OLISCANI – PART II

On our way to Oliscani, we picked up Vladimir Drutsa, a police commander from the Soldanesti region, and who would help us in our quest for the Tolpolars. There are 4 thousand people living in Oliscani today, the last Jewish family left in 1954. Our first visit was Constantin Biroe, who served as the mayor’s secretary for 36 years. He had just lost his wife, but welcomed us to his house, served home made wine and some sweets.

For the first time I saw the little underground cellar most villagers have at home. They don’t have water (every house has its own well – oddly decorated), the toilet is a hole in the ground, but the wine is extremely sophisticated and delicious!

Constantin didn’t know of any Tolpolars, but was glad to show us the neighborhood and help us out. So we all got in the van, Natasha, Sergei, Mauro, Kerley, Vladimir, Constantin and me. We went straight to a 91-year old man’s house, a World War II veteran, who could be able to remember something. At first, the policeman Vladimir didn’t find him, so he had to interrogate a few people to discover the old man’s whereabouts.

As we were entering his home, geese were fleeing out. In front of the house, the wife was sitting. Due to an illness, she couldn’t stand up to greet us. The old man was excited to receive visitors, talked a lot about women and flirted with my sister. Vladimir was taking his job very seriously, and vigorously interrogated the man, but he couldn’t remember much of the Jewish community of that time, only the names of the last Jewish couple to have lived there: Basha and Avrum Starosta.

In front of the old man’s house, I got a rock from Oliscani’s own earthly and sandy ground, and put the souvenir in my pocket.

Before going to our next visit, we stopped by the old Jewish neighborhood. There’s not much there, but Constantin showed us where once was a synagogue, where once Jews lived, etc.

Running out of time, we rushed to Victoria’s parent’s house. Victoria is a very nice lady whom I met in the internet, as I said before. She gave me the address of her parents and we felt like paying them a visit. Although the dogs couldn’t stop barking at us, Maria and Ghiorgi Thimofte were very nice. One more time we had some placinta and homemade wine.

Victoria confessed her grandmother was frequently mentioning in her stories a family which was a neighbor, and a certain Mrs. Tolpolar. According to her grandmother, this lady was at this time very upset, because she had a daughter, which got married in Craiova (this is a city in Romania, but at that time Romania and Moldova were one country) and she was not very happy with this marriage. She said: “Oh, as long as you have small children, you have small troubles, once you have big children, you get big troubles!". She said the whole family left the village when she was a teenager. Very impressive, but who was she??? I guess we'll never know...

I don’t remember exactly when, but at some point we got the information that Oliscani Jews could also be buried in Vadul Rascov, a town an hour from there. So we felt like going there to try to find the grave. Because of little time, we had to rush out again, this time from the Thimofte’s house.

We left Constantin at his place and headed for the police station. With a picture of the grave in his hands, Vladimir and his colleague were trying to find out where that place could be. Another piece of information was that Jews from that region cold also be buried in Floresti, a place farther away. At that time, we were completely exhausted. It was 5PM, and we had to decide quickly if we wanted to go to Vadul Rascov or not. Sure we wanted to go, but did we have the energy for one more hour driving to a place even farther from Chisinau?

After examining the picture carefully, the policemen assured that kind of grave didn’t exist in Vadul Rascov. I really wished we had more time and energy to go there. We thought about it for a while. Time was passing. It could be our only chance. It was up to us, I really didn’t know what to do, would it be worthy considering the situation? We had done more and gone farther than we ever imagined, but since we had gone so far, could we stretch a little bit? It was very hot, Natasha was working bravely hard all the time, my shoulder was already hurting bad from carrying the video camera… Tired, we decided to call it a day. I felt sad, but you can’t do it all. We left a copy of the picture in the police station, in case they find the place.

Vladimir worked hard for our cause and we wanted to give him some presents from Brazil. He said “If you want to give this to my kids and to me, you have to come to my house”. So we surrendered one more time to the Moldovan hospitality and warmth. Vladimir, who had a serious expression on his face all the time, as if he was in his most daunting police task ever, completely changed once we got to his place. He opened up this most friendly smile and introduced us to his wife and two little boys. We sat by the table outside and had… guess what? Food and home made wine.

Vladimir told us about their life, he feels that a person shouldn’t leave its birthplace; he/she should stay, build a family and help his/her town. I felt like that was a humble and simple family, who didn’t have much, but were very happy. I had the same impression with most of Moldovans. Moldova is the poorest country in Europe, but its people are very special.
Vladimir wanted to take a picture “his style”. What that would mean? He left the table and went in the back of the house. We waited a little and saw him coming out with three bunnies, one for my dad, one for my sister and one for me. And that was the picture. This closed our trip to Oliscani with a “golden key”, like we say in Brazil. I loved seeing that family, just happy of being a family. Vadul Rascov – next time!
The houses, streets, people in Oliscani are very simple, but fascinating to a foreigner’s eye. You don’t see cars, you see horses. There’s no pavement. In front of every house, a well. In every house’s roof, a different ornament. Progress hasn’t reached it yet, and things are as authentic as they can be. Oliscani stopped in time, but its memories were engulfed by time as well.

For dinner, I think we went to eat in a very nice restaurant in Stefan Cel Mare (the main street in Chisinau), very touristy. The service was weird and it took forever. That was part of my observations, that Moldovans are still learning costumer service, and find themselves in a mind set of transition. So they are able to use certain things and behave in a different way than during communism, but they’re still learning how to do it.

I had a goulash, my sister had pasta. For dessert, my dad had a cake.

Next: Sorocca and seeing Volodya Tolpolar for the first time.

REZINA AND OLISCANI

We have a picture of my grandfather and his brother (Shlomi’s grandfather, Yeshaya) beside the grave of their parents, in 1930. It’s black and white, you can read the inscriptions, but we don’t know where the cemetery is. My great-grandparents, Meyer and Ene Tolpolar, harvested tobacco and had a grocery store in Oliscani. They were killed by their own employees, who wanted to rob them. According to my grandfather, the killers were arrested. In their graves it’s written in Yiddish: “Here resting in peace husband and his wife that were killed in their own house Enia-raisa, Efrayim's Daughter and Meyer, son of Chaim Tolpolar, that were buried on 6 January 1930”.

Victoria Stoiciu, a contact I made through the internet and born in Oliscani (but now lives in Bucharest), told me Jews from Oliscani used to be buried in Rezina, a village close by, and there never was a Jewish cemetery in Oliscani. So we headed to Rezina first, to try to find the grave.

The new cemetery in Rezina looks well kept, it’s partaken with the Catholic cemetery. Jewish people started to be buried there in the 50’s. Naum Cleinic, the head of the Rezina Jewish community, guided us through. We walked a little in the area, but couldn’t find any relatives. So we went to the old cemetery.





The old Rezina cemetery doesn’t have any gates or people looking after it. It’s all in the open, overlooking the Dniester river and the (in)famous region of Transnistria, which self proclaimed an independent country and is not acknowledge by any other nation. When Moldova became independent in 1991, this region still wanted to have Russian “ties”, and after a civil war, it stated its own independency. Transnistria has a communist regime, its own money currency and stamps, not usable and recognized anywhere except for there. What Moldavians regret is that all industries of former Soviet Republic of Moldova, were in Transnistria, and once it separated from Moldova, it kept them all. So it’s a richer place than Moldova. Yes, you need a visa to get in, but nobody knows where to get it. When reading about it, it seemed pretty much a surreal place I’d love to visit. We didn’t go there, and this deserves a separate chapter.



Natasha mentioned she has never seen a cemetery in such a bad shape as this old one in Rezina. Most graves are partially broken, encrusted in the ground, torn, impossible to identify. The grass is tall, covering everything; it’s difficult to walk around. It all gives an odd charm to it, but this does not help us. Even if my great-grandparents had been buried there, there was no way to know. So we left to Oliscani, a bit mesmerized by the inevitability and power of time. Between the old stones and the sight of Transnistria.

There were about 15 thousand Jews in Rezina, today it’s 30 total.

My grandfather, Abram Moishe Tolpolar, was born in Oliscani, in the Soldanesti region. His parents were also born in Oliscani, a remote village in Northern Moldova. The tourist agent that provided us with the invitation to get the visa said Oliscani didn’t exist. Was it all part of our imagination? As far as I could understand, the Tolpolars came from there. Before that, I don’t know, maybe Poland, or even Spain. But Oliscani was the farthest reference in time of my ancestors. And all of a sudden I was taking a picture with my father and sister in the entrance of the village, where a sign with the writing “Oliscani”was standing. I was sure it existed.


Next: being in Oliscani and our quest for the Tolpolar grave.

Wish you all a great 2009.