We have to cross a huge boulevard, and on the way, let’s introduce you to Arnold Leinweber, who was born in 1920 and who paints quite a picture of growing up in this very neighborhood. Mr Leinweber was interviewed for Centropa by Anca Tudorancea in 2004.His story is read for us by Allan Corduner in London.Let me tell you about what it was like back in the 1930s here in Dudesti and Vacaresti, and aside from having so many Jewish families, Bucharest had any number of other nationalities. For instance, Albanians and Turks passed by on the street yelling ‘Cool braga” which is a beer made from millet, “cool braga!’, and they carried a huge tin on their backs with a sort of pump, on which they would lean to fill the glasses they’d hand you. There was this other Albanian merchant who sold green and red peppers on a stick, and sometimes he sold these red, sweet lollipops on a stick, which I couldn’t get enough of. Of course, the kid who had money would buy one of these, and while he was licking it, the rest of us would just stare at him, wide-eyed. Then as you walked along, there were the men from Oltenia selling fruit and veg from their stalls. They would sell on credit, marking the debt in red chalk on the door frame, from where no one would have dared remove it. They would say: ‘It’s all right, Ma’am, you’ll pay me when you have the money!’ You have to understand that people were really poor and had no cash. The milk lady used the same chalk marks.In the afternoon, another man from Oltenia would come – he sold fish on credit and there was also the man who sold an exceptional thick, hard yogurt – only seeing him slice a portion made your mouth water.Since electricity hadn’t been introduced in people’s homes yet, you had to buy your charcoal from men who walked along with their carts yelling ‘Get your charcoal! Get your charcoal!’People would rush out of their homes with tin buckets and load up. Charcoal was as vital to our lives then as water, which, now that I remember it, was carried along on water-carts and sold by the bucket.In the mornings, merchants rode through the neighborhood with their horse-drawn wagons over loaded with fruit and veg, all headed for the big marketplace.We, the kids, followed alongside and cried: ‘Won’t you give us a tomato or a pepper? May your horses live long! Won’t you please, please give us a watermelon, Mister? May your horses live long! May you have a good sale at the marketplace!’These people were good-hearted by nature and they would toss us peppers, eggplants, tomatoes and water melons. We would eat the tomatoes and the watermelons right the spot, just on the street. We’d also pool everything together and when we had extras, we brought them home.The first time I came back home with my shirt all stained from watermelon and peaches, my mother was shocked: ‘What happened to you?’ she said and she was getting ready to slap me. ‘How could you beg?’  ‘Well, all the other kids were doing it!!!’ which, of course, is the line that kids have used since the beginning of time.