Beti Leibovici

This is Beti Leibovici, one of my wife's sisters. The photograph was taken on the occasion of the festivity at the end of the school year, I believe it was in 1936 when she was awarded a prize. Beti was in the 5th or 6th grade and is wearing a guard uniform. The guards were a youth organization [Strajeria (Watchmen Guard)] created by king Carol II, an equivalent of the pioneer organization later on. Beti attended the Alexandru Lambrior school, a Romanian school. It was a school for girls.

My wife's family situation wasn't very different [from ours]. They were 5 children, 3 girls and 2 boys. The girls went to school during roughly the same period. Her mother wanted all her girls to be elegant and she woke up at the crack of dawn to iron their school uniforms. The uniforms were washed and the collars were starched, and in order for them not to wear their great coats over the collars, they went to school with the collar placed in a book and they attached it once they arrived at school. The girls wore their hair long, and their mother had to braid it into plaits and iron their bows.

My wife had 4 other siblings: 2 sisters and 2 brothers. Her eldest sister's name was Sifra Faierstein and she was born in 1921. She attended the Commercial High School, then she went to the Faculty of Law. She worked in Bucharest in the field of journalism. Her brother, Puiu Faierstein, was born in 1923; he worked as a clerk in a store, then as a driver until his retirement. Beti Faierstein was born in 1926, she graduated the Alexandru Lambrior high school and a few years at the university, after which she worked as a draughtsman for CFR until her retirement. Eli Faierstein was my wife's youngest brother. He was born in 1928. Their father died when Eli was 12, he had various jobs here in Romania, then he left to Israel at 16.