The last year or so seemed filled with eating at restaurants with my favourite food and desserts and seeing things disappear from my home;
Much later I learned about something called anti-Semitism ...
I am Jewish. I did not know that until I came to Canada
Actually I knew nothing about religion until I came to Canada
Full disclosure - I slept with a book about Lenin under my pillow!
Romania was filled with anti-Semitism, not unlike many other countries in the region.
My father and mother spent the last year of my life in Romania doing everything they could to leave Romania, This included "donating" pieces of furniture to any official that could help us - this included a piano on which I had just started to learn (the only thing I remember was my teacher telling me I should form my hand as if I was holding an orange). As for the money (we couldn't leave with any Romanian money), it was used either for other "donations" or for us going out to restaurants - my first taste of luxury!
I never knew all of the hardships my father and mother went through just to leave Romania. All I remember was saying goodbye to my teacher (she had tears in her eyes) and we were on a train that headed to Austria.
I believe that this was aimed mainly at Jews (others had an easier time exchanging for other currency, maximum of course ...) and if the Jews weren't able to get support ... well that was just too bad ...
Interesting family history! I wonder how people who didn’t have family outside Romania to help support them could afford to wait for paperwork if they weren’t allowed to take out Romanian money?
Wow 🤩. I’ve known you for 50 years and never knew this about your background! So you were about 8 years old when you left Romania in 1961. Do you recall how you felt at the time? Was it a great adventure? Or upsetting?
This memoir is really forcing me to remember. I recall feeling that something very big and very different was about to happen. I recall feeling that a big change was about to happen, a sense of sadness that I was losing my friend and my school. I spent a night at my great aunt’s house, little knowing I was never going to see her again. One day, for some reason, I decided to go to my aunt and uncle’s place ... all on my own ... without telling anyone ... sending my parents on a frantic search. I actually knew very little about what was happening. It was very much a day-by-day thing. In fact even my parents weren’t certain. Our original destination was Israel. I believe that this made it easier to emigrate as there was some pressure on allowing Jews to go to Israel. But our real destination always was Canada. And making the changes once we were out of Romania took a long time - 2 weeks in Vienna and 3 months in Paris. I remember feeling some excitement but there was mostly a lot of boredom waiting for the paperwork. As I later learned, we had support from family in Canada, but my admiration and respect for my parents grows by leaps and bounds whenever I think about what they accomplished given what they had to go through.