[Page 538]

He was born in Beltz at the end of the previous [19^th] century. His father was not a native of Beltz. He came from Plonsk and his name was Plonski; however, in order to evade army service, he obtained a passport from someone named Wolman, who had died. The Wolmans were not from the oil-industry trade. Even their children did not study any engineering or technological subjects. The interest in oil manufacturing came to them specifically from the printing industry. The Wolman family had a small printing shop before they got the idea in their heads and took the initiative to build an oil processing plant. It seems that the oil industry, like the milling of flour, was a profitable line of work at that time, and many Jews of the area, those who had initiative and a bit of capital, were attracted to those branches of industry. Yisrael Wolman was also active in communal affairs in Beltz. He was the chairman of the Jewish hospital committee during the years 1930-1940.

The oil factory of the Wolman brothers was founded in the year 1924. The justification for establishing such an enterprise in the area was the large expanses of sunflowers that grew in Bessarabia during that era.

At first, the factory consisted of a department for hulling sunflower seeds and a department for pressing the hulled material.

The oil that was produced was intended for human consumption, whereas the press-cake, which still contained about 12–15 percent oil, was used as a base for preparing animal feed.

In 1928, a factory division for refining the oil was set up. The equipment was supplied by a German company, along with the appropriate technological information. This technological process is in use to this day as well, even though sixty-three years have passed since then. The process is called non-continuous [i.e. batch] refining. The refining process consists of several stages – neutralization of the oil, bleaching, and deodorization. That year, a division for packaging the oil was opened. In 1931, a plant for export of sunflower press-cake to Western Europe began operations.

There, oil production already existed that utilized the process of extracting oil with the aid of benzene. A cartel of oil producers existed in Romania. The enterprise of the Wolman brothers was the second largest in Romania. Its output capacity was about 25 percent of the total output of all the oil enterprises. The brothers Yitzchak and Yisrael Wolman were the owners and directors of the factory.

When Bessarabia was transferred to Russia in 1940, the two families of the Wolman brothers left Beltz and moved

[Page 539]

to Bucharest. They left behind all their property, but saved the lives of all their family members. Yisrael Wolman made Aliyah to Israel in 1950, and Yitzchak Wolman died in Bucharest in 1960. Yisrael Wolman worked at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in Israel from 1956 to 1962, and in the company for oil export from 1962 to 1976, until the age of eighty. He died in 1983 at the age of eighty-seven.

Yisrael Wolman, the father		Lazar Wolman the son

Lazar, Yisrael's son, is a chemical engineer, an expert in food manufacturing. He was active in the Maccabi sports organization in Beltz. He was active in the Zionist youth movement in Romania from 1944 to 1949, at which point their activities were banned by the Communist regime.

[Page 540]

A survey of oil manufacturing in Romania. The title page has a picture of the factory of the Wolman brothers in Beltz.

[Page 541]

A letter from the union of manufacturers in Romania to Yisrael Wolman, confirming that the enterprise was the second largest of the oil factories in Romania

[Page 542]

Ruvy Zimmerman

  Bălţi, Moldova     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2026 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 03 Sep 2026 by JH