Hary and Carol Margulies

These are my younger brother, Hary Margulies, and I. He looks like a little girl in this picture. Everyone thought he was a girl. The picture was taken in 1926 or 1927.

As a child, before I went to school, I spent most of my time in my uncle Sandman’s house. They didn't have children and enjoyed having me around. Uncle Sandman would take us for a ride in his car and sometimes to the restaurant. There were many Jewish restaurants in Czernowitz to choose from. In the evening, we would go with our aunt to eat; they were kosher. Friedman's was particularly famous. They even had music. They didn't serve meat, only vegetables and milk. They had red beet soup. They don't eat red beet here. We used to, and I taught my wife how to cook it. There was another restaurant called La dracu. It was really far away, but people still went there. They had various bands playing and you could hear their music from a distance. For a few lei, a carriage would take you there. In the evening, you could go to the cinema or theater. At midnight or 1am, you could still buy hot sausages from people who sold them in the street. They kept them in special carts.

I started to go to school in Czernowitz. It was an ordinary, public school, with classes taught in Romanian. On the street where Grandmother Engler lived, 'the Jewish street,' there was a school where classes were taught in Hebrew. Most of the pupils were from Bessarabia who already wanted to leave for Palestine and join the aliyah. My father paid a girl from that school to come to our place and give me lessons. She sometimes ate at our place; it was as if she was part of the family. I didn't go to cheder or anything of the sort. There were many Jewish pupils at the 'Mihai Eminescu' School, where I studied. I didn't have any problems and had many Christian friends. We got along extremely well; it was as if we were brothers. They used to come to the synagogue on Yom Kippur. They fasted like we did and stayed there like us. There were two separate benches for them in the synagogue. They spent the entire day there.