Struggles during the Shoah
I asked Danny about his family’s experience during the war. Danny heard that the family was as a whole safe in Bucharest, as this is what he heard from his parents, although he said their house was bombed. And later he disclosed a terrible loss.
A point of interest to me is that Danny received the impression of the overall safety of Bucharest during the war from his parents, because it has been reported that Jews in Bucharest lived under extreme circumstances during the Shoah, they were robbed of all property, they experienced violence, shootings, forced labor, there were deportations. (Yad Vashem, 2004; Bernstein, S., 1997).
An eyewitness account was shared with me recently. Gilberta Toma lived in Bucharest from 1941-1944 from ages 6 to 10 years old. Gilberta had to change her name from Taubman to Toma, and was sent to a Christian school where the nuns pretended that she was Christian. In 1941 Gilberta recalls answering her door when her father was deported to a concentration camp in Transnistria. When her father returned a year later, Gilberta wrote, he was so thin she did not recognize him. The family later moved to the countryside where they tried to blend in with the local population but were identified as Jews and had to immediately flee. From there, Gilberta’s father was preparing a hiding place in Bucharest, when fortunately the Armistice arrived (G. Toma, personal communication, October 13, 2021, Claims Conference Form).
During the course of our conversation, Danny explained he didn’t know how it was for the family in Piatra Neamt or Iași, except that generally, he said, it was a dangerous and terrible situation for the Jews in the Northeast—they were shot, deported to Transnistria, as we will hear again from Rachel’s family. More than half of the Jews of Romania were murdered in the Shoah.
As we spoke, Danny paused, and explained more: Danny’s mother, his father and grandmother and uncles first traveled to north of Iasi to Kishniev thinking it was safe during the war. Kishniev at the time was under Russian control and is currently called Chișinău, in Moldova. Danny’s parents were warned that German soldiers were coming and they needed to flee. Danny’s grandmother would not leave her sewing machine behind and was determined to stay in Kishniev. Danny’s mother and father left for Georgia and his father joined the Russian army. The soldiers shot his grandmother and uncles. Danny explained that his parents didn’t know what happened until many years later. In Israel, after the war, they searched for their family members, listening every day to the daily 1:00 pm announcement for names of survivors. Danny’s mother remained devastated her entire life, Danny said.