After very emotional visit to my father's childhood home we continued and drove by Nicolae Ceaușescu's Palace which is The Palace of the Parliament . Located in central Bucharest, it is the largest administrative building in the world. Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian politician. He was general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989. He got executed on December 25th 1989.
From there we dove to Templul Coral which is Romanian for The Choral Temple, It is a synagogue located in Bucharest. It is a copy of Vienna's Leopoldstadt-Tempelgasse Great Synagogue. My mother, Stella my aunt, My brother Avi and I lit a candle for some of our family members that passed away including my dad.
We already had such an emotional day, but it was not over for this incredible day yet. We continued to Sinaia, I have been there when I was 12 years old and I remember it was so beautiful, that this place was embedded in my head for all those years. On the way we picked up our driver Daniel's beautiful wife Roxana, she is truly a darling and it was a pleasure to meet her. We were all in search of my father and his sister orphanage home. Since my grandmother couldn't afford raising them during the war by herself, she sent them to orphanage homes. They were in and out of them during their lives. We weren't sure again what to expect and what we are going to find. Much to our surprise we found the orphanage and it is still active and running. We asked to go in but only a few of us were allowed to go in and of course no filming. We decided it's going to be Stella my aunt, her daughter Yochi, my mom and I. We got there at their lunch time. There were kids of all ages sitting at the tables eating, what looks like a very good home made cooked lunch. I noticed they were having stuffed peppers which is one of my favorite dishes. I felt good about it, at least they eat good. Stella stood in the middle of the dinning room and started talking to the kids, very emotional and choked up. She had to stop a few times to catch her breath. It was very overwhelming for her and all of us. She told them that her and her brother used to be here just like they are, more than 60 years ago. They all sat down quietly listening to every word she was telling them. I stood there watching the whole thing choked up. I could not believe I was standing at the place I heard so much about all my life. I felt so sad for those kids that have no families to love them just like I do. I felt that I need to do something for them, I just didn't know what. I realized I have a big bag of candy I brought back from the States for my cousins. I ran down to our bus and got the bag of candy for them. I sure hope the people that work there did not take it for themselves. I pray they gave it to the kids. Stella left them $200 to buy them candy, again I pray they will get their candy. We got a little tour of the place, and than we left since we didn't want to disturb their lunch time. I am so blessed to be able in one day to witness so much of my fathers childhood, I am truly beside myself. This family roots trip to Romania exceeded all my expectations, never in my life I would think that I will be ever so lucky to witness all that. I now understand so much more of who my family is and who I am. God bless those kids, I wanted to take them all home. I hope one day they all will grow up to be happy and have their own families just like my dad and my aunty Stella did.
