Bela Goldstein, Paraschiva Goldsmann and Ruth Greif

This is a photo taken in 1939, on the porch of our house in Sibiu, in 1939. To the left there is my father, Bela Goldstein, then me in the middle, and then my mother, Paraschiva Goldsmann. After my parents got married in 1929, they left for Vienna. I was born in Vienna in 1932 and I stayed there until I was three years old. My father had set up a business in Vienna before, so both my parents left to live there for a while. My father was an associate with a friend of his in a bicycle business - I don't remember his name - so we stayed there for a few years. But my father eventually went bankrupt, and my parents returned to Romania, to Sibiu. I don't remember anything from those years in Vienna, I was too little. My parents came directly to Sibiu, where they had a tobacco shop. The shop was only two blocks away from the house in which we lived; it was on Bruckental Street, in the very center of town. When we were in Sibiu, our financial situation was rather good, medium; there was no poverty. I remember I fell ill with scarlet fever in the 1st grade and had to stay at home. I couldn't be admitted to hospital because it was a contagious disease. Back then there was no penicillin, that was only invented after the war, so my parents treated me with tangerines and oranges. I remember the kitchen was full of fruit baskets; vitamin C helped. Neither of my parents was very religious in an extreme way: my father didn't wear payes and my mother didn't wear a wig, but they both observed the high holidays. On Friday evenings, my mother used to light the candles and say the blessing and for dinner we also had barkhes. My father went to the synagogue every Saturday, for the minyan, and both my parents tried to observe Sabbath. I think it happened that my father went to the synagogue on Friday evenings sometimes as well, he went whenever the minyan took place. On Saturdays his shop was closed, and my mother tried not to work. My mother and I only went to the synagogue on the high holidays; women didn't have to go back then, only on the high holidays. I didn't have to spend Saturdays or Sundays at home, there wasn't a special program for me. My parents used to talk to me about religion and tradition. It was usually my mother, who did so; she loved to read about these things.