Sura Milstein at the Kindergarten

This is me, Sura Milstein, in the 1920's at the Kindergarten for Children in Dorohoi, a state-run kindergarten - there was no other kind, in fact. The occasion was a sort of a performance, I was dancing and singing.

I was born in 1922 in Bucecea, in the county of Botosani, my birth name was Sura Sulimzohn. We lived in Dorohoi. My mother was a housewife, and my father was a trader. We had a hosier's shop in Dorohoi that my father inherited from his father. The store was located in the house where we lived, in the old downtown area of Dorohoi. The street was called Grigore Ghica, opposite our house there was a cinema which no longer exists. The house was as old houses are, the rooms were placed like in a train carriage, without separate entrances, and it was very dark inside - we had the lamps burning during the day as well. We had two rooms and there was a small kitchen in the courtyard with a tiny adjoining room that we built. The store was in a larger room in front of the house - it was the only room that was spacious and well lit.

I went to school in Dorohoi. I started attending primary school when I was 6 - in 1928. There was also a Jewish school - but no high school -, yet my parents enlisted me at a state school. I studied for 4 years there, then I completed 8 years of high school in Dorohoi, at the State High School 'Queen Mary.' I graduated high school in 1940.