Tili Solomon with friends

The one in the middle is me with my two friends in 1951. We were very close friends. They both emigrated to Israel. The one to the left was a very pretty red-head. She died in child labor. The other, Seli (on the right), married in Romania and had a nervous breakdown before leaving for Israel. They finally got there but her fits didn't stop, so they had to put her in a sanatorium. Her husband wanted to divorce her, but the Israeli Rabbinate doesn't grant a divorce when one of the spouses has a mental condition. Still, he rebuilt his life with another woman. I don't know if Seli is still alive. In 1946 there was inflation. Before that there was a drought which lasted for one or two years or maybe more, and we had a food shortage. One kilogram of wheat flour cost millions. It was a very hard time. I, for instance, worked as a tailor for an employer; we settled for a certain sum but, by the end of the week, when payday came, the money couldn't buy me anything anymore. Inflation was booming. Money wasn't worth anything. You couldn't buy anything. Then they made the stabilization. A decree announced that people could exchange a fixed amount of money. No matter how much money you had, the State only exchanged a minimum amount. This happened in 1946 or 1947. I think the monetary reform was in 1951. Things were totally different then. My father worked for a food store. The evening news announced there would be a change with the money. My father didn't know anything. A neighbor came and told him, 'Look, Mr. Herscu, they just said on the radio that they are changing the money; something is about to happen tomorrow and I have some money. Couldn't you help me? Sell me some merchandise and I'll return it later.' My father told him, 'All right, but it's closing time now. Come here tomorrow and we'll do it.' The following morning he found a financial inspector at the door of the store; he inventoried the merchandise and any scheme became impossible. This is how I went through the stabilization process and monetary reform. I met my husband in a common circle of friends. We sort of liked each other from the beginning. We dated for a while and, at a certain point, he proposed. We had a small engagement ceremony at home, only with the family. Almost one year later we got married: in 1957.