Tag #125583 - Interview #77980 (Sami Fiul)

There wasn't a single house in that street that wasn't owned or rented by Jews, but not just well-off Jews: there were porters, ironsmiths, house painters, small traders, carters. But Jews lived scattered around the city as well: there was the commercial street, called Strada Mare [Main Street], where Jews owned most of the shops.

Most of the Jews were traders, but only some of them were worthy of the title, that is had larger shops in Strada Mare; but there were many who were just petty traders or door-to-door salesmen. Jews were very good with horses, therefore many were carters, there were also porters at cereal shops, a backbreaking job, there were Jewish servants. The textile, tanner and furrier industry in town was more or less sustained by Jews, be it that they owned textile factories, or that they were just small laborers, like my uncle Bern and all his sons. They worked in a kerchief -'casanga' in Moldavian talk- factory. Then many Jews were pretzel sellers, or bakers, and, from all I have seen, they were very good handicraftsmen. All the town's industry was based on textile factories, tanner and furrier factories; the factory owned by Filderman, another Jew, was renown in all the country.