Maria Koblik-Zeltser with her friends Feigele and Leigele

This is me, on the left, with my friends Feigele and Leigele in the yard of our house in Rezina. The picture was taken in 1934 on the day of the graduation from the elementary school.

I was born on 9th December 1926. In accordance with the tradition in my mother's family I was named Menihe after my maternal grandmother. Though, later on when I was getting the documents I changed my name to the Russian Maria, as it was more euphonic.

I had a wonderful childhood. When I turned seven, I started going to the Jewish school Tarbut. It was a secular school, where along with common subjects, Hebrew, Jewish history and religion were taught. We studied Jewish literature, read and recited large excerpts from literary works. I had quite a good command of Hebrew at that time, but now I don’t remember anything unfortunately. After finishing elementary school I went to the Romanian State Lyceum. It was a co-ed, where boys and girls studied. It wasn’t hard for me to pass the entrance exams and I was accepted without any bias. There were a lot of Jews in our class as the town was predominantly Jewish, and there was no Jewish lyceum.