Marim Haller with relatives in Targu Ocna

This is I, Marim Haller, the second from the right, with Iulius Klein's sons - to my left and to my right, I no longer remember who the other 2 children were. Beno Klein is on my right. I visited them in Targu Ocna, and we took our picture together. The date on the back of the photograph reads 26th August 1937.

I was born in Harlau in 1915. Officially, my name is Marim, but people call me Maly. I was named after a neighbor whom my mother knew. At school, I was registered as Marim Nuta, even though my father's actual name was Sin Nuta, after his father. Formerly, that's how people were named, Sin Nuta, Sin This, Sin That - son of Nuta, son of this, son of that. [Editor's note: The word "sin" is a dialect form of the Yiddish "zun" (zin)=son.] Afterwards, I secured an attestation from the court of law stating that Nuta and Ghebergher were the same name. It doesn't matter, I changed it afterwards, when I got married.

I believe we lived in Harlau until I was about 10. And afterwards we moved to Botosani, my mother and I. We lived in a rented house on Dragos Voda St., which had 2 rooms and a kitchen, and mother would rent one of the rooms to tenants - she rented one of the rooms, and we lived in the other room - so that we could get by, she rented the room to pupils - that's how life was in those days!

We used mixed languages at home - both Romanian and Jewish, Yiddish. I knew a little Hebrew, but I forgot it. I didn't learn it at the cheder, I took private lessons - I paid for and received private lessons -, but very few. I might have been 9-10. I started receiving private lessons from a teacher. He used to come over at our place, if not, I would go to his - it varied. In fact, he wasn't an actual teacher, he simply knew Hebrew. But I dropped out afterwards.

My mother, my uncle - they were pious people. I couldn't say the same for myself. My mother was religious. She cooked 100% kosher. That's what we had at home - kosher. There was no other way in those days. Almost everyone kept kosher. People didn't eat milk and meat mixed together. And they didn't mix the milk dishes with those for meat, everything was kept separate. I didn't really observe this tradition. That's life.

My mother's brother, Avram Klein, had a leather shop in Botosani. His wife's name was Seindl, and they had 8 children: 4 sons and 4 daughters. Clara Rintler, Saly Haimovici, Roza Flaiser, Liza Malis - these are the daughters. And these were the sons: Marcu - the youngest -, Iancu, Iulius, and … oh my, what was his name - I can't remember it just now. They were all older than me. The youngest of them was 4-5 years older than me. All of them graduated high school. The boys were merchants, their father's trade. But not all of them lived in Botosani. Iulius lived in Targu Ocna, he too ran a leather shop. [Targu Ocna is located 82 km south-west of Bacau.] I once went to visit them, I was young back then. He had 2 sons, the name of one of them was Beno Klein.

Photos from this interviewee