The story of Gizela - Afik Shiraz. Abinun Shmuel

connection was maintained even after the war. Susanna, who was a pravoslav (Russian Orthodox), spent the war days at Bjeli Manastir, the White Monastery, at the border with Hungary. Desa married a journalist in Belgrade. He wanted to accompany him everywhere and this lifestyle did not suit her, so that they eventually divorced. After that the connection between us also broke up. Five years have passed since I got rid of the cumbersome cast until I was full eight. One day we went to visit my father's brother at his brewery prepared Shlivovic, an alcoholic plum drink that was common in our area. We had a family picnic and I played at a melon, which I found there, as if it was a ball, and as the melon began to deteriorate, I ran following it. At the bottom of the slope, a train passed, while I was progressing a little longer, I would run under its wheels. Fortunately, someone caught me at the last minute and saved my life, but following the event the leg was out of place again. The attempts to straighten the leg with handbags did not go well, and there was no choice but to cast the leg again. And so, instead of attending second grade at school, I had the school year lying on the porch of the house. Friends from school would come to visit me after school, but how long they were possible playing with a girl lying down? So unfortunately these were quite short visits. My best friends at that time were the books. I read everything and lots, and I especially loved the Grimm brothers’ legends, which were very prevalent at the time, including Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Snow White. In our town lived a wealthy Jewish family, whose children were already growing up and no longer needed their childhood books. They used to lend me gladfully the books because they knew I would keep them well. To this day I don't like to do "severe ears" in the book and even when I was reading and taking a break, I would put a piece of paper to use as a bookmark. My mother used to go to their home and return with four-five books for me, and after I finished, she would return them back and took others. From this family, who was so generous, only the son and one of the girls survived the war. The last rabbi of the community in our town was Leon Maestro. His term ended in 1934, when Alexander the King of Yugoslavia was murdered by an assassin, while visiting Marseille, who was apparently on a mission of the Yugoslav separatists, the Ustasha. I remember well how the rabbi stood in the synagogue and told us in a storm of emotions, "The king was killed; the king was killed!” At the end of these words he fell, and he was no longer a rabbi with us. From what we learned, he went through a nervous breakdown. Another rabbi named Levi, later spent time with us in the Bergen-Belsen camp. That Levi was more a communist than a cleric. He studied the rabbinate under the pressure of his father, but preferred to read communist literature over religious books. One evening, my father heard news on the radio how communists are treated by the German occupiers and he went to the synagogue, burned all the rabbi's books and the ashes he brought home and Community and family relation to religion

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