Moricz Fulop with relatives

This picture was taken at the consecration of the tombstone of my uncle, Abraham Goldstein, in Huedin. Jews don't erect a tombstone at the burial, but only after a year passes. The one standing next to the tombstone, to the left, is my father, Moricz Fulop. He drew and carved the Hebrew letters on the stone.

My father was a tradesman, he worked for David Sebestyen, Grandfather Mandel's brother; they traveled throughout the country, but finally settled in Aghiresu. This was a small industrial center: it had two plaster factories, a chalk factory, chalk was made of plaster, a power station that even supplied the city of Cluj, and coal mines. It is a large commune - they are now planning to turn it into a town - and the peasants are cultivated and civilized; they are not illiterate.

My father was the kind of man who took up butchery at almost the age of 50. Him, an intellectual! Jews only eat the front part of an animal. The rear part is forbidden from consumption. Why is that? My father once explained to me that there are veins and arteries with blood and the Jews have to remove them, as they are not permitted to eat blood. They can't be removed from the rear, where there are more of them than in front. In order for the meat to be kosher, clean, ritually pure, these veins and arteries must be removed without damaging the meat. It requires a certain technique, and it is actually an occupation. Imagine that my father was able to learn it. He had two Hungarian associates who sold the meat from the rear part. And this is how we had a butcher's shop.

Then we had a stone quarry in Nadasu, where my mother was born. All that was left from the estate was this quarry; its stone was good in constructions and for tombstones. We had a company, as they're called today, with one employee who had been an apprentice and had learned to make tombstones. He worked for Jews, for Romanians, for Hungarians. He was very industrious, his name was Sos, and he was a Hungarian from Huedin. The Hungarians there were called Tartars - they were said to be the successors of the Tartars who had invaded our country, which might have explained why most of them were so rough. My father would carve the Hebrew inscriptions without wearing any glasses. We weren't rich, but my father earned money and did everything he could so that we wouldn't go short of anything.