Celebrating Claudia Leibovici’s birthday

This photograph was taken at our house on my daughter's birthday, Claudia Leibovici, we were celebrating her 5th anniversary. I, Ietti Leibovici, am the one on the left, my father-in-law, Moritz Leibovici, is the one to the right of my daughter, and you can also see a friend.

I had a daughter, Claudia, who was born in 1968, and died in a car accident together with my husband, Josef Leibovici, in 1978.

I observe tradition as much as I can. After getting married, I had separate dishes for meat and milk, for my father-in-law lived with us. And he had dishes from his household, and I kept [kosher] willy-nilly. But I also respected my father-in-law, I did this gladly, it wasn't a problem. It is harder and harder to observe tradition, we keep eliminating some thing or other from all that we once observed. Formerly, the meat was kosher. Nowadays this tradition of kosher meat is lost, for they don't bring kosher meat to Botosani anymore. I always see to it that the house is cleaned and the food prepared before the holidays, so that I don't have to work on holidays; I make sure to have cooked and baked and done everything there is to do in advance. I don't work on Saturday, I can do that during the rest of the week. I don't light candles on Friday evening, nor on Chanukkah. When I had a family [a husband and a daughter], I used to observe all the customs, I used to light candles as well - both on Chanukkah and on Friday evening. Now I have given up on this.