Paula Perla Iancu

This is a picture of my grandmother Paula Perla Iancu, it was taken in Iasi in 1941.

There are many things I can tell you about my grandmother. Her maiden name had been Scharf. I knew her pretty well. Grandmother Paula Perla lived in Braila, with us. She had several sisters, but I don't know how many they were, or what their names were. Before saying anything else, I must say she was a beauty - and not just in the way in which we all speak of our grandparents. My grandmother was quite a woman. She was a perfect housewife. She was married twice: her first husband was a certain Iosif Feldman, and the second was called Haim Iancu. She lived in Barlad when she was with the former. I know that man was my mother's natural father.

I used to travel to Iasi, to my grandmother's, all by myself, without my mother accompanying me. I sometimes went with my sister, when we were really young.
My grandmother remained in Iasi for some time after Haim's death, and then she came to Braila, to live with my parents. She stayed with us for a while - I don't know for how many years - but, around 1948, she signed up for Israel and she left there by herself. I don't know how old she was when she emigrated - she wasn't that old though - but she left nonetheless, because she had a daughter there - Frida Scharf, my mother's sister - and two granddaughters.

I know my grandmother lived in an old age home down there, but the conditions were good. She spent quite a number of years in Israel, but she didn't live at her daughter's. She suffered from diabetes, and she used to eat a lot of fruit and sweets in Israel, so she got into a diabetic coma at some point, and never recovered from it. She died in Israel, in 1959 or 1960. I don't know in what town she lived and I often blame myself for not having tried to find out more things from my parents. I now realize the importance of all this data that has remained unknown to me.