Iuliu Guth with friends

In this photo you can see the members of Ivria, a Jewish organization from Brasov that was active in the 1930s. Only later it became Zionist. In the very middle of the group there is my father, Iuliu Guth, in the second row, fourth from left. I don?t know when exactly the photo was taken, but I reckon in the 1930s, because my father was in his 30s in this picture. I don?t know exactly what was his position in the organization, but I think he was somebody important, otherwise he wouldn't be in the centre of the photo. He never talked much to me about it, except that they used to play football. My father was a good friend of Feiler Dezideriu, who had been with him in Ivria and later became president of the Jewish community in Brasov during World War II. You can see Feiler Dezideriu standing immediately to his right, in the second row, 3rd from left. My father was not religious at all, he worked on Sabbath and didn't observe the kashrut, but he did observe all high holidays. He was a Neolog, but he strongly identified himself as a Jew and he was a fervent Zionist. I remember that my father kept a violet velvet sack with a magen David embroidered on it, with the clothes for his funeral, his tallit and his siddur. My father was never in a political party, but we had the Keren Kayemet box in our house, and anybody who came to our house had to put something into it. Although my father was a fervent Zionist, he never intended to make aliyah himself; it is a paradox, but he had very strong bonds here, he was very attached to his house, to his family. However, he supported the Zionist cause quite strongly.