Clara Filderman

Clara Filderman

This is my sister, Clara Filderman, at the age of 10, in the Petresti Grove, on 22nd May 1932. On the back, someone wrote 'Milk day', but I can't remember anything about it whatsoever. The one who took the picture was probably my father. He also sold photo cameras with a tripod at the store; he had turned the little room next door into a small lab where he developed the films. My sister, Clara, received an Acqua camera as a gift. It was very easy to use. She wore braids and was pretty. When she was eleven, they realized she had diabetes. After the disease was diagnosed, they took her to the clinic, but an assistant told them to take her to Vienna. In those times, at the beginning of the 1930s, getting a passport wasn't a problem; generally speaking, money wasn't a problem either. They went to a sanatorium there and the doctors managed, through diet, to bring her to the minimum risk level. They also gave her a book on how she had to be nursed - she had to use scales to portion her food. There was a time when she had to weigh her cherries and, to get another portion, she also added the weight of the pits. My mother cooked specially for her. Clara had to measure her glycosuria twice a day using a solution, she dosed the insulin on her own and injected it in her leg by herself - she did that from the age of eleven to 22. In the summer of 1939, my mother took my sister to Paris for treatment. They left on 13th July, although my sister wanted to catch the parade [the parade on 14th July, France's national holiday]. While in Paris, my sister bought me a hardback fairy-tale book gilded at the edges, with thin pages and nice pictures, and a picture of Santa Clause and other characters. During World War II, Clara began to break the rules of the diet and had to increase the dose on insulin. Insulin was hard to get - it came from Germany. When she was with friends, she had to eat; she couldn't say she had diabetes. This was a shameful thing back then and brought about complications - girls couldn't find a husband anymore. Clara tutored in literature and studied English.
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