Sura Milstein

This is me [Sura Milstein] in my apartment in Botosani, in August 2006.

My life changed after the Revolution in that I have aged and become ever more helpless. There's no way around it. For me, what does it matter how people live abroad? At first, poor me, I nurtured illusions that I would retire and go to every movie and theatre play, that I would go everywhere. We have a theatre here, in Botosani, and a Philharmonic. But you end up not going anywhere, you are ever more helpless. Life gets increasingly lonely, withdrawn… There was a time when my friend from high school used to visit me, but now she too is ill. She is somewhat older, around 3 years older than me. We weren't classmates, but be that as it may, we knew each other from high school. And, even though I live across the street from the block of flats where she lives, I can no longer walk up to the 4th floor.

As a Transnistria deportee, I receive that German pension which came more and more irregularly lately. I kept receiving an address requesting me to certify I was still alive. And I received the money, but perhaps its delivery was delayed. In any case… I receive nothing from the Romanian authorities. The Community helps me, because I donated the apartment [I live in] and everything inside it to the Community. Time was when there was a canteen - the Community Canteen -, and it was actually easier. There was a man who brought me food from the canteen. But now, for the past 5 years or so, there has been no canteen anymore. Poverty and few people. There are two ladies at the Community, and one of them comes to see me twice a week and it is she who cooks for me. I'm no longer able to do anything… If it weren't for her, I'd be six feet under for a long time now. I am very weak.