Tag #121244 - Interview #101947 (Saul Rotariu)

We, the older ones – my brother and I – were fortunate to have one of our mother’s brothers, Sulim, who wasn’t drafted for work, he was rather old. He had worked there in a mobile kitchen for Romanian soldiers. He did chores such as disposing of the slops and the like. And we were able to subsist with whatever he could bring us from there, scraps and leftovers. It goes without saying that hygiene was completely out of the question. There was no water, neither running water, nor a fountain – fountains had been destroyed during the bombing. There was the river Bug, and people brought water from there, a bucket or two, to wash with. It was a long distance away, but they brought water. Well, diseases broke out because of the squalor and starvation: typhus, the like. Those who were older and weaker fell ill. My father’s parents and my mother’s parents fell ill and shortly afterwards – deprived of any medical assistance – they died. Only my mother was left and us, two children. Well, this lasted until 1943.