Tag #125119 - Interview #89859 (Estera Sava)

And she left for Padua, Italy in January, three months later than she was supposed to. Because there were many students there, and there were also five or six Jews from Bacau who worked there. A former high school classmate of hers was going too, so my sister said: ‘See, Anne Sarf is leaving, so I’ll go to Italy with her.’ My father said: ‘Now, why would you go to Italy? It costs a lot of money, how are we supposed to manage?’ The persecutions [because of the numerus clausus] [2] had already begun and the situation of the Jews was deteriorating. But my sister said: ‘I’m leaving, no matter what; I’m going over there, I’ll do anything, I’ll scrub the floors in restaurants or I’ll wash dishes if I have to. But I need to go to the Medical School!’ And she left on 1st January 1938. She couldn’t leave earlier because she had to get the necessary papers and all; and my father needed some time to raise the money, to find someone here whom he could pay and whose relatives in Italy would give my sister the same amount there, because money could not be transferred directly. And so she went to college. Six months later, in June, when the 1st year was over, the exams came. She got the highest grades! The chairman of the examination committee congratulated her and asked her: ‘Where are you from, Miss?’ – ‘Romania.’ – ‘How many languages do you speak?’ – ‘Romanian, French’ – she mastered French and she knew a little German – ‘and now’, she said, ‘I also speak Italian.’ – ‘And, may I say, your mastery of the Italian is better than a native Italian’s, since you were able to express yourself the way you did in class and at the exam! For you, studying in Padua is a piece of cake.’ She had figured that out herself. After all, there she was, only six months after her arrival, and she had got the highest grades and all her student-fellows wanted to touch her and carried her on their shoulders to bring them luck – you know how it is in college!

That summer, she came home and told our father: ‘Father, I’m not going back to Italy. The classes there aren’t bright at all. It’s not what I had imagined I’d study. I’m going to France!