Juci Scheiner and classmates

This is a class portrait from the fourth grade of elementary school. It was taken in Marosvasarhely in 1920, in the schoolyard. I?m third from left in the second row. Fifth from left in the first row is the aunt of Misi Spielman. [Mihaly Spielman is the chief librarian of the Teleki Teka - the Teleki Library -in Marosvasarhely.] Beside her is Lilike Hirsch, another Jewish girl. There are some more Jewish girls in the back row.

I only attended the Jewish school in the 1st and 2nd grade of elementary school. Only Jewish children attended it, and we learned Hebrew and had religion classes there. In the third and 4th grade I attended the Protestant school. I don't remember why I didn't continue my studies in the Jewish school. The Protestant school was in the long building on Szentgyorgy Street where not long ago the Maros group had its headquarters. The teacher was called Laszlo Kovacs, and he was a good, kind man, and we loved him very much. I loved that school very much. Before they went to the Protestant church they probably asked us whether we wanted to go or not, but all of us went there anyway. For religious lessons we went over to the Jewish school.

Then I was entered in the Unirea grammar school for girls, a Romanian school. I attended it for four years. This school was an exceptional one; it had an excellent principal who did an outstanding job. We had an acquaintance who attended the French Institute, called L'arché, and my parents insisted on enrolling me there. Initially I cried a lot because I didn't want to go there, since my girlfriends were studying at Unirea school, but eventually I came to love the institute as well. We had a teacher called Mademoiselle Breton. I don't recall the other teacher's name. We learned everything in French, except for the German language. I think there were three Romanian students, children of merchants, the others were mostly Hungarian and Jewish. Towards the end of the 2nd year, the French consul from Bucharest paid us a visit and awarded two medals, one to me.