This is me, Silo Oberman at present. I was born in Braila, on February 17, 1917, in the house where I still live to this day.
I worked at the "Zimbrul" Oil Factory in Braila. It was first called "Sezonov," then "Zimbrul," then it merged with the "Prutul" Factory in Galati and I worked there as well, I commuted to Galati. I worked as head of the planning and labor organization department.
Afterwards, I worked at the Popular Art Cooperative, in the rugs department, still as head of the planning department, and then I worked at the Onwards Cooperative. The people in Bucharest noticed me and sent me to Arad, as instructor in that branch. They noticed me for doing my job well in the Ministry of Foods Industry too, and I also received a diploma, I was awarded a 10. I lectured both in Cluj and in Oradea when I was working for the Ministry of Foods Industry. I held special courses in Arad about the standardization of work, where they sent people from Bucharest and from across the country. I attended those lectures myself for 2 months.
Life was hard after 1950 as we lived on small salaries and we had to support our ailing parents as well. We didn't lead a wealthy life. Our house had been taken from us, and we were glad they had seized it as we couldn't cover the maintenance costs from what we gained by renting it to tenants, for the rents were limited by state regulations. This house of ours that we had from our grandparents and which was built with many hardships was a real nuisance for us. I even have documents stating that my father paid a lot of money for the house my mother had received as her dowry. Instead of it being an advantage, he had to work to pay the installments at the land credit, for otherwise the house would have been sold as it was mortgaged.
We are the only ones who live upstairs, and we had some tenants living downstairs who didn't pay rent for 5 years after the house was returned to us. We weren't used to our parents' evacuating someone from the house, even if they didn't pay the rent. For instance, when refugee Jews came from Bessarabia we offered some poor souls a place to live without asking any rent from them; they were crossing our country on their way to Israel. We had a very nice tenant in the back of the house, her husband died. He was a member of the Communist Party, but we got along very well. She pays as much as she wants, for that was our arrangement. We have a tenant who pays rent living on the ground floor for 35 years, but he doesn't pay us large sums of money.
