Filderman family and friends

This photo was taken in 1931, in Focsani, in the courtyard of our house on 82 Cotesti Street. From right to left: Clara Filderman - my sister, Fanny Filderman, nee Finkelstein - my mother, I, Lazar Filderman - my father, Elca Luntz - a teacher's daughter, and Leon Proschinger - my father's German associate in a business with luxury items. Our store, near Moldovei Square, perpendicular on Main Street, a ten minutes' walk from home, wasn't a large store. My father sought to extend it and bought other stores next to it. When I was very young, my father kept a second store in co-ownership with a German, Leon Proschinger, who often came by. I couldn't say why they broke up, but I was sorry. My father set the prices so that his own benefit would not encumber the customer. He sold small wears, clothes, ties, peaked caps, silk stockings, and photo cameras with a tripod. My father had turned the little room next door into a small lab where he developed the films; I don't think he charged much for this - it was fun for him. My sister Clara received an Acqua camera as a gift. It was very easy to use. The working hours at the store were from 8am to 1pm, and then from 4 to 8pm, but I think my father had a replacement during the time he spent at the community. He came home for lunch at an exact hour. At 1, the table had to be laid. In the summer, we ate outdoors, in the courtyard. There was always a bucket of cool water with a bottle of soda and a bottle of wine in it. He didn't drink in excess, but good wine was never missing. A friend of his would provide a demijohn of wine. He would pour it into bottles, put a cork and some bitumen, and kept it in the cellar. In the afternoon, when the store was closed, my father liked to sit on a small chair and clear the grass growing between the stones in the courtyard - one part of the courtyard was a garden and the other one was a playground and a space of transition. My father wasn't harsh with the children. However, if he asked something of you and you let him down, you would go crazy only if he looked at you. There were some nice pillars in the front part of our house; the stairs were large and the entrance door had a stained-glass window. There were two doors: a wooden one and a glass one. After the hallway, came a huge room, like a ballroom, then some other rooms and a spacious kitchen; it had a stove with a range, a cupboard and a rack of vessels which were so tidy they shone.