Dora Nisman

This is me as student in the trade school. The photo was taken in Kishinev in 1927. I am wearing a dress with a collar that I embroidered. I sent this photo to my parents for them to see how much I had grown. I was born in Rezina, a town on the right bank of the Dnestr, in 1912. I enjoyed going to school. I learned to write in Romanian and read, speak and write in Yiddish. The school enabled me to get the basics of education and of my future profession. I spent my childhood in Rezina and have very pleasant memories about this town. My father noticed that I was very good at sewing and told me to go to high school in Kishinev. In 1925 I went to study at trade school in Kishinev. I was 13. Our Ukrainian neighbor gave me a bag full of nuts, apples, grapes and a few lei before my departure. It was a school for Jewish girls from poor families. We also studied Romanian in this school. We had a very nice Jewish teacher, Sima Abramovna, a teacher of history, and Kavarskiy, an artist who taught us to draw: I remember plaster figures that we painted on the wall. We were taught to sew, cut fabrics and put clothes together to fit a figure. We also made designs. This school was like a college. All our teachers were Jewish, except for our Romanian teacher and the teachers of geography and chemistry. The teaching was in Romanian. I studied there for two years and received a work certificate upon finishing this school. I rented a room with three other girls that had come from smaller towns. Our landlords were Jews and were also poor. They were selling water with gas and syrup to make a living. They didn't observe any Jewish traditions and didn't celebrate any holidays. I never heard our landlord say that he was going to the synagogue. They worked on Saturdays. We didn't learn about traditions at school. I didn't have an opportunity to lead my life in the way I had at home, but when I came home on vacations we all did what my father told us to do.