Former JDC Employee Now Receiving Assistance Herself

Sara is a 93-year old assistee living in Romania. The following story was written by a JDC representative who recently visited Sara in her home:

When we came to visit Sara in her small apartment in Bucharest, she told us she was excited to meet people from the JDC, because she had been employed as a secretary for the JDC office in Cluj, Romania in the 1920s!

At that time the Cluj office was responsible for seven communities in the area, with a recorded Jewish population of about 400,000. Not everyone received assistance, but rather, some of the wealthier Jews helped to aid the poorer ones.

Sara survived World War II by moving to Bucharest and finding a job with a Jewish law firm. She met her husband there and continued to work for this firm until she retired at the age of 55. According to Sara, the Romanians allowed Jews to work for Jews during World War II and she knows this kept her from being deported to a concentration camp. She recalls that her father was a doctor and that he was only allowed to treat other Jews. She said "even if someone came knocking at the door in the middle of the night and half dead, he would have to find out if the person was a Jew before he could take care of them". If he had treated a non-Jew, he would have been arrested immediately.

Sara remembers how active JDC has been in Romania over the years. She remembers the special vocational training courses for Jewish orphans, the Jewish orphanage, a Jewish school, food and clothing programs and even a summer camp in the mountains. She remembers that the orphans were very well fed and that all of the Jewish doctors worked with the communities for free. She remembers her time working for the JDC very fondly. She was proud to help Jews in need then and is not ashamed to be helped by the JDC in return.

Today, Sara is assisted by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania, which receives about 80% of its funding from the JDC. She receives the full range of services including monthly cash subsidies, food packages, meals-on-wheels, clothing distribution, medication and medical care, winter relief, Passover subsidies, and home care. Sara is mostly homebound after having broken her shoulder some time ago. Sara is afraid to go out in the winter, finds it too hot to go out in the summer, but sometimes does go out in spring or fall with the help of her home care workers.

It is hard to believe that Sara is 93 years old. She is full of life and her facial expressions are highly animated and expressive. With her strong clear voice, she retells many stories and jokes with her home care worker. She only regrets that she cannot get to synagogue anymore, but she still lights Shabbat candles and continues to pray in her home.