Henriette and Moscu Mizrahy with Mina and Moritz Solomon

The picture was taken during a trip to Nice in January 1930. From left to right: my mother, Henriette Mizrahy [nee Schonfeld], my father, Moscu Mizrahy, my mother's sister, Mina Solomon [nee Schonfeld], and her husband, Moritz Solomon.

My father was born on 12th April 1897 in Bucharest. He was what they call a 'self-made man'. He went to the Evangelic School, then to the Commerce Academy in Bucharest. Right after he graduated from the former, he started to provide for himself by doing bookkeeping for various employers; he did this all the way through college. In 1924 he was hired as a clerk by a company owned by a very rich family, Marcus Pincas & Co. In just a few years, through hard work and competence, he made it to proxy. Over the years, his career developed further: authorized accountant, expert accountant, and PhD in economics. 

My mother was born in 1898 in Bucharest. From the moment I could understand and judge, I realized that the day of 29th March - my mother's birthday - was a holiday in our home. The house filled with flowers, the phone didn't cease to ring, and, in the evening, when all preparations had been finished, the family gathered together with some couples of friends who were as close to my parents as their brothers and sisters. 

Aunt Mina was born in Bucharest in 1896. She worked as a clerk until she married Moritz Solomon. He fought and was wounded in World War I. He became a sergeant in the Romanian Army. He was a self-made man, an oil man who had a small refinery at the entrance of the town of Ploiesti. He built himself a four-floor apartment house, with two apartments per each floor, in Bucharest, on Sfintilor Street. They were the only ones in the family who had a car and a chauffeur. In the early 1930s they had a Daimler, then a Marmon; I had never heard of this make before and I never heard of it again, but I remember the license plate: 676 B. The ties between the three Schonfeld sisters were very strong. In particular, my mother and Mina were extremely close and this is how they remained until the end of their lives. 

Photos from this interviewee