rest of the movements were absorbed in the moshavs[6], in the moshavas[7] and in private farms. In the early twenties (1920) many families purchased plots of land in “Ahuza” (named after Herbert Samuel). Others purchased within the cities, in Yahud, Haifa, and Tel Aviv, and they made their land ownership a reality after World War II in their aliya to the Land. Jews of Bacău stood out for their realism. Just as they knew how to establish within the community an old people's home, a hospital, an orphanage, and the like, so they knew how to contribute to the national funds to support the kibbutzim with pioneering training and the agricultural school in Ayanot near Ness Ziona, founded by Ada Fischman Maimon and A.C.F.E, WIZO[8] of Romania. Ada Fischman, who would often visit Romania for this purpose and never missed Bacău on her visits, stayed with Dr. Perlberger's wife, president of the WIZO. Compared to the blessed initiatives of her members, the community council did not succeed in establishing a spiritual center. The Hebrew language was taught in the community's elementary school only within the limitations of the government program, whereas classes to complete the knowledge would be held at the initiative of the parents who were interested in that. Jewish educational institutions such as seminars for the study of Jewish history, the geography of the Land of Israel, Hebrew literature, or a yeshiva for sacred studies, were not cared for. The Zionists in the community all gathered around their own banners, for instance:
The general Zionists, whose members were the merchants and industrialists and factory operators. After Balter (the son of the leader of the Lovers of Zion), it was Isac Avraham who served both as chairman of the local Zionist Histadrut and chairman of the JNF.[9] Davidovici was the chairman of Keren Hayesod and Eli Rappaport was the secretary. Most members of this organization were also members of the Jewish Association of Romania, which was opposed to all local Jewish political activities. Nevertheless, it should be said to their credit that they took care to teach their children the Hebrew language. These were members of Hashomer Hatzair in the city, and most of them immigrated to Israel.
The Radicals and the Jewish National Party. As in all cities of the Romanian Old Kingdom[10] and also in Bacău, most of the intellectuals gathered under this banner, contrary to the rules that denied independent Jewish activity in Romanian political life. At the head of the activists were the attorney Ionas, the engineer Singer, the teacher It and others. They also openly encouraged the Hebrew lessons led by the teachers Mardler and Rabin, without considering the position of the authorities on the matter. WIZO in Romania (the Cultural Association of Jewish Women) brought together most of the Zionist women in the city. Most of the time they were headed by the following ladies: Perlberg, Șabat, Ionas, Scharf, Orna Avraham, and others. They concentrated their efforts in two areas: the national funds and the Ayanot agricultural school in Eretz Yisrael.
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Donors in the city preferred that emissaries of the national center visit them in place of Ms. Perlberg or Ms. Șabat, who knew about the economic situation of each one and would contribute according to their own estimates. In matters of the agricultural school, Ms. Perlberger would host Ada Fischman-Maimon every time she visited Romania, and this was also because Ada Fischman strictly kept kosher. On these occasions, many girls who had been trained in the youth movements were given permits for aliya and this made things easier for their organizations. In this way the following people made aliya: Fela Goldenberg, Marika Marcus, Klara Haran, Hella Herman, Rușkușa Bernstein, Beca Davidovici and others. An exceptional case among the WIZO members was Ms. Rabinovici, who immigrated to Israel in 1920 with all her family members. Shuli her son joined Kibbutz Beit Alfa, Esther studied at the Hebrew University, and Bernhard studied economics: all of them were members of Hashomer Hatzair. Another special case was Mrs. Melvina Tenenbaum-Engelberg, who traveled on her own to the first Zionist Congress in Basel. Her son Nachman, who immigrated to Eretz Israel among the first pioneers of the Zionist Youth movement, was killed by Arab murderers. When she arrived destitute in Israel after the Holocaust, she turned to the government and it set a monthly stipend for her. There was also an organization called “Avoda (Labor)”, alongside WIZO, and headed by: Groper, Xenia Ițicovici, Brana Rotenberg, Yeti Lipovici and Marika Ionas. They worked especially in running the Rază (Ray of Light) Library and helped the older members in their activities.
Hamizrachi, Hapoel Hamizrachi, and Bnei Akiva: It would seem logical that this group -- which at the time encouraged, helped, and even added families to the first cohort to make aliya with the people of Moinești -- would be the most powerful in the community. But that's not how it happened. Although most Jews were traditional if not religious, very few of them were active within the Zionist Histadrut during the period between the two world wars. The rabbis of the city who could have influenced in this direction were prevented by the heads of the community, who were under the influence of the Organization of Romanian Jews. M. Eybeschitz and with him Isser along with several other friends were alone in the burden of their ideological war. They got relief only when they were joined by the sons of the genius Rabbi Șafran, whose son, Rabbi Alexandru Șafran, was chosen as the chief rabbi of Romanian Jewry. After the war, Dr. Șafran emigrated to Switzerland, where he was accepted as the Chief Rabbi of the Jews of Geneva. On the other hand, young Weisbuch, who worked within the pioneering framework of “Hanoar Hatzioni” in the 30s, settled in Petach Tikva and became a reporter for the newspaper Haaretz. At the end of the world war, the Bnei Akiva movement was also founded in Bacău.
The New Zionist Organization, the Histadrut, gathered around it members inspired by the ideas of Jabotinsky. They also managed to establish the Beitar Youth Movement, and instead of the JNF boxes, which they called “schnorring,”[11] they distributed the Tel-Hai Foundation boxes that dealt with exactly the same thing. Leading the adults was Dr. Reșu, a doctor in Beer Yaakov after his immigration to Israel, [also] Mr. Ițicovici, Sami Iekerkaner, and Dr. Rubin Rotenberg, from among the founders
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of the Zionist Youth movement in the city. Beitar was headed by Kraus, Eltrescu, later an IDF officer, the Grinberg brothers, later members of Moshav Ramat Raziel. The Beitar movement rallied youth especially in the Jewish suburbs of the city, for whom the versions of the Jewish bourgeois as well as of the Jewish left were not relevant. Those born in the Jewish Quarter were only interested in what had to do with Jewish life, tradition on the one hand and the modern Jewish theater on the other. Beitar did not concentrate on intellectual forces but knew how to set up defense guards against the antisemitic rioters. They did not go to pioneer training but were among the first in the illegal aliya that was organized by their institutions.
“The Zionist Youth”, originally Ț.T.S. The young Zionists club was founded in 1924 by a group of non-partisan young people headed by Meir and Hana Zelikovici, Rubin Rotenberg, Itzel Bruker, Leibu Jancu, and others. Unlike the branches in all the other cities that were founded by the nationwide Zionist executive with the name United Zionist Youth and which two years later became Hashomer Hatzair, the branch in Bacău that was founded by the aforementioned members themselves and called Ț.T.S., The “Zionist Youth Circle”, was not different only from a semantic point of view, but also in substance. In all the branches, there were young people in the upper grades of high school; in Bacău, there were young people in the upper grades, and at their head there were university students. Only after a while did they start to also accept young teens. In the whole country, the education was only for pioneering and aliya; whereas in Bacău the club published a manifesto in which it called on the Jewish population to participate in the life of the community and to be active in the ranks of the Jewish National Party. It also organized a prayer minyan before the High Holy Days; all of its income was dedicated to the JNF. The circle was not closed to other opinions. Thus, it invited the writers Natan Bistritzky and Avraham Shlonsky during their visit to Romania; both were members of Hashomer Hatzair. Only after establishing itself in Old Romania by setting up branches in almost all the cities and towns did they decide to unite with a similar movement in Transylvania, “Hashomer”. Sometime later came the union with the “Hebrew Youth” from Poland within a framework called “The World Zionist Youth”. One of Romania's representatives in the world leadership was Shlomo Rotenberg from Bacău, who immigrated to Israel at the time as a pioneer. The first pioneers who immigrated to Eretz Israel were Natan Engelberg who was killed by Arabs and Steinberg who joined Kibbutz Geva, while Hari Jacobson immigrated to Kibbutz Heftziba. Pioneers from other branches also immigrated but they were scattered throughout the country until in 1932 the first attempt was made to establish a kibbutz of The Zionist Youth near Kfar Saba. Among its leaders were Haim Reisel and Shlomo Rotenberg. The attempt was not successful and the members dispersed. The members participated in other attempts including the establishment of “Ein Hagalil” by Yavniel, but in the end, those related to the framework joined the “Osha” group of the Zionist Youth in Poland. To keep the members who failed to make aliya legally or illegally, a new framework was established called “New Generation”. That was so in Bacău as well. They
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maintained a connection with the movement and were active within the framework of the Zionist Histadrut, the Jewish communities, and the Jewish national party. Even after the transfer of the central institutions of the movement to Bucharest in 1932, the Bacău branch continued to be one of the strongest in Eretz Yisrael. It sent its members for pioneer training -- they made aliya either legally or illegally – and it maintained interest in membership through its relationship with the Ayanot school near Ness Ziona. Zvi Har-Zahav, among the founders of the Bacău troop, was a member of the main leadership from 1932 till 1938, then received authorization from the higher-ups to make aliya. In the meanwhile, he was also a member of the committee of Hapoel Hatzioni Haartzi and the Jewish National Fund institutions as counsel for the “New Generation.” Over the years, the local Bacău branch continued to be one of the strongest in the country. In its leadership were Zvi Har-Zahav, Lupu Isik, Shmuel Marantz, Fela Goldenberg, Lika Guttman, Clara Haran, Didi Stainbach, and Izzy Lobel. Alecsander Aharoni made aliya as a student. They belonged at the time to scouting group A and they determined in 1935 that they would meet up several years thereafter in front of the Mugrabi theater in Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, World War II broke out and the get-together took place only in1988 in the home of Zvi Har-Zahav in Ramat Gan. Over the years, the following took part in the national institutions: Zvi Har-Zahav, Lupu Isik, Shmuel Marantz, Rivka Frenkel, Leon Ciubotaru, Herman and Yisrael Weisman. During the years of the Holocaust, the leaders were Haim Guttman, Raizel Paldi, and Shmuel Margalit.
Hashomer Hatzair in Bacău was one of the troops established at the beginning of the1920s. The founders succeeded in bringing together many students from among the families of merchants and industrialists in the city. (The office workers and laborers were concentrated in Hanoar Hatzioni and in Beitar. Later they joined Gordonia and Dror Habonim when those appeared.) Practiced in scouting according to the Baden-Powell method, influenced by the modern educational theories of Freud, Adler, and others, they held to the socialist ideas of Marx and Engels in light of Soviet experimentation. All this they aspired to study by age 17 or 18. At that age the member faced a choice: pioneer training or leave the troop. Not surprisingly, therefore, without further university studies, they became militants in the circles of the left-wing underground. At the end of the world war, they became pillars of the new regime. The paradox is that almost all those members received a Jewish education at home and learned Hebrew in private lessons their parents had arranged, but, with no continuing Zionist education, they developed as they developed. And maybe their approach to life was like that of their parents? To go with the flow in political life so as to be an insider? But there were other cases, those who were indifferent to all public life, and only with the establishment of the state and the appearance of Mapam in the Zionist political arena did they return to “undefined” status and join that organization. At the head of the local branch stood Dr. Șabat, a long-time Zionist from the ranks of the Zionist left, Dr. Klein, Sarah Avraham, the Isser brothers, Blank, and others. Joining them was Dr. Rotenberg, who was among the founders of The Zionist Youth. Among the pioneers who made aliya over the years were Zelikovici in Kibbutz Dahlia, Lior Haran, Alfred Avraham, Hana Schwartz, Rina Moskovitz, and Rina Maisel. In Kibbutz Reshafim: Moshe Gitler (now Prof. Moshe Gil at Tel Aviv University), Rakul Buium, Zomba Frenkel, Izu
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Marcusohn, and others. In Kibbutz She'ar Ha'amakim: Herman Davidovici. In Kibbutz Shamir: Karol Schuler, Marietta Engelberg, and Ruzicka Einperetz. Marietta undertook missions abroad and now serves in a senior position at the Jewish Agency.
Gordonia. Although it had wide leeway to operate among the young workers of the factories, Gordonia did not succeed in its mission until after the war when the deportees returned from Transnistria. Its center of operations was in the Filderman orphanage, and like all the other movements, they ceased to exist with the publication of the closure decree in 1948.
Dror Habonim, which succeeded in establishing branches in many communities, failed in Bacău. They turned to the lower working class, which was not grounded in matters of the spirit because it lacked a general or traditional cultural institution that could educate and exert influence. The young people joined the Romanian left, and only when the war ended and they found out how their comrades had stood in the opposition in times of trouble, and how they were neglected by the new regime, then they established “Dror” which united with “Habonim.” At the head of [the movement] stood: Abramovici, Ocneanu, Katz, Rubinstein, Emil Scharf, Uri Gloter, Sasha Schmeltzer, and Dudu Guttman. As mentioned, some of the members made aliya before the war. I stayed, because my parents were opposed to me making aliya without them. (I should point out that my father was a student of Balter, who was among the heads of Hovevei Zion, the Zionist movement in the city, before Isaac Avraham. My mother belonged to the “Julia Herzl” club of young Jewish women in the city then, and when Ms. Perlberger tried to persuade her, my mother answered: when you send your daughter alone, I'll do the same. Once more the joke became reality: “A Zionist is one who sends someone else to the Land of Israel.” I was a minor and unable to get a passport. In order to prevent support for me, should I get around the law, my father sold the four-dunam plot of land he had acquired at one time in Ahuza. How he came to regret that afterwards – twelve years later – only I know.)
The tension with my parents depressed me very much. Ms. Perlberger, who was a dear family friend, saw what was going on and suggested that I join the young women's WIZO club called “Avoda”, promising that they would engage us in Zionist activity. My first activity was in the Rază Library led by Bianca Groper and Xena Ițicovici. After some time, I was placed on committees that raised money for Keren Hayesod. In particular, I accompanied Ms. Șabat who knew the circumstances of the merchants in town quite well, and she requested contributions from them accordingly. She knew how to appeal to their conscience; among them were members of the Jewish National Party, as well as members of the union of religious Romanian Jews, and also the unaffiliated who realized that in times of trouble they could not rely on generally likeminded Romanians. Ms. Șabat addressed each one on his own terms, and so she succeeded in her mission. Ms. Perlberger, from the Filderman family, dealt with the big industrialists. All those things seemed very important to us then, but what significance did they have compared to the approaching storm that soon darkened the skies of Europe?
In the autumn of 1939 World War II broke out, and although Romania did not join in until 1941, the antisemitic factions raised their heads and pressured the central regime to make decrees and constantly legislate new laws. In our region, the yoke became heavier: Jews from the nearby towns
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were expelled from their houses and apartments. More than 5000 people were directed toward Bacău. But, in the community there weren't enough places to live because, at the order of the authorities, hundreds of families of Romanian refugees took the furnished apartments first. After the residence decree came the Romanization decree. All the merchants were forced to accept Romanian partners, and to the extent that there wasn't enough income, the Jews had to concede. As a result, many families went hungry and became a burden on the community.
The yellow badge also led to loss of income, for those who bore them were humiliated mercilessly, and once their livelihood was broken, they too became a burden on the public. In 1941 students and teachers in the public schools were expelled. The community established a high school of its own, but all those efforts fell short of changing the suffocating atmosphere that prevailed in the wake of the orders and local edicts whose goal was to cruelly oppress, as if we had not lived together for generations.
In order to earn a living, I worked in Jean Zingher's textile factory which was managed by a Jewish man, an expert who was brought in from Poland. This man's son, who was then among the leaders of Hashomer Hatzair, is today Professor Gil at Tel Aviv University. Jean Zingher was one of the prominent leaders of the community and he sometimes also took part in Zionist matters. In the winter of 1941 I told him about the difficult situation of the children in the Filderman orphanage, and I suggested that he make them warm coats. He agreed, but in order to avoid objections from Romanian workers in the factory, he made coats like that for their children as well. Ms. Yenta Haimovici oversaw the work and employed women from the families that had been displaced from their homes in the surrounding towns. We had not yet adjusted to all the edicts when the authorities imposed a new edict on us: a census of the entire Jewish population on the basis of identity papers. The certificates were issued in exchange for money and the community was responsible for the funding. In order to withstand the pressure, several administrative crews were set up, led by attorney Bubi Gărniceanu. Healthy people appeared in person before the community committee, whereas sick people were visited at home. The census lists were arranged with several copies, one for the city authorities. It became clear later that they were used to arrange lists of deportees to all kinds of places. Among them was the most difficult place, in the Făgăraș mountain range in the Carpathians. I worked diligently myself, together with wagoner Moshe Cotru, nicknamed Dudiah. I gathered tens of sacks and transferred them to cam Weinberg who had been named as head of the group and received all the clothing. Afterward, we added all the packages to the shipment under his name and he took care to relieve the suffering.
A harsh fate awaited those sent to Transnistria, and only thanks to the efforts of a woman, Dr. Gelfand, and Ms. Coca Zaharia, was it possible for some of the deportees to receive packages of food. Even harsher than this was the fate of a group consisting of people from Bukovina and Bessarabia. People were forced from their homes, loaded on cattle cars, and handed over to the Germans. In this group were two of my cousins, Rina and Stela, daughters of Dr. Marcusohn (a doctor and captain in the Romanian army), who had received permits to immigrate to America, but without any way of traveling west
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were included in the group traveling east. The Germans put all of those groups into sheds and burned them alive.
In order to ensure compliance with all the orders, the local authorities took prisoners from among the community, exchanging them every two weeks. I, too, was among them, together with Meir Eybeschitz, Ițicovici, Sarah Avraham, Shmuel Bernstein, Vataru, Haimovici, members of the community council and many others. Approximately 200 men and women. We all were housed in the import merchants' synagogue and the Rabbi Israel synagogue on Leca Street. I will never forget the patriarchal figure, Rubin Vaksman, nicknamed Bulibașă (the Gypsy Elder), who influenced the soldiers one time when he admonished them for bringing a horse into the synagogue. They listened to him and rectified their misdeeds.
The upheavals of that time began to leave their mark. Russian forces succeeded in breaking through the front in the direction of Moldavia. The Jews, and especially children and old people, were employed in preparing trenches. Among those digging was my younger brother, Dudu. One day he heard some guards conversing among themselves in German, saying that when the work was done they were to shoot the children or send them to the extermination camps. That evening, the children consulted with one another and decided not to return to work anymore. They looked for them, but the Russian cannons were already shelling the city and many Romanian soldiers deserted and hid in Jewish homes. The Germans began to retreat, and joining them were many Romanians who feared Russian retribution. There was great confusion and disarray; the old regime had not yet fallen apart, and the new one had not yet taken shape but was nonetheless trying to take control of the situation. Among other things, the electrical grid had been damaged and needed repair. All the electricians in the city were recruited, and among them was my brother Haim. As he was climbing up a pole to make taut the wiring, the workers on the ground connected the electricity. Were it not for the electrician Sandu Divis who heard my brother's cries, who broke the connection and dragged him to the ground, he no doubt would have burned to death. When he arrived at the hospital there was no penicillin, so they had to amputate half his arm. The pain was horrendous and were it not for the dedication of Dr. Shulemsohn and Dr. Herșcu, who stayed by his side day and night until he was out of danger, who knows what might have happened to him.
Some Romanians figured out how to take advantage of the situation. Overnight they changed their tune and became communists. A lawyer who was well-known as a man of the underground put it this way: “many green tomatoes (meaning, members of the Nazi Guard) turned red overnight.” In the confusion that prevailed, the youth movements dared to organize Aliya Gimmel. The groups were evacuated across the border to Yugoslavia. In my parents' house, the Zionist Youth gathered. Muca Antler supervised those whose goal in Eretz Yisrael was to join the Nitzanim group, and in addition to them there were also other members, among them my brother Immanuel (Manzu) who was wounded in the War of Independence and was transferred to HGA[12] and promoted to the rank of sergeant. My cousins, Mendel Shalom and his wife Tzila; my relative Freddy Berger who fell in the battles on the road to Jerusalem; Avraham, Yuzu, Itai, Rika, Sarah, and Ada Klein, the nephew of Isaac Avraham, chairman of the local Zionist Histadrut. Slowly, the new regime in Romania began to take control: Jews were returned to the public schools at all levels, and for the first time Jews were appointed as ministers and senior officials. All of them breathed a sigh of relief, but immediately thereafter began the persecution of Zionists. An acquaintance of mine, an official in the old government who had also risen to great heights
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in the new regime, told me that they were tailing me and that it would be best for me to leave the city. I went to Bucharest and there I was recommended by my friend Muca Antler to take part, together with M. Liebe and Enzo Cohen -- agents of the Center – in collecting support for farming communities in the Negev. I was to work in Bacău, Piatra Neamț, and Buhuși. At the conclusion of the fundraising, I returned to Bucharest. M. Antler transferred me this time over to “Hechalutz” where I worked with Manku Ițicovici, the accountant of that institution who needed assistance during the time when workers were on vacation. Before I had time to complete my work, agents from the Land of Israel arrived to prepare two ships for immigrants, the “Medina” and the “Geula”[13] Rico Lupescu coordinated all the activities and needed a secretary. Mr. Ițicovici recommended me heartily. The pay wasn't important so much as the role itself, which was a very sensitive one. In this role I met with Ms. Perlberger, who served as the Chair of WIZO. She was pleased with me, and when Moshe Agami arrived to coordinate the work of the agents, she recommended me enthusiastically as a dedicated and trustworthy person who had fulfilled roles in Avoda (Labor)-Young WIZO. When he arrived, Agami encountered a tense political atmosphere. A young, ambitious generation was forging its path to the top ranks. For them, Gheorghiu-Dej and company were yesterday's news, fated to pass away as had happened not long before in Soviet Russia. Among the most active were Jews who were pressuring for a change of approach to problems and especially the economic approach. Those changes began when preparations for the big aliya were forming and some of the members of the regime saw in that a way to release tensions. One Jew among them expressed this sotto voce: “may as many as possible leave, that will make things better for those of us who stay.” But, out loud he called those who were leaving traitors to the homeland and the regime. Despite all that, they arrived at an agreement with the authorities allowing two ships, the Pan-York and the Pan-Crescent, to sail, limiting the amount of cargo permitted at 15 kilos per person. In the atmosphere that resulted, hundreds of families had to sell their possessions very cheaply so that they could pay the expenses of the voyage. Only the wealthiest did otherwise and sent their cargo on commercial Romanian ships.
In all the turmoil that ensued, we were not spared some unpleasant surprises. Moshe Sharett, then the director of the political department of the Jewish Agency, instructed us by telegraph to delay the aliya due to opposition on the part of the British authorities. A threatening situation thus arose: thousands of people remained homeless, because their apartments had been taken by others. Moshe Agami was opposed to the instructions. In distress, he turned to an officer of the Hagana, Moshe Sneh. He arrived immediately and with him was Klarman, the journalist, and Vilu Katz, originally from Romania, served as translator. They arranged a press conference to explain the situation, and after additional pressure on Moshe Sharett, he, too, agreed to the sailing.
At the end of this matter, Sneh wanted a visa to travel to Russia. In Paris they turned him down. So, following Agami's instructions, I called the Romanian officials that I knew and they stamped it for him immediately, at the same time that he was waiting two weeks in Paris for a visa to Romania. When several years had passed, I went to the Knesset to meet some people on a private matter. Sneh saw me and introduced us to Ben Gurion, telling him about the visa. One day Agami sent me to Anna Paucker. When I arrived she asked my name. I answered Guttman, and she seemed to remember that name. I told her that my cousin was among those held captive in
[Page 50]
prison together with her, and she had kept as a memento a packet of cigarettes in which there was a half-rolled cigarette -- that you left her when you were suddenly forced into a railway car taking you to Russia. Her face saddened, her eyes clouded over, and she fell silent. Suddenly she asked me, “Are you a Zionist?” I answered yes! If so, you need to make aliya right away. She gave me a list, emphasizing that it was top secret and I must get it to Agami immediately.
The preparations for aliya were almost complete. At Agami's instructions, I warned the leaders of the central Zionist activists that they needed to make aliya before it was too late. I did as ordered. Almost all of them were convinced that I was exaggerating, and they said the Romanians were not as bad as the Russians. The only one who made aliya was the attorney Naftuli (Tuli) Rozental. All the rest paid dearly for their complacency. They
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Morocco, 1955 |
were arrested and went through a very difficult time. The only ones who suffered through no fault of their own were the activists in the youth movements who stayed in place at the order of their coordinators in Eretz Yisrael. Finally, the ships sailed, and I was with them as were my parents and my brother, Haim. We were detained by the British and sent to camps on Cyprus and even members of the crew, among them my younger brother Dudu, were arrested. After their release they received
[Page 51]
a “13” medal which symbolizes the day that agents of the underground parachuted into Romania.
When I arrived in Israel in 1948, I presented myself for military induction. To my disappointment, I was rejected because of deficient vision. Given the situation, I immediately called friends who were members in my movement and began to work in the Haifa branch. On its behalf, I was chosen to serve in central and national institutions. In July 1950 I accompanied my husband, Aryeh Avrahami, who went to Morocco on behalf of the Aliya Department of the Jewish Agency. Because things there were touchy, many olim[14] had returned home, most of them because they missed their families or because they weren't suited to the changing pace of life in Israel, and a minority because of possibilities that opened up for them thanks to the occupational skills they had acquired during their time in Israel and were now very much in demand here. There were those who wished to bring their parents with them to Israel, and they pressured the Kadima[15] office of the Jewish Agency but met with lack of understanding. The agent of the Department didn't know a single language they understood: French or Arabic, and the Hebrew which the ones returning spoke was weak and sometimes defective. The officials who dealt with them saw them as yordim[16] who should be punished; they did not take into account that these were army veterans. A file was opened for each request and the correspondence was endless.
We had not yet had time to get settled in the apartment nor gotten to know the institutions and personnel we were to work with, when one morning they came and called Aryeh to the office urgently. There was a hubbub, and when he entered some people jumped to attention and saluted him. Those were soldiers who had encountered him during his military service. An awkward situation had arisen. Aryeh called some of them aside and explained that they were likely to cause damage by revealing that he was an army officer. A time was set for a quiet gathering with them in the Jewish Quarter, the mellah – on the condition that it be kept a secret, and a liaison was named, a man who was an official in the mellah, also a yored.
I immediately sought a way to be active. I connected with WIZO and through them with local organizations. There were many sensitive issues. Between the tenants in the mellah and the residents of the Jewish Quarter there was an almost complete disconnect, not to mention the few who lived in mixed neighborhoods with Europeans due to their being foreign subjects.
Over almost five years I got to know very well the longtime Jewish community of Morocco: they were warm, loyal, and quick to help the war refugees who arrived from occupied France. During those years, many agents from Israel visited here, among them Berginsky, Tsigal, and Dr. Yosef Tal, z”l, members of the Jewish Agency leadership. Baruch Duvdevani, z”l, Director of the Department of Aliya worked there for an extended time and more than once in danger. There were others, as well, and all with one goal: to help this Jewish community make aliya, even at great risk, and indeed a heavy price was paid. At the end of that era, when big changes began with Morocco's declaration of independence, I experienced two highlights of my time there: I sat in a cafe downtown, where I used to wait for Aryeh, and suddenly a car stopped and out jumped a friend from my youth, a Christian woman married to an American colonel. She had heard from her sources that we were in danger, and she offered us refuge in her house on the military base. I thanked her and told her that we could only follow whatever instructions we would receive.
In those difficult days, I suddenly met a classmate of mine who had married a
[Page 52]
local, a Jewish engineer. There were not many engineers here then, Jewish or Arab. She was worried about our fate, along with that of all the Jews. In December 1957 we returned to Israel.
Translator's footnotes
Translated by Suhyeon Kim
In Moldavia, Bacău was the most prosperous and dynamic city and was among the five most important economic centers of Romania. The geographical situation of the city contributed to this: its location close to the place where the Bistrița River flows into the Siret river (Seret in the Jewish tongue) and its proximity to the old road leading to Bucharest, towards Poland (this road later developed into a highway). At the same time, a railroad was built, a factor that pushed the city's economy forward. Other cities, such as Dorohoi, Vaslui, Bârlad, Huși and to a certain extent even Iași remained outside this new and modern commercial pathway. For this reason, their Jewish residents continued to live the traditional life of Jewish townspeople in Moldavia, and not, God forbid, because of a lack of knowledge or economic and commercial talents like those of the Izworiano family or members of the Filderman family, the founders of Bacău's thriving industry.
The city of Bacău, in addition to its location on the main commercial highway, had another advantage; it was close to a rich hinterland region: the cities of Piatra Neamț, Buhuși, Targu Neamț, and the entire valley of the Trotuș River. This area made a considerable contribution to the economy of Bacău which became a local economic metropolis. It is important to note that the hinterland region was rich in natural resources: trees, coal, oil. These natural resources would go to Bacău, the central city where processing and marketing factories were established. Refineries and petrochemical industry plants were established, and a paper manufacturing factory (named Letea).
In 1840, there were primitive refineries in the province of Bacău that processed the natural oil and produced oil for heating furnaces. Among other things, the refinery of B. Shefer established in the town
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Lucăcești in 1840, and the refinery of M. Haimsohn, which was also established in the same town in 1844. Actually, these refineries were workshops, and oil refining was done in them on a limited and simple scale. Other refineries were subsequently established on a larger scale:
in 1860 in the town of Lucăcești by Elik Leibu;
in 1861 by Alter Schwartz;
in 1872 by H. and S. Bernstein;
In 1880, two refineries were established by D. Grinberg and N. Zilberman.
In 1880, the refinery was established by S. Schwartz in the town of Onești;
In 1887, two refineries were established by Faineru and Blum in the town of Mărgineni;
In 1895, a refinery was established by Leon Leibu in in the town of Adjud;
In 1904, a refinery was established by Y. Hacman in the town of Luncani. The leather industry also developed. The factories were built on the Bistrița River, for sanitary reasons.
In this area was the municipal slaughterhouse. Boaters used to come to the area with rafts to the area of the factories near Leca Street. They used to come with their fishing rods, but they also used to buy the fish at the local fish shop. It was a quiet neighborhood. From time to timethe grunts of animals were heard in the slaughterhouse.
Among the tanneries that were on the Bistrița shore were those of Klein, Abramovici, Froika Grinberg, Alfred Weiss. A herd of cattle that existed in the area between the towns of Adjud and Sascut contributed to the economic development of the city to a considerable extent. This herd of cattle was sustained using the pulp byproducts from the Sascut sugar beet factory.
In the mills established in Bacău, the crops of the eastern region of the province were ground: wheat and corn. The center of the eastern region of the district was in the settlement of Plopana. This area was closely connected to the city. However, mills and tanneries were not unique to the city of Bacău: these industries were in all Moldavian cities. An industry that distinguishes Bacău was the fabric-textile industry. Three fabric and textile factories were in Bacău. The raw material -- the wool -- was not of high quality; only some of it was good quality. The manufacturers found a cheap substitute: used pieces of cloth (rags), either made in Romania, or imported. The fabrics and the product that was produced was a kind of shatnez[1] -- a mixture of wool and threads taken from “rags”. According to the story of a Jew who got rich making canned pheasant: “They had half horse meat, half pheasant meat.”
Another method of getting rich for the fabric-textile manufacturers was by causing fires. Insurance money was paid to the factories because they were insured. Receiving compensation from the insurance company had a positive effect on the construction of new and larger factories, with modern equipment, such as machines for priming the “rags”.
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A third method of enrichment used by the fabric manufacturers was thanks to the protective import taxes. These taxes stopped the import of fabrics from abroad, especially from England. In this way the fabric manufacturers made a fortune since they had no competitors and the goods were bought only from them. The achievement of this arrangement was brought about by the Romanian authorities, thanks to the intervention of the Jewish-German holy alliance of the Buhuși Company and the industrialist Sharg.
An interesting fact: in 1938, a textile manufacturer went to England to check the possibility of purchasing a factory there and returned to Romania disappointed: he discovered that there the profit of the industry was about five percent of the invested capital, while in Romania the profit exceeded thirty percent. The fabric industry was the most profitable in the Romanian economy! The textile industry was the most profitable industry until 1948, when the factories were nationalized.
I do not intend to name and present all the factories and plants that produced many different products, but I cannot ignore the disgrace of ingratitude from the descendants of the slanderers. The Jews established a developed and prosperous industry in the city on the banks of the Bistrița River. Such words were published by a man named Ovidiu Genaru in the local publication “Ateneu” in September 1973:
I am extracting here some data from a book (“The city of Bacău in the past and present” by Gregory Grigorovich 1934), and bringing them before the members of the younger generation …. I will not interpret them, because scoffs break out of my mouth along with tears. But you can't change the past. I am reading a number of inscriptions in the industrial cemetery (so in the Romanian original!) of Bacău: the ribbon production factory of the Drimer brothers; the factory for the production of mattresses and blankets of R. Oringher; the “Glutinium” factory for the production of glue owned by S.A.R.; (=the anonymous Romanian company). The refinery of B. Blum and Sons; the Mărgineni factory that produces fuel for airplanes. (Excellent, but in what quantity?) A rural enterprise: the factory for fabric production of S. Filderman's company;
(This factory produced textiles and coarse fabrics, raw fabrics for sack-clothed coats, underwear (what concern for the Romanian farmer), the “Haomanit” mill with turbines of the S. Feldman company; the furniture manufacturing factory, carpentry and wooden beams factory of Y. Stoleru. There were many craftsmen especially among the Gypsies[2] who walked around the central market with an additional occupation: selling small products that were the fruit of their labor. Another occupation was the sale of small products that they carried from place to place. Among their products, these stood out: mousetraps, scissors, knives, gypsy combs: “Buy combs gentlemen, buy combs!”
More prominent were the merchants who traded on a large scale. These were wholesalers of handicrafts, they made white sackcloth garments, blankets, hoods, dowry boxes, country woolen hats. Their customers were the upper-class members of Bacău. The city achieved great things in the field of commerce and industry within a short period of time.
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Above all was the Chevra Kadisha, whose role was to take care of tombstones in the city cemeteries.
Later on, the poet brings to his words a more serious, passionate, and partisan style:
“Is there a distance of several light years to that unknown planet? Today we see huge, unprecedented industrial development, organized by the Romanian Communist Party, which contributed to the prosperity of the industry in the city of Bacău. It was bourgeois indifference that stopped the enthusiasm and as if tied heavy lead ingots on the wings of dreams. Nowadays, great accomplishments have been achieved.”
A “great thinker” can “wipe off the map”, with one stroke of a pen, the past of a city that reached those achievements thanks to the commercial boom which the Jews greatly helped bring about.
“Yes, it is possible to establish a prosperous industry without the ‘Kikes’ Singer, Perlberger, Calmanovici,” wrote another apologist by the name of Calistrat Sabin, in the aforementioned journal of very low standard. The aforementioned “thinkers” were not content with mocking and belittling the important contribution of the Jews to industry. They continue and alienate themselves from the truth and try to prove that even trade in the city of Bacău begins… “with the state-run trade.” According to them, the Jews owned only small shops where they sold cotton fabrics, nails, and grocery products. In those shops owned by the Jews, the Jews enslaved their customers.
It is difficult to explain and convey to them the fact that, in 1742, Prince Constantin Mavrocordat allowed Jewish merchants from the city of Hutin to settle in Bacău and build their houses on his land. He gave the Jews his patronage and granted them an exemption from taxes. In a document from 1769, many Jewish merchants are mentioned who sold liquor, oil, and other products. In the 1896 census, 550 Jewish merchants were registered in Bacău. Near the days of the Holocaust, there were 643 Jewish merchants in the city. The assets of 621 merchants were expropriated.
Trade brought economic prosperity to Bacău, a prosperity that few cities in Romania had. Many merchants engaged in import and export. The amount of goods in the local market was great.
There is no truth in the words of the defenders of the communist regime!
Translator's footnotes
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