MDV 267 · Leyzer Finkelshteyn

After the date and his name are confirmed, Finkelshteyn gives his birth date and says he never left Iași. He recalls his childhood and his large family (three sisters and six brothers, whose Jewish names he lists) and his father David, a carpenter born in Pașcani (?) who lived in Iași. His mother was also from Iași. He describes his grandfather Aharon, a stove builder who made tile stoves for wealthy households and ate only kosher food, and Kerler checks the word for the stove with him.

Also includes a terminological exchange on the word for the stove.

Finkelshteyn describes Sabbath preparations and kosher meat in the family: the Jewish butchers, how his mother salted meat, and the foods she cooked for Sabbath, especially stuffed pike. Kerler elicits terms such as the word for a butcher, for the Danube and for a large river or sea, and the Romanian words for these.

Also includes questions about words for a river and the sea.

Finkelshteyn recalls a hard childhood: his father's work was seasonal, and in winter his mother preserved food and rendered fat for the family. He says he was born in 1923 and the family lived through the Depression and rising antisemitism. The children attended four years of Romanian school, and at eleven he began learning his father's trade, working as a carpenter until his pension. His sisters worked as seamstresses and two brothers as sales clerks.

Gives the Romanian school's name and the siblings' occupations.

Finkelshteyn says Yiddish was the only language at home and that his father wrote and read it. He talks about cheder, praying and synagogue attendance, which working Jews could not manage, and mentions the Iași pogrom as something too terrible to tell. He explains how he worked as a carpenter until his pension, mostly in a state factory in Soviet times, and how Jews were expected not to work manual jobs. He describes his apprenticeship with another carpenter and the market in Iași.

Includes the pogrom allusion and the market (hală) in Iași.

Finkelshteyn describes the Iași market and the trades before the war, many of them Jewish: tailors, shoemakers, tinsmiths and builders, including how houses were built. His master was a Jewish carpenter named Moshe. He adds that his own home had no running water, electricity or heating until after the war.

Finkelshteyn recalls the cheder teacher with his whip and the pranks the children played on him. He then describes the talmud torah and says he did not study further because he had to work. He speaks about his mother's hard work for the household of eleven to thirteen people, including an aunt's two children.

Finkelshteyn recalls the June 1941 Iași pogrom: he was taken from his home with his mother and siblings, men and women were separated, and he was put in a sealed train wagon with about 120 people in extreme heat without water. Many died, and at Podu Iloaiei (spelled unclearly) survivors were gathered in a synagogue where local Jews gave them water and food. He says they buried the dead themselves in pits without prayers and stayed until November. They then returned, six of the seven men having survived, and he describes his mother's grief and the court where they lived.

Names the train as a deportation and adds the burial of the dead and the stay until November.

Finkelshteyn says that after the pogrom he was taken for forced labor, from May 1942 to 1944, in a quarry loading stones into train wagons. He returned when the Russians entered Romania. After the war he worked on the railway until he retired at sixty. He stresses that he never lost a workday, did not work on Sabbath and arranged time off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Finkelshteyn speaks about his father's brother in America, who before the war sent money to the family, especially for holidays and for Passover. After the war the uncle sent parcels through the Red Cross and the Joint. He describes arriving home from the camp emaciated and in rags and being infested with lice. He says the Joint now supports the Jewish community and pensioners.

Finkelshteyn describes his time in Podu Iloaiei (spelled unclearly) until November 1941, when the men were put to work in agriculture and he worked with a Christian carpenter who paid him. Through this carpenter he sent money, hens and food to his mother. In May 1942 he was taken to a labor camp. He says Jews no longer believed the war would end.

Adds the Christian carpenter's help and the money sent to his mother.

Finkelshteyn speaks of his postwar work on the railway as the only Jew among a hundred Christians. He explains his religiosity: he would not do anything not kosher, and he is now eighty-three (?). He mentions how in the train wagons people had cried out to God for rain and water.

Finkelshteyn describes his childhood courtyard in Iași with fourteen Jewish families, each with its own room. He recalls the Passover seder at the long table his father made, with childless neighbors joining, and his mother's week of baking for Purim. Gypsy musicians visited on Purim. On Sukkot he built the sukkah for an uncle, and he mentions the Jewish bath and mikveh.

Adds the Passover seder and the bath and mikveh.

Finkelshteyn describes the Jewish bath, the mikveh and Friday bathing, and then synagogues in Iași: the street of the synagogues, with over a hundred prayer houses before the war. He talks about the town rebbe and how people brought disputes to him. Kerler asks whether he was Hasidic, and Finkelshteyn does not distinguish. He also recalls Sabbath evenings with the rebbe and his father's role in resolving disputes.

Adds the number and street of synagogues and the rebbe's role in resolving disputes.

Finkelshteyn says his father read and wrote Yiddish, and received Yiddish periodicals from his brother in America, reading them aloud in the courtyard in summer. He describes his father's advice to the children about conduct, drinking and thinking before acting. He adds that he himself was known in Iași as an honest carpenter whom people trusted with the keys to their houses.

Answering Kerler's questions, Finkelshteyn describes what Jews drank before the war: wine on Friday night and for kiddush, little brandy, and mostly tea. He tells of a Jewish tavern keeper and how he sold his drink.