Gavril Marcuson with Vony Esckenasy

The one on the left is me, Gavril Marcuson [the initial name, Marcussohn, was shortened to Marcuson in 1968], at the age of 7, with a younger friend, Vony Eschenay (from a Sephardic family). The photo was taken in Bucharest, on 1st October 1920, at the Baraschy photo cabinet. I was born in Bucharest, on 28th October 1913, in the house of my maternal grandfather, an old house on Viilor Dr. Back then, the place was at the outskirts of the city. There were a lot of rooms. Mine had been obtained by dividing a larger room in half by building a wall across. We had a large courtyard and a beautiful garden, with beds of strawberries and flowers, and a metal pavilion which had the year of its erection carved on it: 1886. There I grew up, playing courtyard games with my friends from the blind alley opposite the house. There was also a schoolmate who lived on that blind alley. His father, a French driver, used to beat him up for nothing with the car crank. I still remember, more than 80 years later, how the boy once told me: 'You've got such a great father!' 'Why do you say that?' I asked him. 'Because he never beats you and he buys you boots!' He walked barefoot, and so did other friends of mine. Nowadays, there aren't any barefoot people in Bucharest, but, back then, this was a common sight. Many walked barefoot in summer. We don't have this anymore nowadays, and we owe it to the communist regime. Before the time of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej it was common to see barefoot men and women. Wearing boots in summer was considered luxury. I remember there were people who walked barefoot while carrying their boots in their hands, so that the soles wouldn't wear down. They must have gone to a place where they had to have footwear.