p.40
At this point, I would like to briefly describe the life we had led over the last
few years of school. At CULTURA School, a few friends from St.
Andrew's, Fenny Littman, Relu Hoffman, Carol Kittner, Nicky Haimovici, and new friends from CULTURA, Mihai Schwartz, Eugy Goldstein, Jeanot Cohen, formed a group that was always together.

Practically, every Sunday we went to each other's houses and brought girl friends and girlfriends. We danced, laughed, enjoying being together while at the same time being aware of the dangerous situation in which we Jews lived. Looking back, it is clear that each of us, instinctively, felt that he was not sure what the next day would bring. Our parents had the same feeling and therefore, did not object to the liberties we took.
During Christmas of 1944, feeling free once again, the whole group of friends went to Predeal, a beautiful winter resort to have fun and ski. We made wonderful new friends, who, by the way, were mostly girls with whom we stayed in contact for many years.

The political situation was tense and everything was taken seriously. Nevertheless, on January 1, 1945, the boys decided to have a real party for the New Year and since there were no more German troops, and we did not fear the Russian troops, our Gashka Paranasa ( self supporting gang) arranged to pick up a few girls from a famous cabaret and bring them to one of our friend's houses. I was the chauffeur driving the big 1935 Buick car from my father's factory. We had a real happy New Year but in the morning we had to put an open flame under the motor of the car, which had frozen. After a while we cranked the car = there was no automatic starter on the car- and away we went, taking everyone home.

We finally felt free and, being of a certain age we wanted to prove our independence, we, the Gaska Parnasa, rented a small, one room apartment in Bucharest that became our "retreat". We brought a sofa, a table with a few chairs and a radio. We held small parties and as Maurice Chevalier (a famous French singer in those times) used to say, "Thank heaven for the little girls".