Stefania Rubinger and Blimette Benjamin

The photo was taken in 1923, in a trip. This is my sister, Stefania Wechsler, and my aunt, Blimette Benjamin, my father's sister. Stefania Rubinger [nee Wechsler], my sister, was born in 1914, in Bucharest. Her story is hard to tell. She was married when World War II came. Her husband, Rubinger, was a painter. They were relatively poor, but they married for love. They lived in Bucharest until the 1970's, when they emigrated to Germany. It was a time when Germany accepted German-speaking immigrants of German descent. He had been born in Cernauti and spoke German; my sister spoke German too. They settled in the town of Dusseldorf and stayed there. My sister now lives there by herself, as my brother-in-law died two years ago [in 2002]. He was run over by a car on a pedestrian crossing, at the age of 92. My sister is about 90 now. The two of them have two extraordinary children: Irina Rubinger and Adrian Rubinger. Irina is the elder child; she was born during World War II. Adrian was born later - he is now about 52 or 53. They both grew up in Bucharest. They currently live in Paris. Blimette Benjamin [nee Wechsler], one of my father's sisters, married Aron Benjamin. Blimette had two boys, Mauriciu and Carol, and a girl, Bori. She emigrated to Israel early, around 1955. She lived with Carol in the Nir Itzhac kibbutz, on Doar HaNeghev St. Blimette died in the 1970's and I don't know what became of the rest of her family. When she was alive, we kept in touch with her. She told us [in her letters] about the way she lived in the kibbutz.