Warning: Declaration of description_walker::start_el(&$output, $item, $depth, $args) should be compatible with Walker_Nav_Menu::start_el(&$output, $item, $depth = 0, $args = Array, $id = 0) in /home/khgh552044m7/domains/tomygrandchildren.com/html/wp-content/themes/Memoir/functions.php on line 194
-Dutu’s Story: Childhood Memories | To My Grandchildren

-Dutu’s Story:
Childhood Memories

 

 

A Late Gift: Life Memories 1913-1933

by David Bucsescu

Translated by Dan Bucsescu

 

Translator’s Note

Over the years I had urged my father to write down his memories and it was not until soon before his death that he gave me his notes.  His memoir was a gift, a part of his legacy, that as I am slowly translating, slowly unwrapping.  As both translator and son I feel an obligation to try to stay true to my father’s word and his voice.  I offer this part of his story to the reader as a tribute to my father’s memory.

 

Author’s Preface

It is October 17, 1994. I am now 81 years old. Several years have passed by since I started to lay  down some childhood and early adulthood memories on paper. I don’t knew exactly why I have done it in secret, not even my wife Sylvia knew that I started to write down my life’s stories. Probably I didn’t trust that I would be capable of doing it, or maybe I didn’t think that what took place in my life would be of interest to anyone. After a while, I arrived at the conclusion that one does not have to be a special personality or famous for the experience of one’s life to be interesting.  Maybe my story isn’t so interesting to strangers, but surely it would be of some value to my grandchildren, should they one day be curious.

 

I had thought my life ran its course without any important events, but as I started to write I realized that my life was not so banal and that I had experienced life during some major historic times. Now that I have started to rummage through my memories, I feel much better.

 

I was born in 1913 just before the First World War, in the newly established “Grand Romania” reunited under a new democratic political system. Romania was soon to experience a growing intense nationalist movement that led to a fascist dictatorship and five years of the Second World War, which was followed by a Communist regime. Later at the age of 50,  in the mid-1960s Sylvia, my son Dan, and I emigrated to New York, or I should say to the United States.

 

In conclusion, I advise anyone, at the proper moment in their own life,  not to hesitate to write down their story as best they can.  I am sure their story would be interesting. I do not have any regrets, and realized that I did my duty towards my family.

 

 

1913-1918 The early years of my childhood and WW I as refugees

 

I was born in Romania, the village of Adjud, in county of Putna in 1913. My father had a small lumber factory. The business probably was not going very well, so he became an employee at a larger lumber factory called “TISITA” near the village of Soveja . Soon after he started working there the owners sold the factory to an Austrian company.

 

When the First World War started the family was forced to move, first to Panciu, than to Letea near Bacau, and finally to Moinesti. We lived as refugees moving from place to place and staying with family or friends.

 

Here I must tell you of two events I remember well during the time  we were refugees in Panciu. We lived in a hotel, named the ‘Gata’, which was owned by people who happened to be friends with my family. Food was very scarce, almost impossible to find.  Panciu was at the top of a hill.  At the bottom of that hill was a village, called the ‘New Village’, where one could find something to eat.  One day, ‘tata’ (my father) wanted to go to this village, occupied by the Germans, to search for food for our family. I believe that at that moment there was some kind of armistice under which the local population could travel from one side to another.

 

At the control point, they searched my father and found in his possession the cover of a school note book on which there was a map of the area. The map, a very rudimentary one aimed at very young children and was found on all such school notebooks. As a result they arrested my father and send him for trial to Bacau as a German spy. He remained in prison for several months until being released for lack of evidence against him.

 

The second family event from that time that I want to share with you was a very sad one. When we were living as refugees my younger sister died. We were than in Letea- on the periphery of Bacau. The burial took place in the Jewish cemetery.  The coffin was a wooden box used to transport sugar. I saw that box when the body was taken out of the house we were living in at that time.  That vision has stuck in my mind ever since.

 

In 1918 Stella was born. The day of the birth of my new sister was another strong memory I have of those times.  It was a rainy day and in the house there was a big commotion.  My brother Froim (Friki) and I were expelled from the house. We went up the hill at the edge of the village. On this hilltop was a place that we often fought imaginary battles between the children from the high side of the village (The Center) with those from the low side of the village (The Gas Station). I, being quite young, would be told to collect stones that the older kids used to throw with a rubber band. We would play as if we  were enemies, those below were Russians, we, from up the hill were Germans.

 

Soon after the birth of my youngest sister Stella, my father decided to return from our refugee location back to Soveja. I remember the return trip by horse drawn carriage loaded with all our baggage. We spend a night in a village previously used by the German army.  I remember that there was a wood sculpture of a German general, Makenzen. From there we went towards the village of Marasesti , a place where heavy fighting had taken place between the Romanians and the Germans. After another day of difficult travel we arrived at Soveja.  The factory and all of its buildings had been destroyed. There remained only three brick buildings and the director’s villa up the hill.

 

Soveja 1919 – “Spilled Wine” and “My first taste of Pork”

 

After returning to Soveja, my family occupied two rooms and a corridor in one of the buildings that remained after the war.  In total there were 4 or 5 other apartments lived in by other colleagues of my father.  The rest of the settlement, all build in wood as well as the factory had burned down.

 

I was six years old at this time.  What I remember first of all was the lack of food immediately after the war. The only available food was from the local farmers who could supply us with corn, eggs, milk, and fruits. I do not remember being hungry but I know that getting food was very difficult.

 

One day my father went to the neighboring village of Focsani and found two kilograms of corn grain. He returned home and together with my mother they decided to share it with all the others living in the building. The amount turned out to be too small to divide so they decided to invite all the neighbors to our apartment for a meal. My mother was going to make “minciunele” which was like a thin fried cornmeal bread. Since there was no oil to be found, my father proceeded to squash walnuts using a press he found in the office of the factory. He produced an unrefined black heavy oil- and gave it to my mother to cook with.  In the village he bought a barrel of wine and for entertainment there was music from a German gramophone (Master’s Voice) with a sound funnel.

 

In my family there were four children, Stella, Nuti, Friky and me. There were three or four other children in the building.  During the dinner party we were all playing in the corridor, where my father had placed the barrel of wine on a bench. Now and then, my father would come in the corridor with a pot and pull the cork out of the barrel to get some wine. Having watched him do that several times, I then tried myself to do the same thing, but I was not able to put the cork back quickly enough and all the wine ended up on the floor. As you can expect, my father was very angry and he punished me severely, probably including several lashes on my behind.  I cannot remember this aspect of the event. On the other hand, what I do remember is that next day when he had to go to the mill some six kilometers away he only took my brother Friki and left me at home as an additional punishment. That is what I remember as my punishment for spilling the wine as it was emotionally very hard for me.

 

During this same period I recall that my mother sent me to the director’s villa up the hill to borrow an iron. The director’s housemaid, Floarea (flower) was just setting the table for lunch. She was living in a room next to the tool shed.  Her husband and children where already seated around a round low table. On the table there was a warm freshly made ‘mamaliga’ (polenta), sour pickles and ‘jumari’ (pieces of fried skin). She invited me to join them at the table and offered me a plate. The smell of that meal is still in-printed in my mind. I sat down and ate with enormous pleasure. After the meal, the woman asked me if I knew what I ate. “Of course I know, it was ‘jumari’, I said. It was very, very tasty.”  She said,   “Yes, ‘jumari’ of pork”. I jumped up and ran home forgetting to take the iron.  At that time in our house we were kosher and did not eat pork. I ran all the way home to confess to my mother. I was afraid that I sinned gravely. My mother calmed me down, telling me that as long as I didn’t know what I was eating I was not guilty. I immediately stopped crying.

 

 

My teachings about religion and my  brief “Bar Mitzvah” in the woods

 

When I turned 13, my father, who had an advanced religious education, decided  that I should have a Bar Mitzvah. At that time we were living in Soveja, quite far from a city or any Jewish community. In the factory there were a few Jewish workers.  My father taught me all the rituals and the prayers. During that time my grandmother, who was 99 years old, and recently widowed was living with us.  She was put in charge of my doing all the proper things for my morning and evening prayers.

 

My father decided that my Bar Mitzvah should take place outdoors under the sky.  In reality this meant it was to take place in between stacks of lumber early in the morning when the work day started at six in the morning. He gathered ten Jews, the required number for a minion that was necessary for the ritual.

 

Both my parents respected all religious rules.  At home we ate kosher food and all the holidays were observed.  Any question I would ask my father about religious matters he seemed to know the answer to.

 

As I am sitting here writing I remember an event that took place on Yom Kippur when we were all gathered with many other Jews in a large room, all workers and administrators from the factory. During one of the ritual prayers people lightly tap against their chest with their fist to ask God’s forgiveness for any sins they committed in the past year.  One of the men in the room started to hit himself in the chest and then hit his head against the wall.

 

I asked my father why and this is what he answered: “Do you know how many wrong things he does during the year? He is a con-man and a thief who tries to cheat us all.

He believes that this prayer in which all are asking for forgiveness for our sins in the past year applies to him as well.  He, knowing that he did lots of nasty things to others, believes that by hitting his head against the wall he would get God to forgive him, so he can start all over again in the New Year.”

 

 

In general my religious education took place in those two years in school and at home from my parents. From all that my father said about it I concluded that the basic philosophical foundation of Jewish culture rests in the Ten Commandments. These rules are the proper way of life regardless if God exists or not. My father did not speak about his own evolution but I know he believed in science and modernity.

 

The fact that in my childhood I lived mostly in the mountains offered me the opportunity to have contact with many Christians and with the Eastern  Orthodox Church. I felt just as comfortable in a church as in a synagogue. The Ten Commandments are also at the base of Christianity. The fact that they prayed to Jesus Christ did not bother me in the least. In fact I don’t believe in a supreme being or in the occult. The message of religion is to behave kindly and correctly to all human beings regardless of their belief system. That has been the guiding principles of my life.

 

Now I return to the period when I turned seven years old and begun my primary school.  My sister Nuti, my brother Friki and I moved to the town of Moinesti to go to school. We lived with our grandparents and the great grandmother on my mother’s side and my father’s grandfather, whose wife had died.

 

Many of my father’s relatives lived in Moinesti including my father’s father, a brother named Avram who was a ‘ fierar potcovar’ (blacksmith -farrier ), a sister Clara (married name Silberman) and another sister, Leea (married name Padureanu). Two other sisters and my mother’s father had left for America, I would guess, around 1902-1907.

 

The three of us children slept in one bed. In the same room, in another bed, slept the grandmothers. The old men slept in another room.  There was a large kitchen. The toilet was an outhouse in the court yard. There was also an unoccupied large room with a big fireplace where every Friday the food was kept warm for Saturday, when no cooking was allowed.

 

Each day my great grandmother supervised our morning prayers and saw to it that we washed correctly. The same ritual took place every evening.

 

In school I attended the first and second grades. Friki, my older brother, was in third and fourth grades. Nuti attended the girl’s school in the fourth grade. Those two years in Moinesti when I attended the Israelite (Jewish) school for boys and the “Heider” (Yeshiva) are the source of many memories. In the school the children who had lived in the Village up the hill fought with those who came from the village in the valley. Because during that time there was a shortage of sugar, in school we were given chamomile tea sweeten with some red sweet bonbons. I don’t think I was a good student. I enjoyed taking off from the class by asking to go to the toilet and forgetting to return, often going up the hill with other kids.

 

When I was in second grade, the school building, being the largest in the village, was used for an evening ball for adults. The central hall was decorated with paper cutouts as ornaments made by the fourth grade students. Because my brother was in the fourth grade, I was trained to do that work. Aunt Clara, my father’s sister, was in the organizing committee.

 

On the evening of the ball, my brother Friki and I plus other kids secretly hid ourselves under the stage where a military band from Bacau played. For us children the music and the dancing was fascinating since we had not experienced such adult behavior before.

 

After a while from under the stage I saw Aunt Clara dancing. I left my hiding place and I approached her. When she saw me, her eight year old nephew,  she grabbed my hand and pulled me home and put me to bed.  So ended my dancing ball adventure.

 

Aunt Clara and Uncle Josef ran the Village Club and didn’t have any children.  Each Saturday we children went to their house to eat lunch and received a gift of 5 lei.  After that we went to the cinema. The entry ticket was 1 lei but we paid even less because we sat behind the screen from where we could actually see the image quite well.

 

With the remaining money we would sometimes go to the mineral water bottle factory where we drank a mixture of bubbly water and syrup of raspberry.  We would drink as much as we liked with the money we had left over.

 

After I finished second grade I returned to my parent’s house.  While I was away they had moved from Soveja to Gara Putney.  Nuti and Friki went to school in Focsani, and I enter third grade in Gara Putney.

 

There I had a so called teacher who had completed fourth grade, whose name was Traian Simionescu. The school children from the village, 14 in total, were in the first two grades. I was the only one in the third grade.  We were all in one room school. At the end of the year I had to take an exam in a village (Tulnici) 10 Km away. During the year the young teacher had fallen in love with a girl from over the mountains in Ardeal and he often went to visit her, leaving me in charge of the younger children. You can imagine how much I learned that year. My father and mother tried to also teach me at home to make up for the teacher’s absence.

 

 

 

The reconstruction of the Soveja Factory

 

 

Soveja; Gara Putnei                                                            Soveja. Watercolor from memory

by  David Bucsescu 1996

 

The reconstruction of the Sofeja factory was slow due to the lack of building materials after the war.  The lumber factory was owned by an  Austrian company and after the war with Germany, the place was taken over by the Romanian state, as war restitution. They appoint a Romanian retired army general as an administrator.  The new administrator lacked experience and he relied on the knowledge of the old employees.  Among them was Mr. Niederhoffer, a person with wide experience, and who in turn hired many of the previous employees.

 

After negotiations, the Romanian government agreed that production must start immediately.  The country was destroyed by the war and needed materials (wood) for reconstruction.  The rebuilding of the factory began with two wood cutting  machines under a temporary roof. They produced construction lumber out of the left over stock. They immediately started on the repair and extension of the railroad, in order to bring new lumber to the factory and get shipments out.

 

The former owners felt that the factory was a lost cause and did not want to invest any money, so Niederhoffer had to finance the business in other ways and the burden fell on the former employees.  Workers were promised immediate food but the salaries were to be paid later (with the cost of the food deducted) when the income from the sale of the lumber paid off. The biggest problem turned out to be the reconstruction of the rail road from Sofeja to Marasetsti, 52 Km of an industrial line to be linked to the standard national line.

 

The food supply was provided by an  uncle of mine who could get credit in Focsani. The delivery to the workers was done and organized through the “Cantina” (the cafeteria) by my ‘tata” (my father Moise Bucsescu).

 

At the start it was difficult but things went relatively well until 1926-27.

In addition to the sale of wood on the internal market, the business was exporting wood through the port of Galati, in particular to Egypt. During this time there was great competition from the Russians (Soviet Union), that made shipments full of wood at very low price, a kind of  “dumping.”  This price war hurt our business tremendously and we were forced to find another solution.

 

The solution came in the form of a joint venture with a Swiss company that had a similar operation nearby. With new financing and with an aim to produce wood for the west, the business continued until 1931-32.

 

It was at this new company called Oituz that I started my career.  I was hired as a “temporary practitioner.”  Soon I  was employed permanently and remained there until the final liquidation of the business, my being the last employee responsible for sending whatever was left of the wood stocks.

 

As the forests in that area were exploited , the company bought out another company in a nearby county where most of the employees were moved.

 

They send me to Bucharest where the company still had a substantial remaining stock of lumber in partnership with another company owned by the Theiler brothers. It was my task to see to liquidation of stock just as I had done in Soveja.  What happened to me in Bucharest will be in a follow up story.

 

 

My earliest awareness of politics and how I evolved professionally.

 

We were living at that time at Gara Putnei in the Vrancea Mountains region of Romania. The few houses  belonged to the Village Tulmici.  I was ten or twelve years old when the first elections I can remember were held. On the candidate list there were many parties: the Liberal Party, the National Peasant’s Party, the Socialist Party and the Jewish Party.  My father was the only Jewish voter in the village district, who according to what I remember him telling me, always voted for the governing party, the party in power.  After the voting, when they counted the votes in the Village of Tulmici, a number of votes went to the Jewish party.  My father had voted with the Government. He was than asked how he was able to convince others (non Jews) to vote for the Jewish Party.

 

The explanation he gave me at that time is still with me as a basic political reality.  On the voting list that the voter marks his preference, all the parties are indicated with a distinctive symbol that can be recognized by the many voter who could not read.  The Jewish Party used the Star of David as a symbol, which for the non Jews was a known religious icon, which they preferred to the others, not realizing that it was a Jewish symbol.  Of course at that time I knew very little about politics.

 

After a few years, we moved back to Soveja. I was thirteen years old and I started working as an intern at the factory.  Being active in the soccer team, I had a coach an older colleague, ex officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, named “Ghidali.”  In addition to insights into the technical aspects of the game, he taught the players the appropriate attitude towards a teammate as well as towards the opposing team.  He taught us that one must fight to win, but you also must know how to act honorably after a loss. I mention these details because Ghiladi, among other subjects talked about democracy as well as the equality of humans who belong to different cultures and ethnicities.  These early experiences, at the time without apparent importance, shaped my attitude towards society that I hold to this date.

 

Later I started reading, about the French Revolution and the development of democracy in Germany. I also read the newspapers available that brought current events to my attention, such as the workers unrest in the coal mines of Romania.  When I moved to Bucharest in 1933, the famous worker strikes of the Romanian

train system that resulted in a 1000 deaths had a great effect on me.

 

At that time I was working on Bucuresti –Bragadiru Boulevard, an extension of the Calea Rahovei.  I was the ‘conducator” (leader) of a lumber yard. For me, who had only been working in provincial lumber yards, having to sell, and correspond with foreign companies was a new experience.  It was difficult  to shift  and learn by myself from one system of accounting to another. The shift was from a system of accounting based on trust and treating our clients with honesty, to a system which I considered dishonest. That is, selling at any price aimed at cheating the client, by attempting to make them believe that they were getting a bargain, which was far from the truth. For a long time I was not succeeding in moving the stock.  In time, helped by even the competition (they felt pity on me) I adapted somehow to the new business style.  I have a lot to tell about this chapter in my life but for the moment here is one story.

 

One day, a young peasant from Bragadiru, located on the river Arges, came into the lumber yard. He told me that having had new children he wants to build a new house. He only had $5000 lei to buy all the necessary wood for the house.  He approached me and gave me his list of required lumber. I took his list and based on my correct calculations I told him he would need $8000 lei.  I could not make the sale.

 

Later that day I was visiting another lumber yard of the company. By coincidence, just as I was telling the owner about the man who only had 5000 lei, that same guy entered with his same list of materials.  The owner took over the negotiations and sold him not exactly what was on his list, but in truth closer to whatever stock was left in the yard, smaller or larger sizes and of poor quality. The lumberyard was not well stocked at that time.

 

The owner gets 5000 lei in cash and a promissory note for 3000 lei from the peasant. I didn’t believe that the guy would ever pay his debt. The owner anxious to get some cash, took the risk and what they actually delivered was not to my mind worth 5000 lei to begin with.

 

After about six months, of course the balance of the debt had not been recovered. The owner does not give up and proposes that I should go on a Sunday to pay the peasant a visit in the village where he lived.  Being a nature lover, the idea of a trip to the mountains paid by the business suited me fine.  I arrive by bus in the village and immediately inquire where my client lived. I didn’t have to walk too far to notice a new house but that was somewhat  unfinished.

 

The family received me warmly and the man confessed that he should have listened to my advice and not have made the deal with the owner. He showed me around the house and I saw all the cracked  bent beams, and the flooring wood that was not straight and could not be used.  We spoke for a while until his wife asked me if I would stay for lunch.  After lunch I thanked them and left without mentioning the unpaid debt.

 

Walking towards the bus station I had to cross a bridge over the river Arges.  It was a warm sunny day and I decided to go for a swim. I notice a group of young boys and girls bathing. I approach and ask if I could join them. They welcomed me cheerfully. The place and the surrounding mountains reminded me of the Vrancea region where I had spend my childhood.

 

Asked how I got there I said with the public bus. They offer me a ride back to Bucharest without having to pay. I accept, happy to be with them rather than traveling alone. Towards the evening the entire group walked to the village center where a bus was waiting for them. The bus stopped at several small villages on the way. At each stop several of them got out briefly to distribute a manifesto. At first I didn’t understand what was going on. Back on the bus they began singing revolutionary songs. I realized what was going on and didn’t feel very comfortable. As we approached Bucharest, the driver said that he was convinced that the police were following us.  Just as we entered the city via Calea Rahovei, and arrived at Boulevard Maria we heard an explosion. We thought that the police were shooting.  In fact one of the tires of the bus had exploded.  When the bus stopped I immediately left the group, quietly, without even saying thank you.  I ran home; as my place was not far from there.

 

Next day I read in the paper that that group was arrested by the police.  That experience seemed to have had some affect on me. I liked the atmosphere of young people fighting for their “cause.” However, paying attention to the political mood of the country at that time, I wondered if they were right in their “cause.”

 

Back home I told the story of my adventure.  Living in our house at the time were two older Jewish students as renters. One of them was Rica Mintzer (later renamed Radu Manescu), the son of a wealthy businessman from Focsani who was also the president of the Jewish community there.  Rica was studying law and finance at Bucharest University.  One day he invited me to go to a conference.  I did not at first know exactly the nature of the conference, but once there, I realized immediately. I did not join any of those groups. Some were left leaning socialists/communists and the others, Zionists. I was expected to work in order to support the family and didn’t think I had time for politics.

 

Things were changing in the country and things were changing in my family.  My father at that time was not in good health. My brother Friki, was in his second year studying medicine.  Just about that time in 1933 Jewish students were being expelled from the university.  My brother was forced to abandon his studies.  My youngest sister Stella was still in school.  My older sister, Nuti had just finished school and started working at a medical laboratory (Carmol). The family financial situation was difficult and the fascist movement was taking power. Anti-semitism was on the rise. The young Jews around me were asking themselves what the future could bring and what might the solutions be to the difficult changes they saw all around them.

 

A few years had passed since my arrival in Bucharest.  As I wrote previously, I first worked at the lumber yard  called TISITA.  Later I worked at the pharmaceutical laboratory CIOARA-CARMOL (ITEANU). I worked there from 7am until 3pm with one hour for lunch. From 5pm to 8pm, I had a second job at a stationery called TIPO.  From 9pm till midnight I worked at an import-export firm where I was doing accounting.  In 1935 I had to leave to do my army service. I returned

after one year and continue working at the CIOARA company.

 

In September 1937 I found employment at a Swiss Company LOMAS. They owned several factories in Romania and were also exploiting the forests to make the best quality paper. I was happy to return to my original expertise and experience prior to moving to Bucharest. In addition the salary was much higher. The plans were to train me for a few months into their system of accounting and then to send me to one of their factories, probably to Gugesti, near Focsani. They passed me from one department to another for experience until I ended up in export. They decided to change plans and keep me working in Bucharest. I worked there from 1937 until October 1940 with a short interruption being called into the army reserves in July and August 1940. Then came the second world war with its aftermath.

 

Translator’s Epilogue

 

While working at LOMAS, my father met and married Sylvia in 1939. During the war the Swiss company was allowed to carry on business as usual. David and Sylvia moved from Bucharest to one of the company’s factories in the Carpatian mountains, first at Moroieni and later at Busteni. Given that during the war the Jews were submitted to forced labor, the Swiss company wrote a letter to the Romanian authorities stating that they needed David as an administrator . As a result my parents survived  the war years in relative safety. Their house in the mountains, provided  to employees by the company, was the favorite place to visit by friends and family from Bucharest, trying to have a break from the difficult lives they had there during the war time.

 

His brother Friki, who after being expelled from the University got involved with the underground socialist movement and left Romania for Russia in 1940. The family did not hear from him for many years. He survived the war fighting in the Russian army.  He spent the rest of his life in Chernovitz, a town near the Romanian border in Russia.  My father went to visit him in 1995 after not seeing him for 56 years. Over the years my father continued to send his brother money.  My father’s sisters Nuti and Stella went to live in Israel.  I was born, my father’s only child, in 1945.

 

 

Moinesti now

 

My father was born near, and for a while went to school, in Moinesti a Town in Moldavia, Eastern central Romania.  In this town tombstones from 1740 and 1748 prove the existence of a Jewish settlement predating the founding of the town (1781) and dating back to the discovery of oil in the vicinity. There were 42 Jewish families taxpayers in 1820, 500 hundred families in 1885, and 2398 individuals in 1899 (50.6% of the total population).  The community was organized in 1885 and had 5 prayer houses: a ritual bath and a primary school for boys (founded in 1893) as well as one for girls (founded in 1900). The was at this time a thriving Jewish community.

 

The locality also played a prominent role in the history of the colonization of the land of Israel. Jews from Moinesti were founders of the Israeli town of Rosh Pinnah. In 1881 a group of 50 families were organized and sent a delegate to purchase plots of land where 22 families settled in Israel in the summer of 1882, together with other families from other Moldavian cities.

 

During the WW II the Jews of Moinesti were expelled to Botosani. About 80 families returned after the war. The Jewish population numbered 480 in 1947, 400 in 1950 and only about 15 families in 1969.