Eugen Grunfeld

Grunfeld gives his official surname and his Yiddish name and patronymic while Lemster checks the spelling and the pronunciation of each.

Grunfeld says he was born in Zău and attended school in Cluj and Bucharest before the war, and that after the war he settled in Cluj for good. Answering Lemster, he names his father, born in Ileanda (?), a merchant who later lived in Petah Tikva in Israel, and his mother Gitl, a housewife. He names his grandparents — a paternal grandfather who was a tailor, a paternal grandmother Gitl and a maternal grandfather named Rosenberg — and explains why the name Gitl occurs on both sides. A cousin in London is mentioned in connection with a family document, and Lemster and the others discuss the Yiddish term for such a relative.

adds the grandparents, their occupations and names, and the cousin in London

Grunfeld describes his pious grandparents, the family Passover seder led by his grandfather, and how he learned much from his maternal grandfather. He then answers Lemster's questions about his schooling: three or four years in cheder in Zău, one year in the Talmud Torah in Cluj, and Romanian-language gymnasium in Bucharest. He names the melamed in Zău.

adds the melamed's name and the grandfather's role in teaching him

Asked about his childhood games, Grunfeld recalls being upset on Sabbath afternoons when the other children played while his grandfather made him recite from the Pentateuch. He then explains the difference between cheder in Zău and the Talmud Torah in Cluj, where he began Gemara at nine or ten and studied only a little.

Grunfeld recalls the Passover seder at home, led by his grandfather, with the four questions asked by the child and his younger sister stealing the afikoman. He answers Lemster's questions about special Passover dishes and utensils, stuffed goose and potato foods, and recites parts of Khad Gadyo. He describes the cup for Elijah and the opened door, and mentions playing with nuts at Sukkot with Jewish and non-Jewish children.

Grunfeld says that in Zău non-Jews did not speak Yiddish but that in Maramureș they did, and recalls a Romanian policeman in Tighina who spoke excellent Yiddish. He describes how Romanian peasant women sat outside the Jewish shops on Friday night waiting to count three stars so that the shops could open, and Lemster asks about the term for the peasants. He also mentions the Sabbath goy who lit the fire.

adds the terminology discussion about the Romanian peasants

Grunfeld says about twenty Jewish families lived in Zău, with a synagogue, cheder and mikveh, and he lived there until about the age of ten. He recalls Purim customs: sending gifts between families and going masked as a Romanian peasant child, with short Purim plays and visits to the Romanian teacher. Lemster asks for a Purim song, but Grunfeld says he cannot sing and recalls only a few words.

adds the Purim plays and Lemster's request for a song

Grunfeld describes playing dreydl at Hanukkah and recites a children's parody of the letters on the dreydl. Lemster asks about holiday foods, such as baked goods and potato latkes, and Grunfeld gives local terms and explains that Transylvania is called Zimbergn (Siebenbürgen). He begins to speak about Shavuot.

Grunfeld recalls learning a Shavuot poem as a child, then describes Tisha B'Av customs, when worshippers sat on the floor without shoes in the synagogue. He answers a question about a children's custom with a Romanian word. Asked what else he remembers, he says childhood years are the best and speaks of his failing eyesight and difficulty reading prayers.

Grunfeld names his siblings: three brothers and three sisters in all, with birth years given for some, and one who died at thirteen after his bar mitzvah. One sister has died and one brother lives in Israel (?).

Grunfeld says he is now a pensioner and describes his postwar career as a technician in cellulose and paper, trained at a technical school. He was head of a section with a large workforce under Ceaușescu and worked at the factory for thirty-five years.

Grunfeld answers Lemster's questions about the terms "a good Jew" and the Baal Shem Tov. He says he grew up in a religious home and talks about what he heard of the Ștefănești and Vizhnitz rebbes, as well as Satmar. His mother's brother studied at the Satmar yeshiva as a follower of Rabbi Yoilish, and he says he himself is a Cluj Hasid. He briefly discusses Ashkenazi and Sephardi prayer customs.

adds the Baal Shem Tov question and the uncle at the Satmar yeshiva

Grunfeld describes Sabbath eve in his grandparents' home, with a grandfather reminding his wife to light the candles, the fish from the local river, gefilte fish, soup and meat with noodles. He recalls the family singing Sabbath songs at the table and kugel on Sabbath day, and says Yiddish was spoken there although he did not study it in school. He also speaks of Yiddish speakers he met in Israel (?).

Grunfeld names the occupations of the Jews in Zău: timber merchants, a butcher shop, a tailor and a shoemaker, and none in hard manual labor. Lemster asks the term for peasants, and the term for mother tongue. He says Yiddish was his mother tongue until the age of ten and he also knows Romanian and Hungarian, but now speaks only those at home.

adds the questions on terms for peasants and mother tongue

Grunfeld says he married in 1949 and speaks Romanian with his wife. Answering Lemster, he says there was one synagogue in Zău but many in Cluj, including small prayer houses in each quarter, artisans' synagogues and a workers' synagogue, and he explains the word quarter (kvartir). He says about eighteen thousand Jews lived in Cluj before the war and about two thousand afterwards, and now about two hundred.

adds his marriage and the synagogue structure of Cluj

Grunfeld says he spent the war doing forced labor in Tighina fortress and other places in Romania. He mentions that Cluj Jews were sent elsewhere, some to Transnistria, and that his mother lived in Turda near the Hungarian border during the war, then Hungarian-ruled.

adds Cluj Jews sent elsewhere and the mother in Turda

Grunfeld explains that the Romanian–Hungarian border of wartime Transylvania lay a few kilometres from where he lived, and that Jews on the Hungarian side were deported to Auschwitz in 1944 (?), while those on the Romanian side stayed. His parents were on the Romanian side, in Turda. Of his aunts on both sides only one, his father's sister Hana, returned from Auschwitz, with a camp number on her arm. Lemster asks why they went to a village, and Grunfeld explains that Jews were expelled from villages and pushed into the town.

Explains the border and why the family on the Romanian side escaped deportation.

Grunfeld describes a traditional Jewish wedding, with his sister's in mind: a chuppah in the synagogue courtyard, a mitzvah dance, and Hasidic customs he saw. He mentions a Neolog (reformist) synagogue that observant Jews did not attend. Asked about wedding songs, he names the Hebrew ceremonial song and says Yiddish songs were also sung.

Includes the Neolog (reform) synagogue and wedding songs.

Grunfeld speaks about Jewish observance in Cluj and Hasidim he saw in Cluj, Dej (?) and Oradea, and about distinctions Transylvanian Jews drew between themselves and Jews from Maramureș, Moldavia and Bessarabia. He says Maramureș Jews were more religious. Asked about Lithuanian Jews and which Yiddish is correct, he says everyone considers their own Yiddish the right one, and he recalls adapting to Bessarabian speech. The passage ends with jokes and Chełm stories.

Adds regional distinctions among Jews and attitudes to dialect.

Grunfeld talks about learning to read Yiddish at home as a child, including the Pentateuch, and about Jewish cultural circles and conferences. Writers named include Isaac Bashevis Singer and Itzik Feffer (?), along with Romanian and European authors. He says there was no Jewish library but families kept religious books, and that Jewish schooling was in Romanian. A discussion of the golem, dybbuk and the word 'golem' follows.

Adds the school language and Jewish gymnasium, and the discussion of golem and dybbuk.

Grunfeld says his mother is buried in Cluj and his grandmother in Turda; he visits the grave, says a short Hebrew prayer from a special prayer book and some Psalms, and his sister asks her mother in Yiddish to intercede for them. Lemster then asks about folk customs: the evil eye (ayin hara), pouring coals into water, and a childhood remedy. Grunfeld says Yiddish is hardly spoken in Cluj today, even at the Jewish community, and recalls visiting his sister in Haifa, then Lemster asks for sayings and anecdotes.

Adds the evil eye and the remedy of pouring coals in water.

Grunfeld answers Lemster's dialectological questionnaire, often explaining the Transylvanian variants in comparison with Moldavian and Bessarabian forms. Items include greetings, thanks and the word for Sabbath, animals, household and body words, colours, comparatives, verbs and sentences, the words for 'erlekh' and 'frum', 'tselem', 'goy' and 'davenen', terms such as house, room, attic, ladder, bridge, enemy and 'need' (darf, broykh). Romanian is used for many explanations, and the transcript is garbled throughout.

Grunfeld says he has one daughter, who lives in Cluj. His father and sister emigrated to Israel in 1950; he was on the list too but was not allowed to leave because he was a specialist. Lemster asks why so many Romanian Jews emigrated, and Grunfeld cites economic and social change, the socialization of trades and professions, and the loss of a future, since Jewish life as it had been before the war was ended.

Adds Grunfeld's account of why Jews left Romania.

Grunfeld says relations between Jews and Romanians were normal, though there was always some antisemitism and there were strict laws against Jews; the situation before and after the war was almost the same. He answers Lemster's question about Hasidism, saying he saw Hasidim in Cluj and had a friend from Maramureș, and says he is considered religious in Cluj and attends synagogue.

Adds Hasidism and the interviewee's own present synagogue attendance.