This Sunday I spent my day with Michael and Renee, 2 Jewish Americans, in search for their family roots. His great grandparents lived in Iasi, and as many others, Michael is interested in any detail that it could lead him to lost family members…

We began our day with a visit to the Jewish Cemetery in Iasi, where in the hope we could spot the names of his family anywhere on the graves we managed to spend about 3 hours there.

As we were about to leave, at the gate we took the time to chat to Olga, the administrator of the cemetery, and Michaela and Adriana, who were visiting the graves of their loved ones. As my clients got more curious about them, Michaela started telling us the story of her life, and the story of her loved ones, who have survived or not the Holocaust in the World War II.

As she never married, she was the last one alive in her family, and she almost cried as she filled us with details of her mother.

After a few more minutes, she started unpacking some lunch, inviting us all for a snack, showing she had so much love and care to offer. Even more, yesterday I received a phone call from her, letting me know some steps my clients could take in finding details about their family in the National Archives.

Adriana on the other hand, was intriguing to me, being quite young. I never noticed any antisemitism in the people I know in Iasi, but she confirmed the fact that some do make nasty remarks towards the Jews, which is quite sad. Hopefully we will get together and discuss this subject again.

Last but not least, misses Olga, the administrator of the cemetery, is a person who seems snappy all the time, but she does love attention. If there are things you want to know about the cemetery, ask her first, else she will be all upset like a small child. She has a very funny character.

After having a wonderful lunch at Bilius House and visiting a few more places of Jewish interest, we took the time to see other landmarks of Iasi, not related to the Jewish Heritage. One of these places is the Culture Palace, built along 2 decades at the beginning of 19 century.

The exterior of the building impresses everyone, and finally they have started restoring it. Some sources say it will take about 3 years to restore, but I think they are being optimistic. During the restoration the Palace is fully closed. Nonetheless, we managed to sneak inside…seems the guards have decided to make their own visiting tour of the Palace.

It is first time when I managed to take a few photos of the main hall, with its detailed decorations and stained glass windows.

This tour that they decided on their own to create, is a visit through the maze of halls leading to the Clock Tower. After almost getting lost through those rooms, we enter the attic where the heat will literally take your breath away, and you will have the sweat running ” in places you didn’t know it could run”, to quote Renee.

Once you reached the tower, the air is much more cool, and you can study the clock mechanism with its 6 bells, which every hour will sing the Union song.

From up here you can enjoy a panoramic view over Iasi city, and especially Stephen the Great boulevard.

As I am a curious person, I started questioning the guard, and it seems the tower is open only once a year, on Iasi days (14th October). I was just about to ask him if he was aware we were in July.

Now now, I will not complain…I finally managed to see the things I didn’t thought I could, and to be honest, I believe the guards would make much better managers for the Palace, than whom ever is in charge now.

We ended our day with a view from Bucium hill over the Iasi city.

In life there will be a lot of people you will have the chance to meet. Some will be uninteresting and you will go on further without looking back, others will put their print deep into your life and your beliefs in a matter of minutes.

One of the people from the second category is mister Adrian Irvin Rozei, which I had the pleasure of meeting yesterday, while I was hired to be his driver for the day.

Even if now he is established in France his love for Romania is obvious, without needing any questions. I was fascinated the entire trip, listening to mister Rozei talk with his friend, none other than mister Radu Negrescu-Sutu.

At the time, admitting my limitations, ignorance, lack of knowledge at so many levels and my youth, I sat quiet, barely opening my mouth, without knowing the importance of the people traveling in the same car as me. There is so much out there… things that we don’t know, or have not heard of.

This is why I sit here, in front of the computer, trying to share a bit of my discovering.

A simple Google search of the two names above will reveal things to you, that I am sure will be a surprise.

For those a bit more lazy, here are a few links:

Radu Negrescu Sutu

Adrian Irvin Rozei

Did I tickle your curiosity yet?