Marim Haller and Emoke Major

This is a photograph of me, Marim Haller - the one on the right -, with Emoke Major, in the living room of my home in Botosani, where I recounted to her the events of my life.

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 got married in 1946. I lived on Dragos Voda St. after I got married. That was our first house [home]. We paid rent. It was a large house, but we only had a room and an entrance hall, and our kitchen was in the courtyard. But our room was very nice, it measured 5 meters by 5. We had a dog when we lived on Dragos Voda St. And once it accompanied my husband to the high school and returned home all by itself. We moved here from Dragos Voda St., in a block of flats. We moved just after they finished building the blocks of flats. And we paid by installments and purchased the apartment. We never owned a home until we bought the apartment in a block of flats. Where could we get one?

My husband, Iacob Haller, departed [died] in 1996 and since then I´m living alone. How could I pass the time now? I read the press - "Adevarul" and "Monitorul de Botosani." [Ed. note: "Adevarul" (The Truth), Romanian newspaper. It was issued weekly in Iasi during 1871-1872 and, with intermissions, daily in Bucharest between 1888 and 1951. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adev%C4%83rul , http://www.adevarul.ro/ ; "Monitorul de Botosani" (The Botosani Monitor): http://www.monitorulbt.ro/ ] I have a subscription for the "Adevarul" newspaper, and I only buy "Monitorul…" once a week. I also buy books now and then, go out for a walk, a friend visits me once in a while - this, that. And time passes. The Leontes come to visit me too - Elena and Vasile Leonte -, who support me, look after me.

Photos from this interviewee