Herscu Meir’s identification paper

This is the identification paper of my father, Herscu Meir, issued in 1933.

My father's name was Herscu Meir, he was born in the village of Bucecea in 1902. He was an ordinary person, he graduated 4 grades of primary school. I think my father didn't serve his military service, on account of his illness - he suffered from epilepsy -, and it wasn't mandatory in those days.

My parents met each other through matchmakers - shadkhan. After he married, my father ran a grocer's shop in Botosani, a small shop. My father was harsher on us, children. Well, he had to be harsher on me when I was a child, if I was getting into mischief. He beat me from time to time, he… If I told him that this or that boy had beaten me, he would say: 'Serves you right. Don't you go play with him anymore!'

During WWII my parents were taken to forced labor. My father was initially taken somewhere around Husi, and then to Macin to a stone quarry. I forget in what year he was concentrated, but it was after wearing the yellow star became mandatory, and he stayed there until 1944, he returned home after the Russians entered Romania.

After the war, father worked as a worker at a mill or two, and then as a tax collector from markets, he distributed the receipts for the tables. [Editor's note: He collected the daily fee for renting a table.] My mother didn't work anywhere. She died in Botosani in 1986. Father died in Botosani as well, in 1988, he is buried here, at the Jewish cemetery.