Mira Cotin

This is one of the first photographs of my sister, Mira Cotin [nee Mizrahy]. The photograph was probably taken in Bucharest.

My parents got married on 31st October 1920. After having lived for three years in rented rooms, my parents, who both worked as clerks, were able to build the house where I was later born; they paid installments to the 'Cheap Housing Society'. My sister, Mira was born in 1923 in Bucharest. When they moved in, my sister was three months. 

She was a quiet child and a pupil loved and respected by her schoolmates. She had the misfortune of being 'forced' to take piano lessons at the same time with me; the main reason why my parents did that was not because they wanted to secure her musical education, but because they didn't want to give her an inferiority complex. It took seven years of nightmare until our dear parents could be persuaded that Mira and music had nothing in common!

Our family's standard of living was the normal one for an intellectual who worked as a higher clerk and supported a wife and two children. We employed one or two maids, usually from Transylvania, and we also had a nurse for a while - until we were seven or eight. As far as our education is concerned, I can say that no resources were spared in order for us to get the best schools and the best teachers. 

Photos from this interviewee