Marim Haller at work
This is I, Marim Haller, inside the office of the Citizens' Co-operative, in the company of colleagues - all the people in the photograph are Jewish. I had a higher position, I was accountant-in-chief. I am the one on the left seated behind the second desk, I believe Cleruta Glassmann was sitting at the desk in front of me. The 2 young men on the right served as interns under my guidance, one of them was Milu and I forget the other's name. The date on the back of the photograph reads 18th August 1946.
I was born in Harlau in 1915. Officially, my name is Marim, but people call me Maly. I was named after a neighbor whom my mother knew. I believe we lived in Harlau until I was about 10. And afterwards we moved to Botosani, my mother and I. We lived in a rented house on Dragos Voda St., which had 2 rooms and a kitchen, and mother would rent one of the rooms to tenants - she rented one of the rooms, and we lived in the other room - so that we could get by, she rented the room to pupils - that's how life was in those days!
I entered a job when I was 13, and I was already earning money by then. Little as it was, but it helped to support the household. If my mother was unemployed… [I would go to] School during half of the day, [and go to] work during the remaining half. It was like this: if I had classes in the morning, I would go to school in the afternoon. If I had classes in the afternoon, I would go to work in the morning, and again at 4 in the afternoon when I returned from school. And I worked until evening. My employer's name was Solomon Margulies, he had a store where colonial products were sold, retail and wholesale - he also sold products wholesale to others who supplied themselves from him. At first, I was hired as a commercial intern - but I was paid for it. We were required by the school to complete a period of internship. And by completing my internship there, I remained employed afterwards as well, and worked as an accountant.
I remained employed at this store for colonial products for a very long time. I worked at Margulies since 1929 until 1943. And then I obtained a transfer to Societatea Hartia [the Paper Company], where I was in charge of bookkeeping until 1944. From June 1944 until September 1944 I worked for the City Hall of Botosani. Many goods had been confiscated from Jews in 1943-1944, or people left and abandoned their goods, which were taken over by authorities, and they all needed to be assessed and registered, and there was an institution in charge of this - Botosani Urban Goods.
Cooperatives were organized after the war, and I obtained a transfer to the Citizen's Cooperative as head of department. After that I worked at the Alimentara Commercial Organization from 1948 until 1956, then at the Recolta [the Harvest] Regional Industrial Unit for Acquisitions - it was still an industrial unit for cereals, and you got transferred from one place to another because they always kept closing down and received a new name, everything was being reorganized. I also worked at the Ready-made Clothes Factory, and at the Medicinal Plants Industrial Unit from 1960, where I was accountant-in-chief already. I worked there until I retired in 1970. I never missed a day at work.
