Arnold Leinweber with Iancu and Isac Gherman

The photo was taken in Bucuresti, on Faurari Alley, at the place of my mother's sister, Lisa Gherman (nee Froim), in 1939. The alley no longer exists. The one in the lower row is my cousin, Iancu Gherman. In the upper row, from left to right: me, Arnold Leinweber, a friend of my cousins', Avram, and the brother of Iancu Gherman, my cousin, Isac Gherman. This are my cousins with whom I grew up. They both died on Russian soil. I was born on 12th August 1920. At home, I used to help my parents make paintbrushes, which I took to the peddlers. I went to work, and, on my way back, took the orders from the peddlers. I made the paintbrushes at night. From 15th March 1933, when I was twelve years and a half, I spent 3 months preparing to become a zincographer. I spent six years and a half at 'Adevarul' [Truth] and 'Dimineata' [Morning] [1933-1939]. My biological father, Carol Marcus, died in April 1921, when I was 8 months old. My mother remarried, I was adopted by her new husband.and I didn't have any relationships with my father's family for a long time. Here's how I got to know the family of my biological father. In the first day of school I went to the Malbim School [Ed. note: This school founded in 1898, next to the Malbim Synagogue, was named Talmud Torah Malbim and consisted of four elementary grades. It was located in the Dudesti quarter, a poor area inhabited predominantly by Jews.], where our social assistance center is based today. Headmaster Koritzer came outside and told the first-graders to line up holding hands two by two and to enter the classroom. I held the hand of a fair-haired boy with glasses and his mother said: 'Adolf, have you any idea who you're walking next to? Your cousin!' I turned to her and said: 'This is not my cousin. I only have two cousins, from Aunt Lisa [Lisa Gherman, sister of Mr. Leinweber's mother]. 'He is your cousin', she insisted. 'Your father and his father were brothers! Your father shot himself!' Well now, remember your own first day of school and the excitement of that moment. Can you imagine how it's like for a seven-year-old to learn such things on his first day of school?! This happened in 1927. And I bore inside me this psychological burden throughout my entire childhood and adolescence.