Magda Fazekas

This photo of me was taken in Marosvasarhely in 1945, just after we had returned home from deportation; I needed it for a certificate. After the war it was very hard at the beginning here, in Marosvasarhely, because we didn't have a proper apartment. A cousin of mine, Hedike, who had come back before us, and had an apartment on Lajos Kossuth Street, accepted us in her place. Then we managed to obtain a room and a shared kitchen in the apartment of my brother, Joska. In the meantime my brother Jeno came home as well. He escaped from work service and was hiding, he didn't go through all those terrible things we did. He tried to find an apartment, because the house where we lived wasn't ours, so that's how we got to Martuska Lederer with my sister Dorika and Jeno - that was the name of the owner of the house, later she became my brother's wife. My uncle from Brasso, the husband of Aunt Lina was a manufacturer, they were very well-off. He owned an iron paste and shoe cream factory, they produced iron paste, shoe cream and parquet cream. Uncle Jeno gave my brother Jeno a certain amount for him to open a shop, for he had learned trading, he had studied that in Brasso. And he opened a shop on Albina Square together with Dorika. This large shop was near the center, the house was owned by a Jew. Back then it was very hard to purchase goods, but Jeno acquired everything, from everywhere he could. He traveled to Braila, Galati, and purchased colonial goods: pepper, tea, coffee, lemon. These were all goods that one couldn't find in the whole town after the war. Many things were out of stock. There was stationery too, the iron paste, shoe cream, these were sent by my uncle; Jeno didn't have to pay for these. The shop was very prosperous. The two of them worked, sometimes I helped a little too, but I rather did the housekeeping, I was cooking, I bought everything at the market. This was my task, while they worked in the shop. After a couple of years the shop was thriving. First we bought this house from the income. My brother, Andor was still a prisoner in Russia. So when he came home, we already had this house. It was settled that the house belonged to the four of us. Then private commerce was prohibited - this was already during communism. The shop wasn't nationalized, but it had to be closed, it didn't make any profit at all. I don't know precisely when this was, but Jeno had already bought that storied house on Aron Marton Street, which was full with tenants. Thus Dorika and I stayed in this house, we always lived together. My brother Andor since he couldn't move to that other house, also lived with us here.