Tag #133907 - Interview #78150 (Magda Fazekas)

After the war it was very hard at the beginning here, in Marosvasarhely, because we didn't have a proper apartment. A cousin of mine, Hedike, who had come back before us, and had an apartment on Lajos Kossuth Street, accepted us in her place. Then we managed to obtain a room and a shared kitchen in the apartment of my brother, Joska. In the meantime Jeno came home as well. He escaped from work service and was hiding, he didn't go through all those terrible things we did. He tried to find an apartment, because the house where we lived wasn't ours, so that's how we got to Martuska [Marta] Lederer with Dorika and Jeno - that was the name of the owner of the house, later she became my brother's wife.

My uncle from Brasso, the husband of Aunt Lina was a manufacturer, they were very well-off. He owned an iron paste and shoe cream factory, they produced iron paste, shoe cream and parquet cream. Uncle Jeno gave my brother Jeno a certain amount for him to open a shop, for he had learned trading, he had studied that in Brasso. And he opened a shop on Albina Square together with Dorika. This large shop was near the center, the house was owned by a Jew. The owner was Aunt Naftali, and she let out the premises to Jeno and Dorika.

Back then it was very hard to purchase goods, but Jeno acquired everything, from everywhere he could. He traveled to Braila, Galati, and purchased colonial goods: pepper, tea, coffee, lemon. These were all goods that one couldn't find in the whole town after the war. Many things were out of stock. There was stationery too, the iron paste, shoe cream, these were sent by my uncle; Jeno didn't have to pay for these. The shop was very prosperous. The two of them worked, sometimes I helped a little too, but I rather did the housekeeping, I was cooking, I bought everything at the market. This was my task, while they worked in the shop. After a couple of years the shop was thriving.