The Columbus Jewish Historical Society

Interviewer:  It’s the 27^th day of April, 2023.  I’m Bill Cohen for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society and we’re at the home of Gerda Almasanu in Eastmoor, and Gerda, I see that you, you can trace your family a generation or two.  You know a little about your grandparents.  Could you just start by telling us where were they from?  What do you know about your, some of your grandparents?

Almasanu:  Mmm. My grandparents, as far as I know, all were from Cernowitz which was under Romanian leadership.  I mean, my grandmother had pink [carol?]  That was all in Cernowitz and she was always very proud of that because the king kissed her hand.

Interviewer:  And what country?

Almasanu:  Romania.

Interviewer:  The king of Romania kissed her hand.

Almasanu:  No. That was the king of Austria-Hungary.

Interviewer:  Austria-Hungary, kissed her hand at one point.

Almasanu:  Yes.  She was very proud of that.

Interviewer:  What else?  Do you know anything else about your grandparents?

Interviewer:  Uh-huhn.  There owned a lot of land and forests in suburbs of Cernowitz and my grandfather, he had a big, he had a lot of friends, no, he knew a lot of peasants. Some of them really helped us during the Holocaust.

Interviewer:  We’ll get to the Holocaust a little later.

Almasanu: Okay.

Interviewer:  In Romania is where your roots are from your grandparents.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  Romania, and your father was a farmer?  You said he owned land.

Almasanu:  My grandfather.

Interviewer:  Your grandfather, yes.

Almasanu:  He was not a farmer.  He owned land and had peasants working for him.  He was also in the alcohol business.

Interviewer:  Do you mean alcoholic beverages?

Almasanu:  Yes, like, a bar here, I guess would be considered like a restaurant there.

Interviewer:  And the peasants worked his land. They helped farm his land.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  Okay and then what do you know? Tell us about your parents?  Where were they from?

Almasanu:  They were also from Cernowitz.  My father, I don’t remember at all.  I cannot even remember the image of his face and that bothers me a lot because I remember stupid things like the dress I was wearing but I cannot remember his face, and I guess it’s not uncommon for people to just black out things they were really upset about, so that might be one explanation why I cannot remember his face, but I remember my mother, during the War when bombs were flying over Cernowitz, she put me in the stroller and she asked me if we should stay in our house or we should go to my grandmother and I always loved my grandmother so I said, “Let’s go to Grandma,” and I remember her bending over the stroller to protect me from the bombs that were flying  over our heads.

Interviewer:  Now, this was in Romania.

Almasanu:    In Romania, in Cernowitz.

Interviewer:  Cernowitz.  And you were born in 1937.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  So, the bombs you’re talking about, were, you were maybe five or six?

Almasanu:  No.

Interviewer:  How old were you when these bombs…

Almasanu:  I was three or four.

Interviewer:  Oh, so, maybe around 1940 or ’41…

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  …would have been this bombing, and the Nazis were the ones bombing?

Almasanu:  Yes, the Nazis and the Romanians who supported the Nazis in Romania.

Interviewer:  Oh.

Almasanu:  They didn’t even have to fight to come to Romania.  The Romanians opened their arms to the Nazis and, in some instances, they were worse than the Nazis.

Interviewer:  Now why do you say that, they were worse, even worse?

Almasanu:  Because some family members of my husband were during the pogroms, and yes, they were part of that.

Interviewer:  They were part of the killing of the Jews.

Almasanu:  Yes.  Yes.

Interviewer:  What other memories do you have of that time?  You talked about the bombs.  Were the planes coming over and dropping the bombs?  And your mother protected you by putting you where?

Almasanu:  In the stroller.  She put me in the stroller.

Interviewer:  Stroller.

Almasanu:  Yes, and walked with me to my grandparents’ house.

Interviewer:  Did you then live in your grandmother’s, grandparents’ house?

Almasanu:  Yes. We never left our grandmother’s house. We lived with them and from there and then every time some other street that the Nazis would take over and kind of guide hundreds of Jews during the streets towards the trains.

Interviewer:  Towards the tanks?

Almasanu:  Trains. Towards the trains. He doesn’t understand.

Interviewer:  Oh, the trains.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  Towards the trains.  Oh, they took the Jewish, the Jews and put them on trains.  Oh, and we know where they went.

Almasanu:   Yeah, and they all went to Auschwitz and Transnistria which was another camp in the Ukraine. and during one of those trains, you know when they gather the Jews from another state, from another ghetto, they made sure that everybody stays in line and doesn’t get out of line and there were soldiers watching and one of the peasants that my grandfather knew, came with a wagon and put all our belongings on top of the wagon and me, I was a little kid on top of everything, on  top of the goods and he drove the wagon into a side street so we wouldn’t be part of the people that they were taking to the trains.  So, he, that guy saved us once but there were many times that sometimes we did not escape.  Sometimes we did. The ghettos were really very heart-wrenching because people tried to get into a ghetto to be safe they thought.  In the end they were not but uh, I remember one instance where we went into a basement of a friend of my mother’s and there were tens of people in that basement like sardines and one person, one man was laying down like a woods, like a bed made out of wood and he was already dead and you know, I was little and his eyes were still open and kind of followed me, so, you know, we escaped that time, and…

Interviewer:  So, the one peasant who helped you at one point, he was a friend.  He was an employee of your grandfather, of your grandfather and he put you in this wagon along with some other things and drove you to a side street so that you wouldn’t be taken…

Almasanu:  …with my mother and him, my grandfather and my grandmother…

Interviewer:  …and your mother.

Almasanu:  …my mother and two of her sisters.

Interviewer:  Now, where was your father at this point?

Almasanu:  Already taken.  He was already taken.

Interviewer:  He was the first…

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  …in your family to go.

Almasanu:  And we don’t know anything since.

Interviewer:  You don’t know what happened to him…

Almasanu:  No.

Interviewer:  …but you assume.

Almasanu:  Oh, yeah.

Interviewer:  Was it a train that took him away?

Almasanu:  Uh, we don’t know. We don’t know because it was such a, people were trying to save themselves so nobody knew what the other person was doing.

Interviewer:  The people who helped save you, they were Jewish or not Jewish?

Almasanu:  Most of them not Jewish.

Interviewer:  Not Jewish, so this is a symbol of how many non-Jews were very heroic.

Almasanu:  Absolutely. Absolutely.  One member of my family, was a brother of my grandmother, was, he was a doctor and he became friends with the officer in charge of that camp in Transnistria and when there was typhoid, so a lot of people got sick and that officer had orders to kill them, so…

Interviewer:  He had orders to kill people who were sick?

Almasanu:  Yeah, so they wouldn’t contaminate, and my uncle became friends with this officer and he asked him to let him take all the sick people and he would stay with them and so they wouldn’t be killed, but in the meantime, he got sick and he died of typhoid fever but the officer promised him that he will save his wife and the two sons, so, that officer put them all into barrels, those big…wooden barrels…

Interviewer:  …wooden barrels.

Almasanu:  …each one in a different barrel and sent them back to Cernowitz and saved their lives and my aunt was a witness in the Nuremburg Trial in favor of that officer that…

Interviewer:  Oh, most of the witnesses, their job was to say how guilty the Nazis were, but in this case, this individual case, your aunt helped to testify, to be sympathetic, a little sympathetic to this one officer…

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:   …who showed humanity. Wow.  What else do you know about your aunt who testified? They came to, they lived in Bucharest which is the capital of Romania.  They lived there until 1960, uh, 1960 they lived in Romania and then they came to Germany and then they ended up in New York and lived in New York ‘til 1972.

Interviewer:  And your aunt’s name was?

Almasanu: [Solly Tchiovitz ?sp].

Interviewer:  Sally?

Almasanu:  Solly Tchiovitz.

Interviewer:  Solly Tchiovitz.  Can you spell it?

Almasanu:  I can write it.

Interviewer:  That’s okay. We’ll get it later, but she testified at the Nuremburg Trials because she witnessed things like this particular incident.

Almasanu:  Yes.  She was saved by this officer.

Interviewer:  She was saved.  So, she was an unusual witness.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  Yes, and so, when you were three, four, five, six years old, you witnessed all this.  What else, did you, do you remember anything else from the time in Romania when the Nazis had basically taken over?

Almasanu:  Yes. We were in one of the other ghettos, where my aunt lived, a different aunt lived.  Her husband and my father were brothers and we all stayed with her during that time, hiding in the attic of her house and this staircase was like towards the attic, very narrow and there were so many people in that attic and there was straw on the floor and that’s where people were sleeping and….

Interviewer:  There was what on the floor?

Almasanu:  Straw.

Interviewer:  Straw. Straw on the floor.  People just slept on the…

Almasanu:  And there was little windows and everybody was taking turns looking out to make sure that no soldiers come close to that house and there were many, many people in that attic and I decided that it was too small and I took off.  I just took off and got lost.

Interviewer:  You ran out of the house?

Almasanu:  Yeah.  I was four years old probably and ran out and just, got lost because that was unknown territory for me and start crying in the middle of the street and all these people guided around me and ask where my house is, where is the address?  Well, I didn’t know because I was new in that house, so some people I remember wanted to take me with them and one guy ask my name and my maiden name was Blum, B-l-u-m and he said,” Is your father Benjamin?” and I said, “Yes,” so he took me and he know that the Jews were hiding in that house and he took me back in, but, you know, it was so crazy, so many people, nobody even noticed me missing.

Interviewer:  Now, if somebody else instead of this man had seen you and knew your father, if somebody else, a Romanian who was in favor of the Nazis had talked to you and if he would have found, and taken you back to the house, it would have been a disaster.

Almasanu:  Yes, for all the people hiding in that attic.

Interviewer:  What a miracle.  And do you know whether the man who saved you then was Jewish or not Jewish?

Almasanu:  No.  No. No idea who he was, how he had known my father, no idea.

Interviewer:  But he knew your father and was at least sympathetic or friendly with your father.

Almasanu:  Absolutely.

Interviewer:  So, what happened after that?  What happened to your family, your mother and others?

Almasanu:  My mother my grandfather, my grandparents, my mother’s two sisters, we stayed in Cernowitz after the War and was hoping that the Russians took over and we…

Interviewer:  The Russians took over, not the United States, but the Russians.

Almasanu:  The Russians, and we hoped life is going to be better but it wasn’t because we lived in the same house we lived before and…

Interviewer:  Now wait, which house?  The house where all those people were hiding…

Almasanu:  No.

Interviewer: … or back to your original house?

Almasanu:  Yeah, my grandparents’ house.

Interviewer:  You went back to your grandparents’ house.  Okay.

Almasanu:  And there, during the Nazis, my grandfather was very religious so he and another guy decided to bake matza in their house and I was put outside in the back yard to make sure that no soldiers are coming to look for them.

Interviewer:  This was when the Nazis were still in charge?

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  Okay so, your grandfather, some of the older people were making matza.

Almasanu:  I was on duty that when I see something suspicious, I should start screaming so they can hid the matza and all the things they were doing.

Interviewer:  That’s a vivid memory for you.

Almasanu:  That and also in that house during the winter, we didn’t have any wood to, you know, warm the house, so I remember we raked leaves and there were like mountain of leaves and that’s how we heated.

Interviewer:  You burned leaves to keep the house warm.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  You must have needed a lot of leaves.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  Wow.  You said when the War was over and the Russians took over in Romania, things were not much better.  What do you remember about the way things were when the Russians were in charge?

Almasanu:  They took people off the street to cut the woods, to cut trees in the woods and my mother was one of the people they took and she never cut a tree before and they had a quota.  They had to cut so many trees, and they would feed them very bad, you know, just maybe one meal a day or one piece of bread or whatever so she made the deal with the guy next to her that she would give him her food quota so he would cut the trees for her because she was not able to.

Interviewer:  So, a fellow worker got more food from her but then he had to work…

Almasanu:  harder

Interviewer:  for her.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  And did she survive that time?

Almasanu:  Yes. Yes.  She survived that time and another time.  They were celebrating, I think.  May First was a big deal for the Russians and everybody was supposed to put out flags and the caretaker of the house brought up a flag for us to put on the balcony.  Well, we didn’t realize that that flag had the Nazi, you know…

Interviewer:  Symbol? A swastika?

Almasanu:  …on it but they took down the swastika but the sun, kind of, you know, you could still see where the swastika was, so they come and they take my mom to jail that she put out a flag with a swastika which nobody had any idea that when the sun was shining on it that you would see where the swastika was, so…

Interviewer:  Even though she was Jewish and, obviously, she did not support the Nazis, they still punished her.

Almasanu:  Punished her, terribly, and put her in jail with all the political, you know, suspects, and that jail, it was known to be very, very bad.  They had soldiers on the street that you could not go on the sidewalk in front of that jail.

Interviewer:  You couldn’t get close to it.

Almasanu:  No.  No. So, I mean, the whole family was terrified what’s going to happen to her and so, when she start talking, there was a soldier that was in charge of it, the whole jail and he ask her what she’s doing for living and she told him that she works in the hospital and he said,” Are there good doctors there?” and she said, “Yeah, they’re the best,” so he told her he had syphilis and could she get him into the hospital for treatment and that’s how she got out.  He let her out and she arranged for him to be treated.

Interviewer:  Another miracle, so, she was saved from prison finally.

Almasanu:  Yeah, with the Russians, and then, you know, there was crisis of no food, people being afraid to talk to, you know, the Russians took everything very personal and then they, when the officer and soldiers were released from the army since they won the War and there was such a crisis of homes, housing so they made a law that a family could not have more than one room, and they had one of the rooms in my grandparents in the house.  They had one officer stay in one room and one soldier in the other room and the soldier came, Wendy’s laughing, the soldier was from, not from Moscow, from some little village and one day he comes home with a fish and goes to the bathroom and washes the fish.  The guy never had seen a toilet.

Interviewer:  Do you mean he washed the fish in the toilet?

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  He had never seen a toilet before because he was from a small town that didn’t have toilets.

Almasanu:  Yeah. Right.

Interviewer:  But that shows how uneducated, I guess, he was.

Almasanu:  Wild.

Interviewer:  And this was actually your grandparents’ house but the Russian soldiers or former soldiers had taken over much of it.

Almasanu:  Yeah.  They, you know, nobody was allowed to have more than one room, so, and it ended up that the officer that stayed there happened to be Jewish, but they did not know.  He did not identify to the Russians that he was Jewish, and one day he comes and he tells us that his mother is going to come and visit and that’s the time he told us that he’s Jewish but we are not to tell anybody because that would be the end of him.  So, he really was very instrumental in making sure we leave Cernowitz which was under Russia now because there is no future for Jews in Russia and really, he helped us.  I remember he got a truck and we put some belongings on top of it and us in the truck-bed and drove us over the border to Romania.

Interviewer:  You were in, weren’t you already in Romania at your grandparents’?

Almasanu:   It was, yeah, it was Romania but the Russians took over.

Interviewer:  So, he helped drive you and your family away from your grandparents’ house…

Almasanu:  With my grandparents, the whole family.  He drove us over the border into Romania, which was not, that part was not under Russian occupation.

Interviewer:  He drove you to another part of Romania that the Russians did not control.  Who did control that part of Romania, just, regular Romanians?

Almasanu:  It was the Russians, the Germans, it was chaos.

Interviewer:  But at least the Russians were not in charge.

Almasanu:  Yeah.  It was such chaos.

Interviewer:  So where did you live then after you were away from the Russians but you were still in Romania?  Where did you live then?

Almasanu:  Then, we got into a train which was for cattle, like a cattle train, and again the whole family is in that one train, in one box and there were also friends of ours, a doctor and his wife and son, and a sister of my grandmother.  We were a lot of people in that train in that…

Interviewer:  …one boxcar.

Almasanu:  …box, in that boxcar.

Interviewer:  And did you know where the train was going?

Almasanu:   We knew that it was going towards Romania that was not occupied, but we were on that train for, I think, eight days and there was no toilet, no water, no food, and some of the older guys like my grandfather and my uncle, every time the train would stop in the train station, they would get off the train, get some water and try to get some food, and my grandmother had a big pot and one of those heaters, like petroleum heaters and she would cook in the middle of that box train.  She, they would get maybe potatoes or some vegetables from the people in the train station and she would cook, like every day.  She would make soup for the whole, for all the people in that train, and after, and that was all the people from that train, I don’t think, the son from the doctor and I are the only survivors of that, all the people that were in that train.

Interviewer:  You are the only survivor?

Almasanu:  And one other person.

Interviewer:  Because, what happened to all the other people?

Almasanu:  They, most of the immigrated to Israel, and died of old age, of disease, of illnesses.

Interviewer:  I see, but you’re saying you’re the remaining living person/s.  You’re still living and they have all died.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  So, where did that train, after eight days, what happened?

Almasanu:  After eight days, you know, again it stops in another train station and I don’t know if my mother or one of her sisters, kind-of looked out from the train and asks the people, “Are there jobs here?” And they said, “Oh, yeah, there a lot, is a lot of industry in this city.” So, they all came down.

Interviewer:  They all got out of the boxcar.

Almasanu:  All off and they told us that there is a Jewish agency and it’s right behind the train station. So, we get off and there were a small Jewish population there and there was a shochet. You know what a shochet is? The one that kills the…

Interviewer:  Shochet?  A kosher butcher?

Almasanu:  Kosher butcher and that’s how we got some very primitive housing there.  They ball put us in a what you call, where the women go for, Friday…

Interviewer:  An apartment?

Almasanu:  No.  Mikveh.  Mikveh.

Interviewer:  They put you in a mikveh, to live or to…?

Almasanu:  Yeah, temporarily to live.

Interviewer:  You lived in the mikveh.

Almasanu:  Yeah. One big room we shared with my grandparents, and her sister and her daughter and her grand-daughter, and the actual mikveh…

Interviewer:  … the water…

Almasanu:  …the water, was a door between the room we stayed and the mikveh and we all lived in that room and slept in that room.  I don’t know how many people, was probably ten, fifteen people in this one little room and at night it always was so noisy, noise coming from that closed door that was the water, the mikveh.  Then we found out that there were rats there.

Interviewer:  The rats were making the noise.

Almasanu:  The rats were making the noise.

Interviewer:   And this was, you were still in Romania.

Almasanu:  And it was still in Romania.

Interviewer:  So, this was after the War, the late 1940’s.

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  And what happened then?

Almasanu:  Well, we just lived there for, I think, fifteen years.

Interviewer:  Fifteen years in the room next to the mikvah?

Almasanu:  No.  We got an abandoned restaurant that had one big room and a kitchen and a stove.  We lived there, oh, ‘til, ‘til ’59.

Interviewer:  So, you were now in your early twenties by the time you left there.

Almasanu:  Yeah.  I…

Interviewer:  Your teenage years were spent in Romania in what was an abandoned restaurant.

Almasanu:  Yeah, that we fixed it up, I mean, but it was still such a house crisis because so many homes were destroyed.

Interviewer:  And with you at that time was your mother…

Almasanu:  …my grandmother, my grandfather, and two of my mother’s sisters.

Interviewer:  Any other, any particular memories of that time?   You were, all your teenage years were spent there.

Almasanu:  Yeah, between…

Interviewer:  Did you go to school?

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  Did you work?

Almasanu:  I was the only Jew in the school.

Interviewer:  What was that like?  Were you treated well?

Almasanu:  Sometimes, yes, sometimes, no, but I spoke German because German was my mother-tongue and Romanian was official language and the school was in Romania, and sometimes, you know, I was pointed at, that “She is Jewish,” and some were not so nice, but I learned to take care of myself.  I did lessons, the German lessons for one of my classmates in exchange for him to make sure nobody harms me.

Interviewer:  That’s just the latest example of several you have already talked about where people made deals.

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  They exchanged things.

Almasanu:  Jews know how to make deals.

Interviewer:  And it helped protect you in this, in this school.

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  So, did you learn?  German was your mother-tongue, but did you learn Romanian then?  Did you have to learn Romanian in order to understand?

Almasanu:  Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And that was easy because at that age you learn easy, you know?  It wasn’t the same learning English, you know, to this day, because we were much older and it’s getting harder to learn a foreign language.

Interviewer:  So, in 1959, what happened? You moved somewhere else?

Almasanu:  Yeah. In 1959, I cut my hair.  I used to have long braids and with that money I took my first trip to Bucharest on the train.

Interviewer:  Now, wait a minute.  You say you cut your hair and with that money…

Almasanu:  Yeah.  I sold it.  I sold my braids and with that money, I bought a ticket to Bucharest where I met my husband and we got married within two months.

Interviewer:  How did you meet?

Almasanu:  He worked with another cousin of mine and when I came to Bucharest, I stayed with that aunt- with Aunt Solly.  I stayed with her and shared the bed with her because it was still, people didn’t have any so, we, I was sleeping with my head towards her feet and, and my cousin came to visit with my husband.

Interviewer:  …with the man who would later be your husband.  It was a friend of your cousin?

Almasanu:  Yeah, they worked together.

Interviewer:  So, tell us about the man who became your husband.  What did he do? What was his name?

Almasanu:  Lazar.

Interviewer:  Lazar.

Almasanu:  He’s the one that’s sleeping, but he was much older and he was already an electrical engineer, and we applied to get out of Romania to go to Israel and every time we applied, we said that we are jobless so, that they wouldn’t give us a hard time to leave, and we were rejected over and over again because the Romanian government paid for our education.

Interviewer:  So, the Romanian government did not want you to leave…

Almasanu:  No.

Interviewer:  …to go to Israel.

Almasanu:  Right.  So, they let older people go without any problem because they were interested in getting the housing, but not the young people that had an education and were, you know, they put money in to us.

Interviewer:  The Romanian government said, ‘We have invested in you by giving you education and we want you to stay…’

Almasanu:  …and produce for us, and the story gets more complicated because we find out that there is a way to get out of Romania if you pay your way out, so,  I worked for a designer institute as a draft person and one time they send me to work for this big shot in his house to draw  up some, some design for his house and I became friends with him and told him that, you know, we are trying to get out but keep on being rejected, so, he told me that the Romanian government was buying agriculture machinery from the United States and they had to pay either in gold or in dollars.  Well, nobody had anything.  We were poor after the War so we got in touch with this, in the meantime, one of my mother’s sisters got out of Romania and came to the United States, to Chicago, so, we let them know that if so much dollars would be deposited in the Swiss bank, then, we would get out, so, they deposited five thousand dollars for each, each, my husband, and me and, we got the approval within three weeks.  We got the approval to get out of Romania.

Interviewer:  …and go to…?

Almasanu:  Go to, they wanted us to give an address where we are going, so, we knew that it was not advisable to give an address in the United States, because that was the enemy.  That was the Capitalist, so we know that was a no-no and found out that we had an address of somebody we did not know in Australia, so, we got the approval to go to Australia, so, they didn’t know where, how to get a visa for Australia, so they sent us to Paris.  We got the visa to go to Paris and from there we’ll find out how to get there.  Well, we get to Paris and didn’t even intend to go to Australia.  We spent six months in Paris and there we got help from HIAS.

Interviewer:  H-I-A-S, the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society.

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  With aid from them you were able to come to where?

Almasanu:  To Chicago.

Interviewer:  And the money, that you were taking about the five thousand dollars per person, that came from Chicago?

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  And the Romanians said, ‘If you will put five thousand dollars in a Swiss Bank account for each person, we will let you go.’

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  That was the deal.

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  Your relatives in Chicago had this money.

Almasanu:  Yeah.  They paid this money and as soon as we came out, my husband got a job in Marion, Ohio, at Marion Power Shovel.  That used to be a big dragline company, one of the biggest dragline companies in the United States.

Interviewer:  Dragline?

Almasanu:  Like they were building equipment for mining.

Interviewer:  Heavy equipment, shovels, …

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  …bulldozers…

Almasanu:  Yeah, huge equipment.

Interviewer:  Huge, so, did you go to Chicago first though?

Almasanu:  Yeah.  We stayed in Chicago two months and decided it’s not for us and moved to Marion, Ohio, where the company, at that time they give us a house.  They rented a house for us.  The manager, the personnel manager, who got my husband the job, got us into, you know, different stores and he got credit for us and that’s how the “American Dream” started.

Interviewer:  So, your husband’s job was, he was some kind of engineer.

Almasanu:  Yeah, electrical engineer and he got the job, and I got a job without knowing one word English.  I applied for a job in a consulting firm and they called and said I got the job but I did not understand them and I put my husband on the phone and he said, they want you to come tomorrow to work, and I was overwhelmed. ‘Oh, my God, what am I going to do? I cannot speak.’ Luckily, the chief engineer did his residency in Mexico and he never learned Spanish so, he was very, very nice to me and understanding and every morning he would write me a note in English and I would sit for two hours and translate and then he would tell me what to do, and I worked there for two years until we moved to Columbus.

Interviewer:  Now, your skill, you were a, they called it a draftsman or draftswoman?

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  And your job, it was to design buildings or…?

Almasanu:  No. No.  Like sanitary sewers, water lines, civil engineering.

Interviewer:  You knew how to plan them and draw the guidelines and the blueprints.

Almasanu:  Under his supervision, then yeah. He would tell me what to do, how to do it and after six months I start talking.  I was, they were very, very supportive of me, even, you know, the chief engineer and everybody was trying to open up and start talking because, and…

Interviewer:  Now this would have been in the 1960’s…

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  …but at this time there were not a lot of women doing this kind of work, were there?

Almasanu:  Yeah.  No. No. No. I got called after, that was in Marion, Ohio, but when we came to Columbus and I applied for jobs, I, some companies called me and the chief, from the office, told me right away.  He just wanted to see how a draftswoman looks like.

Interviewer:  Did they want to hire you or…?

Almasanu:  No.  The people from the civil engineering saw what kind of work I was doing and they hired me right away.

Interviewer:  At your first job, the one where you learned to speak English.

Almasanu:  Correct.

Interviewer:  So, once you were surrounded by people speaking English, you learned it. That helped you.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  And, so, that was here in Columbus, oh, that was in Marion…

Almasanu:  Marion, Ohio.

Interviewer:  …and then you came, now why did you come to Columbus?

Almasanu:  Because, I don’t know if you remember there was a Jewish deli run by Mrs. Hepps.

Interviewer:  Hepps Delicatessan.

Almasanu:  Yeah, you remember?

Interviewer:  It’s a little before my time but I’ve heard everyone else talk about it.

Almasanu:  Exactly and we would come every two weeks, three weeks, whatever, to buy kosher food, to buy Jewish bread, to, and one of the days we came, she said, “Why aren’t you moving to Columbus?” and we looked at her like, you know, in Romania you didn’t move so fast, like so- move-here, and she put us in touch with, you know, what do you call it?  Head hunters?” and put us in touch with the real estate agent, and my husband got a job and I got a job with a reference from Marion, Ohio, and…

Interviewer:  So, you moved.

Almasanu:  And then we moved.

Interviewer:  Before we talk about Columbus, I want to ask one more question about your life in Marion.  You were Jewish and you were in Marion, Ohio.  I’m sure there were some Jews there, but not many.

Almasanu:  No.

Interviewer:  So, my question is, how were you treated in Marion?  Were you treated well or was there anti-Semitism?

Almasanu:  No.  Very well. Very well.  I mean, the guy next door, kind of a hillbilly, they moved in.  We didn’t know about screens in the windows.  We didn’t have air-conditioning, so we opened all of the windows to have some air circulation.  The guy next door comes in with several screens and he says, “You cannot leave the windows open because the mosquitos are going to eat you up alive.” So, he arranged for that and we rented a house for 75 dollars a month, and didn’t have a car, so, my husband walked to work and so did I and people would pick us up on the street with what we were carrying – grocery store bags.  They would pick us up and drop us off at the house.  Very well.  I could not have any bad experience in Marion, Ohio.

Interviewer:  This is very interesting because you were Jewish and you had foreign accents and you were still treated well.

Almasanu:  We were the only ones in Marion, Ohio, the only immigrants at the time. There was one more family from Turkey and they were already there for some time, so, that’s how the cookie crumbles.

Interviewer:  In a good way.  So, you came to Columbus.  About what year was that?  The early 1960’s?

Almasanu:  Yeah.  Well, my daughter was born in ’64 in Marion, Ohio, so, we came, ’65, ’66, somewhere around then.

Interviewer:  And where did you first live in, when you came to Columbus?

Almasanu:  When we first came to Columbus, we went to Ahavas Sholom and Rabbi Baker was the rabbi there but he also was an architect and somebody arranged, Mrs. Hepps, arranged with the real estate that we should rent a house on South Broadleigh.

Interviewer:  Here in Eastmoor.

Almasanu:  Yeah, like three, three houses from Fair.  The person that lived there was Massey’s Pizza.

Interviewer:  Massey’s Pizza.

Almasanu:  Pizza.

Interviewer:  The person who lived there owned Massey’s Pizza…

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  … one of the very first…

Almasanu:  Pizza.

Interviewer:  …pizza restaurants in Columbus.

Almasanu:  Yeah.  She lived there.  She already was divorced while she lived there and we rented with option to buy but there was a flood and the basement flooded so we decided, Rabbi Baker told us don’t buy that and we bought another house on Harding Road.

Interviewer:  Harding, also in Eastmoor.

Almasanu:  Yeah, from, a Jewish guy.  I can’t think of his name.

Interviewer:  So, you lived on Harding.

Almasanu:  Yeah.  114 South Harding and Rosie lived at 88 South Harding.

Interviewer:  Rosie?

Almasanu:  Rosie Fogel…

Interviewer:  Rosie Fogel.

Almasanu:  …which was Maitzie’s sister.

Interviewer:  Oh, Okay.  Now you’re talking about Maitzie Stan who is also a friend of yours but her sister Rosie was your, was a very good friend of yours.

Almasanu:  Yes.

Interviewer:  So, you lived over here on Harding.  That’s very close to Martin’s Kosher Foods.  Did you ever go over there?

Almasanu:  Sure, all the time!

Interviewer:  Do you have memories of Martin’s?

Almasanu:  Yah!

Interviewer:  What do you remember?

Almasanu:  Oh.  It used to be, there were Kroger’s now. Yah.  Everybody bought the meat there.  There was no question.  Yah.

Interviewer:  So, you lived on Harding and you continued your work?

Almasanu:  Yah.

Interviewer:  What was your job, your new job in Columbus?

Almasanu:  I was Floyd G. Brown and Associates.

Interviewer:  Floyd   G.   Brown…

Almasanu:  G.   Brown…

Interviewer:  …and Associates, and they were an architectural firm or…?

Almasanu:  Yeah, also sanitary sewers…

Interviewer:  Sanitary sewers.

Almasanu:  Yeah…civil engineering.

Interviewer:  And you worked for them a long time?

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  Do you know how many years?

Almasanu:  At least fifteen, maybe, something like that.

Interviewer:  And you and your husband had children?

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  Tell us about them.  When were they born?

Almasanu:  Anny was born in 1964.  I became pregnant in Paris.  I was six months pregnant when I came to the United States. And my son was born in ’73 and…

Interviewer:  His name?

Almasanu:  Benjamin Almasanu and that is his wife.

Interviewer:  With us at the kitchen table is his wife whose name is?

Almasanu:  Wendy, Wendy, and they have two boys, Max and Gabriel.

Interviewer:  So, they’re your grandchildren.

Almasanu:  Yes, and Anny who’s married to Eric Hoffman.

Interviewer:  Now Anny is…

Almasanu: …is a dentist.

Interviewer:  Anny is a dentist and refresh, tell us, again, Anny is a relative?

Almasanu:  Is my daughter.

Interviewer:  Is your daughter. Okay.  Okay. She’s a dentist. Okay, and…

Almasanu:  And she has three boys…

Interviewer:  Oh.

Almasanu:  Aaron, Jordan and Noah.

Interviewer:  So, more grandchildren.

Almasanu:  Five boys. pooh pooh pooh.

Interviewer:   So, are you still members of Ahavas Sholom Synagogue?

Almasanu:  No.

Interviewer:  No.

Almasanu:  No.  We are members of Beth Jacob.

Interviewer:  Beth Jacob, also Orthodox. Okay, and have you been members a long time at Beth Jacob?

Almasanu:  Yes. Quite a bit.

Interviewer:  So, you would remember Rabbi Stavsky?

Almasanu:  Sure.

Interviewer:  Are there any particular memories you have of Beth Jacob Synagogue over the years??

Almasanu:  Well, we have been members there forever, really since my son was bar mitzvah there and we have a lot of friends there, and not so many left, but, yeah, we are members for a long time.

Interviewer:  So, you’ve mentioned Martin’s Kosher Food and the synagogue Beth Jacob.  Are there other Jewish institutions that you are involved with?  Do you ever go to the Jewish, did you ever go to the Jewish Center?

Almasanu:  Oh, I did go but not too much because I always had a job and a family to take care, and my mother and her sister that came with us to Columbus and I took care of them ‘til they passed, so I did not have too much time to be involved.

Interviewer:  You lived on Harding for a while.  Now you’re here on South Broadleigh. How many years have you been in this house?

Almasanu:  Fifteen, since 2005.

Interviewer:  Okay, about 18 years or something like that. So, you’ve always been here in the Eastmoor neighborhood.

Almasanu:  Within one mile from, every house.

Interviewer:  What is it you like about this neighborhood?

Almasanu:  It was a Jewish neighborhood.  It was good location to drive to work, to, friends lived here.

Interviewer:  Are your friends mostly Jewish or not Jewish or is it a mixture?

Almasanu:  A mixture.  We were very good friends with Rosie Fogel, with Boots Nutis, Boots…

Interviewer:  Boots Nutis.

Almasanu:  Oh, my gosh, forever…

Interviewer:  Okay.

Almasanu:  Naomi Schottenstein.  They were close. They were close.

Interviewer:  They were close Jewish friends but you also have other…

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  Other non-Jewish friends. So, since you’ve been, you’ve already talked about how in Marion, Ohio, you were treated very well.  Since you’ve moved to Columbus, have you experienced any anti-Semitism or have you been treated well?

Almasanu:  No. No.

Interviewer:  Not. No.

Almasanu:  Not at all.

Interviewer:  So, you think relations are pretty good between Jews and non-Jews?

Almasanu:  I, personally, did not have any problems. Sometimes, they would say, you know, I would hear often, oh, people being surprised that I’m Jewish, but I did not take that as a, you know…

Interviewer:  …as a negative.

Almasanu:  …as a negative. Especially in Romania, most Jews have kind of an accent.  They kind of sing when they talk. Aiiiiih, you know?  I did not have that and that opened a lot of doors for me.  They were later surprised that I’m Jewish but, I did not take it as derogatory.

Interviewer:  Can you talk a little about your religious beliefs?  Many people who came out of the Holocaust, many Jews say, “Well, I’m Jewish but I don’t really believe in God because how could God have allowed the Holocaust?” You’re one of those people who came out and survived. What are your thoughts?  What are your beliefs?

Almasanu:  Always, we always believed in God.  My grandparents, you know, really, I was in high school when I was carrying the chicken or the [?] to the shochet, to…

Interviewer:  …to the Jewish butcher.

Almasanu:  Yeah.  I would have a bag that I would keep the head of whatever…

Interviewer:  …the chicken that was cut off.

Almasanu:  …the chicken or whatever.  I would have to keep the heads out of the bag to make sure they don’t suffocate, that they get to the butcher alive and he would cut their throat according to the rules.

Interviewer:  Jewish kosher law.

Almasanu:  Yeah, and I would sit there and watch him.  You know, he would tie them onto the hook and you had to watch the blood flow and that’s what I grew up with.

Interviewer:  Right, but since you grew, since you grew up and you’re not a child so now you can formulate your own beliefs.  You’re a very strong believer in God, despite the Holocaust.

Almasanu:  Yes, absolutely, under, when I got married, you know, you were not allowed to be married in religious ceremony.  You had to be registered in the courthouse, but if you wanted a religious ceremony, you had to do it so nobody would know.  You could not go to temple.  You couldn’t, you know…

Interviewer:  Do you mean in Romania?

Almasanu:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  Okay.

Almasanu:  Romania under Russian occupation.

Interviewer:  Uh-huh.  Yes.

Almasanu:  So, we were married at the big temple in Bucharest but there were only family members present because if they would find out, we wouldn’t have a job next day, so, that was important to us to have a Jewish ceremony, and coming to Columbus, yeah, we, we always belonged to a synagogue.  We tried to, you know, when my grandparents, always made sure that the food is kosher. As we grow older maybe we don’t observe as much, but we definitely believe in God because we had too many times that our lives were in great danger and only thanks to God we escaped.

Interviewer:  Yes, you, in looking back on your life, in just this interview, there were several times when you could have been killed.

Almasanu:  Absolutely.

Interviewer:  Yes.

Almasanu:  Absolutely.

Interviewer:  So, you feel you are proud to be a Jew.  You have pride in your heritage.

Almasanu:  Yeah, I mean, we went through so much.

Interviewer:  There’s going to come a time in a few more years, there will be nobody alive who can tell the stories.

Almasanu:  …the stories.

Interviewer:  What are your feelings about that?

Almasanu:  You know, story, history repeats itself.  We visit Germany one time and were surprised at how many Jews lived in Germany in recent years and their history is at German museum for Jews, [Jewish Museum Berlin?] shows the history in Germany that every hundred years, the Jews go through this epidemic of being killed and they survive and come back with more power than ever before.  Isn’t Israel a testament to that?

Interviewer:  Well, with those words, let’s conclude our interview with Gerda on April 27, 2023, and I’m Bill Cohen for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.  Thank you so much, Gerda.

Almasanu:  Thank you.

 

Transcriber:  Linda Kalette Schottenstein