Busia Makalets

This is me, Busia Makalets. This photo was taken in Bolgrad in 1939.

After finishing school I went to Chernovtsy and entered this teachers’ training workshop. I rented a room from a Jewish family: a widow and her two sons. I made friends with Kubi, the younger one. Kubi’s family was not religious. They were leading a more secular way of life than our family. Anyway, I felt quite comfortable staying with them. Kubi helped me to study German and I started reading in German. I don’t remember any anti-Semitism in Chernovtsy at that time, but it also needs to be mentioned that I was fond of Zionist ideas and socialized with Jews for the most part. I even knew a few underground Communists who had been in Doftan, the main political jail in Bucharest. There was one Gypsy in our organization. I knew about the following Romanian Fascist organizations: Iron Guard, Cuzists. When I was in Chernovtsy, the Iron Guard in Bucharest was defeated, and there were rumors about dead Iron Guard members in the streets of Kishinev. My favorite subject in the workshop was music taught by a professor, a former teacher of Josef Schmidt, a famous singer in Romania. When the professor was introducing his students to an official inspecting the workshop, he said about me: ‘As for this girl, she will earn her living with her voice.’  I remember rowing with my brothers and my close friends Sara and Nesia and I was singing on this night with full moon and there was a caravan of boats following us - people were listening to me singing.

In 1940 the Soviets ‘liberated’ Moldova. However, they truly freed us from the Fascists. Private stores in Bolgrad were closed and wealthier people were exiled. They closed the Tarbut and my father lost his job. However, he knew Russian and they sent him to teach Russian in a village. Submitting my certificate from the workshop I entered the Kishinev teachers’ training college to study by correspondence. When the war began in 1941, we already knew how Germans treated Jews. We listened to the radio, and besides, I remembered Hitler's speeches at the time, when Bessarabia belonged to Romania. I evacuated like most young people did.