Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Hermina Vlasopolos - April 9, 1984

Childhood in Romania

Yeah. I want to go back to before the war. Your family when you were born, you were born in Bucharest, is that right?

Born in Bucharest.

And how many brothers and sisters did you have?

How many?

How many brothers and sisters, yeah. How large was your family?

My--I was the only child.

You were the only child.

Yeah, my mother died when I was two and a half years.

Okay.

My father uh, did not remarry at all for fourteen years and then he--he had lived also too much by himself and he traveled a lot...

Yeah.

...you know, on his business. And uh, then when he remarried again it didn't work out at all, so. It was not his fault. I must, I must say this. He was a very gentle, healing person. But uh...

What did he do, what did he do for a living?

He was in uh, in lumber.

Uh-huh, and you were raised...

I mean, my mother had a college education, my father so, so that he didn't, for sure...

Right

...and he went into lumber and uh, had to travel in order to, I mean...

Uh-huh.

...for the business and so on. But he died really young. He died when he was forty-nine, and so, pretty young. I was still very young then.

Yeah.

But I, I went to my grand...and I stayed with my grandmother in Chernowitz and it was there that I, I finished my, my education. And when I came to Bucharest and had some, some friends uh, I mean, I had friends from my...

Sure.

...high school years. And so I used to go back and forth. And uh, then I, I went to Oradea because it seemed a fantastic...

Yeah.

...job opportunity to go there. And uh...


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