I worked as an independent trade union secretary in the KSH [Central Statistical Office] for three years. The Party Headquarters sent me there. They didn't send just anybody there, only those who worked out of real convictions. We did all kinds of things: we organized members for the trade union, set up kitchens and social care institutions. All those who are still important people in the KSH were already there at that time. Then I was sent to the Headquarters of the Public Servants' Trade Union and I was involved with the trade unions there as well. I worked for quite a number of years in the trade union movement. I retired from there.
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Displaying 13471 - 13500 of 50826 results
Panni Koltai
I was a party member until the dissolution of the Party [the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party]. I didn't join the MSZP [Hungarian Socialist Party], I'm too old for that. Back then I didn't miss out on anything, I was involved in everything. But I don't remember any more what exactly we did in the Party.
Karcsi went to school close to us, to the Istvan Gymnasium [one of the top high schools of Budapest, especially strong in mathematics]. And he went on to the Technical University. My son isn't circumcised. Because my husband said no, although his family had been very religious [in his childhood]. We didn't hide it that we were Jewish. This simply couldn't be a secret in our family. I'm sure that Karcsi heard anti-Semitic remarks at school and was surprised at them. But we didn't feel it in his behavior. We didn't observe Jewish holidays, but we didn't have a Christmas tree either. Karcsi didn't miss it, either, he never asked us to have one. I always went to the synagogue on high holidays. This wasn't a problem. I think they must have known about it [at the trade union]. But I'm not sure. I don't know about us having to be afraid because of this. When I could, I would take along Karcsi. Pista never came. Karcsi is interested in the Jewish religion but not as much as his children. They went much farther than their parents. Karcsi doesn't go to the synagogue.
We have been on holiday everywhere where we got a holiday coupon - in Yugoslavia, Romania, the seaside, East-Germany. We came home from there and the wall went up the next day between the two halves of the country. [The interviewee refers to the Berlin Wall.] These were all guided tours, organized by the trade unions. They were great, and I had my share in everything because I always got rewards. It could never happen that I wouldn't go on a holiday - with my family, of course. We went on holiday somewhere within Hungary every year. I didn't ask for the holiday coupons, I was given them. Honestly, it was really like that back then. It's not like that any more.
Andris graduated from the University of Economics majoring in international relations and Robi graduated from the Department of Informatics of the Technical University. Andris is working for a company in Germany, he coordinates for them. He is about to move back to Hungary; his contract is over. Robi works as a computer specialist. He has worked in Italy. He works as an informatics specialist at a subsidiary of the Siemens Company now.
I haven't been to Israel because I have been too worn out to go. Karcsi has been there. And both my grandchildren have been there; Robi even worked in some factory there.
I have nothing to say about the change of regime in 1989. I can't follow what's going on any more. I have gradually come to feel that I don't understand anything and I don't want to, either. Sometimes I go straight up in the air when I watch TV, so I don't want to hear about politics any more.
The Pollak grandparents also lived in Eger like us. They lived in a typical Jewish building. There was a big, shabby apartment building by the stream, and many Jews, different types of Jews, but mostly poor Jews lived there. I had many friends from there. Grandfather Pollak was a haberdasher, as they called it back then, so he traded in dry goods. He started trading and going to fairs when he first came to Hungary, so the Pollak relatives were a line of merchants.
I remember my grandmother; as far as I remember, my grandfather wasn't alive any more when I was small, but I have a photo of him. He had a beard, but he didn't have payes. They weren't bigoted, despite the fact that they were Polishi. Grandmother always wore a wig, even at home. And she was bald under her sheitl. I don't know if she had a special wig for the holidays but I'm pretty sure she did. She must have had one because they were very fussy about these things. My mother didn't wear a sheitl. She kept her hair after she got married. She had nice ginger hair; she was a very beautiful woman.
My mom, Aranka Friedmann, nee Pollak, was born in Eger in 1887. She must have finished elementary school but I don't know how many classes of it.
We used to go on holiday to Kal. It was a very interesting village, very sandy, full of fine warm sand, and we used to go around barefoot.
Aunt Szeren was deported. The last week before the Germans occupied Hungary I went to visit my parents, and Olga was also going home, and we ran into each other in the train. I was already married by then and so was she, and we were very happy to see each other. But we were very sad because we had a kind of premonition that something very bad was going to happen. It was so horrible to feel already back then that there was no escape. We knew it.
Uncle Lipu was born in 1867. He was quite wealthy. There was a haberdashery in Eger, the biggest Jewish business, which was Uncle Lipu's. Uncle Lipu looked almost like anyone else in the Pollak family - they all had round Jewish faces. But he was blond and one could see that he had longer payes. The Pollaks were all ginger-haired. And we all inherited this, we were all blond, my sisters and I. Uncle Lipu had a beard, they [the male members of the Pollak family] made sure that they all wore a beard. He also had a hat but the Pollaks didn't display their religiosity so much in their appearance. They really observed all the religious precepts. There had always been some disagreement between Uncle Lipu's and our family because Dad was a more modern Hungarian Jew. My father also had a mustache [like his father], and he paid special attention to twirling it; he was a very meticulous man. He dressed in typical Hungarian clothes as well. His shoes were always shining. So, he put great emphasis on his appearance. Uncle Lipu died of a natural death in Eger before the war.
Aunt Giza had three daughters, two of them were still alive not so long ago, living in South-America. Maxi and Giza both survived the war. They had been deported to Auschwitz. They left for Australia after the war.
The Friedmann line came from Heves County. My grandfather, Samuel Friedmann came from Varaszo, where he was born in 1845. He lived in Recsk, and he had a tavern and a butcher's shop there. I can't tell you whether it was kosher or not. As far as I remember, they slaughtered the animals and sold them. Recsk is a small village near Paradsasvar. There weren't many Jews there. But there was a synagogue there; there were synagogues back then, even in smaller places.
I knew my paternal grandfather very well. He was more like a 'peasant Jew'. He had boots and a peasant hat, in one word, he dressed in an up-country way. Grandfather had a very handsome mustache. He didn't have a beard; he didn't care about the outward signs of religion. The villagers called him Uncle Samu, and loved him dearly. He had many friends, who liked him very much. They didn't cheat on people, they were honest [straightforward merchants]. In the village he had Jewish and non-Jewish friends, but mostly Jewish because they used to get together in the synagogue.
Looking back I can see now that my grandmother wore typical Hungarian clothes. She wore dresses that any rural peasant woman could have worn: several skirts on top of one another and blouses. She wasn't really very different from the other rural peasant women.
They weren't so strictly religious there in Recsk. The Pollak line wore sheitls, they were more religious; the Friedmann line wasn't that religious. They observed all the Jewish holidays; all Jews kept all the holidays in those days. It was unthinkable for them not to observe the holidays. But some people observed them more to the letter than others.
My grandfather had his own house. The tavern belonged to the house. It was a two-bedroom house, a proper brick house. So they couldn't have been too poor. In most apartments there was a children's room. All the children lived there; it didn't matter how many boys and girls a family had. And the parents usually had their own room. We lived like this and the Friedmann line did so as well. My grandparents heated the house with wood and coal, and they used a kerosene lamp. When I moved to Cece [in 1937] we still used a kerosene lamp there.
Aunt Juli was a poor woman and her sons paid for their tuition themselves. All three of them became educated men. Bela became a lawyer. He courted my sister Piri; it was customary at the time for someone to marry his cousin. Bela went to South America and settled in Buenos Aires. He had participated in the Hungarian Soviet Republic 1 and he had to flee later. He was hiding in Eger and before he fled from Hungary he came to say goodbye to us.
The second Korosi boy, Jozsi, became an engineer. His wife, Klari, was a Jew from a very religious family in Upper Hungary 2. They ended up in the Soviet Union for some reason. He was arrested there and taken to Siberia, I think, and he perished there. His wife and son repatriated in 1956.
Dad is from Recsk. But he was born somewhere else, maybe in Erdokovesd. They moved to Recsk when he was a little boy. He came to Eger at the age of ten and became a tailor's apprentice. He was sent to Eger because there was no tailor's workshop in Recsk.
feiga tregerene
David's death was a hard blow for me. In 1994 my children sold my apartment to take me to Kaunas. I am very ill. I haven't been out for almost two years. I feel like a very old, tired and lonely person, though I am not that old. I am a member of the Jewish community, but I am not in a condition to attend Jewish events. I speak with my sister Hanna and my daughter-in-law Rachil on the phone. They are my closest friends. On this Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah I wish joy, prosperity and happiness to the Jewish world!
My daughter Chaya graduated from the Faculty of Cybernetics of Kaunas Polytechnic College. She married Motl Rozenburg, a talented engineer. This was a pre-arranged marriage, but my daughter and her husband are happy. She has two children: son Elan, born in 1977, and daughter Elena, born in 1983. Elena has finished a medical college this year. She wants to continue her education to acquire her Master of Medicine degree. Chaya works in a private company and is making good money. Motl works at the design institute where he started his career. Elan, my grandson, finished a medical college. He married Lisa, a Jewish girl. In 1994 he realized his grandfather's dream and moved to Israel. He's become a true Israelite, a religious Jewish man observing his ancestors' covenants. Elan and Lisa have a lovely daughter. Her name is Michalia. She is my great-granddaughter.
Our children had their own families by that time. Both of them got university education. Simon graduated from the Siauliai Teachers' Training College. Working as a teacher at the school for children with special needs, he received additional education and was promoted to headmaster of this school. Simon married a Jewish girl. A mixed marriage was out of the question in our family. His wife Rachil was a sanitary doctor in Kaunas. Simon and Rachil have two daughters: Taube, the older one, and Liana, the younger one. In the mid-1990s my daughter-in-law had problems at work. She lost her job, eventually. She insisted on emigration, and a few years ago my son and his family moved to Germany. The girls entered a college there. They are completing their education. Taube married a Russian man. They have a son. His name is Georgiy. He is my great-grandson. Liana married Igor, a former USSR citizen. They have no children yet.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My husband always dreamed of Israel. During the period, when emigration to Israel was no different from a funeral, my husband or I couldn't even dare to think about Israel. Neither of us would have been allowed to move there. We had special permits to access secret documents. When perestroika [20] began and Lithuania regained independence [21], relocation to Israel was made possible, but my husband was severely ill by then. He had stomach cancer, but even in his poor condition he was dreaming of stepping onto the land of Israel, kneeling and kissing it. David's dream was not to come true. My husband died in 1992.
We had many friends. Most of them were from the intelligentsia of Zarasai. Despite our membership in the Party we never neglected Jewish traditions. It goes without saying that Sabbath or the kosher way of life were out of the question, but we always bought matzah for Pesach. Initially we bought it in the apartment where it was made secretly, and later we had it delivered from Vilnius. There was no synagogue in Zarasai or Birzai after the war. However, we got together with our friends to celebrate holidays. As for fasting on Yom Kippur, I still follow this tradition.
Our children had friends of various nationalities. They studied in a Russian school. I recall no cases of oppression my children faced due to their Jewish origin and identity. We had a friendly atmosphere at home as well. Simon and Chaya's friends visited our home. They knew they would always receive a warm welcome here. My husband's salary enabled us to have a decent life. Each year we spent vacations in Palanga. These vacations were paid for by trade unions. There were no theaters in Zarasai, but we took every opportunity to attend tour performances. We took trips to Kaunas, Vilnius, Moscow and Leningrad [today St. Petersburg, Russia]. We led an active cultural life. Many people were surprised that my husband had no car or dacha [19], considering his positions that allowed many to accumulate a fortune. However, my David was a crystal-honest person. He was a decent man in everything he did. We didn't even have money to buy a cooperative apartment. We lived in his parents' home for a long time. In the late 1960s the Lithuanian consumers' association provided an apartment for us.
We had a very good life. My husband was paid well, and we had all we needed. In 1956 my daughter was born. We gave her the name of Chaya after my mother. However, when the girl went to school, we started calling her Raya [18]. We were raising our children in the Jewish way. Since their early childhood they were aware of their uncles' death. We told them about the memorable, sad and tragic events of Jewish history. Every year on 27th August we took our children to the place where my husband's parents died. Jews from all over Lithuania used to arrive there: from Kaunas, Vilnius and other towns. My husband and his brother established an initiative group to collect funds to immortalize the memory of the deceased ones. The monument was installed thanks to Jewish contributions.
In March 1953, when Stalin died, I was shocked at how my fellow employees were grieving. They thought life wasn't possible without him. I worked at the district committee for 30 years before I retired. It goes without saying that I couldn't avoid the party membership working at the district party committee. Therefore, I joined the Communist Party some time after I started my career there. However, I was just a nominal member of the Party. I wasn't involved in any party activities or events. Basically, I've never been interested in any politics or public activities. I believe this to be a waste of effort and time. It's better to dedicate more time to one's family, children, friends and books, if you ask me. My life is my children, my house. As for whatever public things, I couldn't care less. Perhaps, this attitude makes me feel lonely and exhausted nowadays, but this is the way I am, and one can hardly do anything about it.