Tag #116617 - Interview #87373 (Berta Finkel)

Afterwards, my parents’ condition depreciated, they were broke, and we had to move to a village, to Hlipiceni. [Hlipiceni is located 57 km south-east of Botosani, and 22 km south-east of Sulita, respectively.] And we had our share of misfortunes… many of them, so to speak. We had a sort of a grocer’s shop, a small shop where we sold a bit of everything. Just like in the countryside: you sold this, you sold that. And my father was a butcher, he slaughtered cattle there, in Hlipiceni. He had a partnership with one of his older brothers’ brother-in-law, David Grimberg, who lived there, in Hlipiceni. The name of that in-law was Srul Rotstein, and he too had a grocer’s shop, he too sold this and that in addition to being my father’s partner at the butcher’s shop. He bought the cattle, and my father slaughtered them. There was an army stationed at Halta Rauseni, and it consisted of vagrants – that’s how they called those soldiers. [Rauseni is located 5 km south-east of Hlipiceni, and 63 km south-east of Botosani, respectively.] And someone came every week, someone with a higher rank, who was captain or colonel, I’m not sure, and he bought meat for those vagrants.