Andris Weiss

This is Andris Weiss as a medical student, just before he left Romania.We went to the Medical Faculty together for a year in Marosvasarhely. The photo was taken in 1947 and he left for America the same year. He is holding a skull. He is standing on the balcony of his student flat in Marosvasarhely. He wrote the following on the back of the picture: 'Ocsi - this is me, I was called Ocsi [Laddie] in my childhood - the friendship between us will never fade, I will never forget you - that is, our circle of friends -, our many nice memories will remain in my soul for ever and ever. With lots of love from Andris. 25th September 1947.' This was the goodbye photo, when he was about to go to America with his father. His father was a doctor and the owner of woods, he had woods in Northern Transylvania. They moved to Kolozsvar in 1940, so Andris was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 together with his father and mother. His brother Pista was some four years older than him; he died under tragic circumstances in Pest in 1944. Andris was taken to Buchenwald from Auschwitz; he came home and finished two years at the Medical Faculty in Marosvasarhely, but he graduated from university in Switzerland and then went to America. He was a doctor, a psychiatrist at the health department of the UN and afterwards he worked in Washington, in America, as a private doctor, a psychiatrist for years until recently. He has a daughter and a son.