Born July 29, 1932   |   Bucharest, Romania   

Died August 2, 2021   |   Tel Aviv, Israel

Mariana had a love for classical music, art, and connecting with people. She was a beloved physician who knew how to put a smile on every face. 

Mariana grew up in Bucharest with her older brother, Cornel. She never forgot the newspaper headlines announcing racial laws targeting Jewish citizens after Romania joined the Axis alliance in 1940. Forced to wear a yellow star, Mariana was soon expelled from school. Her parents were stripped of their professions, and the family was forced out of their home and into an increasingly crowded Jewish designated zone. During the Bucharest pogrom of 1941, more than 125 Jewish people were tortured and murdered, some of their bodies left hanging on hooks in a slaughterhouse. The Catz family was spared because a landlord courageously hid them in his apartment, prevented his son-in-law from betraying them and turned away the legionnaires who came looking for them. Mariana spent her formative years running from one place of refuge to the next, always fearing that the Nazis would come for her family.

Following World War II, Mariana’s family remained in Bucharest, enduring hardships due to continued Jew-hate under the Communist regime. Mariana married Holocaust survivor Dolfi Grisaru. When the couple applied to immigrate to Israel, Mariana was forced to leave medical school just a few months before she would have graduated. Thanks to a letter sent by Dolfi, UNESCO intervened, and Mariana was finally granted her medical degree after six years. In 1975, Mariana, Dolfi and their children, Silviu and Daniela, were finally permitted to “make aliyah” (immigrate) and they settled in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya. For 20 years, Mariana worked as a beloved physician, providing care to Jewish and Arab patients alike. One of her greatest joys was her role as savta to six grandchildren who today live in Israel and Canada.