schechterfamily

I am delighted to hear from you and your interest in Raducaneni.

My father was born there; I know very little of it and was able to determine even less.
All I know is that no Jews live there now and the Jewish cemetery is in terrible shape.

My father was reluctant to speak of his past (I had always surmised from his attitude about governmental figures that he was in the United States illegally) but he did mention that his mother was an 'angel' and that he had swum in the Prut as a boy. Sadly, I don't even remember my grandparents' names.

At the conclusion of World War II I accompanied my mother to the office of a representative of the Romanian government in New York to determine if any of my relatives had survived. (I was 13 years old at the time and accompanied my mother as her 'protector' inasmuch as women did not make official calls without a male escort.) We learned that a cousin, who would have been a few years older than myself, had survived and were given an address to which we could send much-needed food, clothing and money. We did. Several times. But received no replies to our letters nor receipts for our packages so we applied to HIAS for further information. They had no information of any survivors but knew that address well. It was a blind set up by the Romanian government to receive packages from gullible Americans.