Clara Foldes and her best friends

These are my Christian friends. The photo was taken in Curtici in July 1934, when I was still a pupil. I am the first from the left in the second row, next to me there is a peasant girl, and the third from the left is Zoe, one of the daughters of the Orthodox priest Bradean, from Curtici. Two sisters of hers are also in the photo. In the first row in the middle is Hortenzia Ardelean, the daughter of the school's headmaster. We were very good friends. We spent time together all day long. We got along very well with our Christian neighbors. Their daughters and I were very good friends. Our parents were also befriended. We were on good terms with the Orthodox priest, Bradean. He had three daughters and we spent all the time together. I don't remember celebrating my birthday; we didn't have this custom. I don't even remember being invited to someone else's birthday party, neither to the girls of Priest Bradean, or to the house of teacher Ardelean, with whose daughter I spent time from kindergarten until our graduation in Cluj. I went to a kindergarten in Curtici, and then to the state school because there was no Jewish school in Curtici. After finishing elementary school my parents paid for the school. It was not very expensive. Everyone could afford it. I went to school for 12 years. So, I spent the first four years of elementary school in Curtici. Then I studied for eight years at a pedagogical school in order to become a teacher. I did the first year in Arad. Because the school was closed here, I was transferred to Lugoj, where I did the second year. The school was closed here too, so I was moved to Cluj, where I studied for the next six years, and also graduated.