Eugenia and Samuel Eiferman in the garden

My wife and I in our garden in spring. 4 April 2002. In 1946, when I returned to Romania, I was assigned to the town of Caracal; I went there a couple of times, but didn't like it, so I came to Braila. I still didn't hold the papers that allowed me to settle in the country. In 1951, when I wanted to get married, I had to apply for Romanian citizenship. I was received by Commissioner Ieseanu; I explained what my situation was and he issued an identity card for me. My wife's name is Eugenia Eiferman nee Paraschiv. She's Romanian. She was born on 17 December 1931. I met her at a friend's place in 1951, right after she had graduated from high school. She had attended the economics high school in Braila, which was then called the Middle School for Finance. Both her parents had been married once before. My wife has a sister whose name I don't know. Her father had two boys: Vasile Paraschiv, born in 1926, and George Paraschiv, who died in December 1989. We got married on 1 April 1952. It is true that, before the war, the custom for Jews was to marry within their faith; but I married a Romanian. My mother didn't oppose my decision. Things ceased to be that strict after the war, so no one was surprised. My mother always addressed her daughter-in-law as "Mrs. Eiferman". She was an educated woman who worked as an accountant. We had a son whose name was Jorj Eiferman. He was born in 1954. He worked in the same factory where my wife worked, the Textile Factory. The management there was very friendly. He died in 2001, at the age of 47. He wasn't buried in the Jewish cemetery, but in the Christian Orthodox one, as he had been baptized in that faith. They're about to create a plot in the Jewish cemetery for the couples who have a mixed marriage. There are many of us here in Braila who have non-Jewish spouses - about 35. In 1964 we filed a request to leave for Israel for good. But they wouldn't let us go. I remember there was a Securitate 13 colonel named Rizea who rejected our application. I wanted to take my wife and son with me. The house we're living in used to belong to my parents-in-law. It is the house where my wife was born. We moved in after we got married. We have three rooms here, plus an extra two rooms on the other side [of the house]. When our son died, we moved his furniture over here; we also sold some of it.