First we lived in a one-room flat, which had a kitchen. Later we lived in a two-room flat. Two more siblings were born: Pista in 1924 and Klarika in 1926. Klarika was eight months old when our mother died. My father was left with eight children and got so ill that he could hardly work anymore. My elder sister, Jolan, was nineteen when our mother died. She took over the seven children and raised us.
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Displaying 18961 - 18990 of 50826 results
Ferenc Deutsch
My mother was a housewife. I was already making money for my family at the age of six. When we got home from school, I would tie a small box full of candies to my chest and go from coffeehouse to coffeehouse selling them.
My father was employed in Putnok by a Jew called Bernat Roth, who had a vinegar factory. The reason for his employment was that he had many children, and he had to do physical work. Later the vinegar damaged his stomach. We kept poultry in Putnok as we had a suitable yard, and my mother kept geese.
Until the age of fourteen all the children had their tzitzith. We could not have gone to school without the tzitzith. More than that, Mr. Weiss, our religion teacher, checked the kashruth of the tzitziths to make sure they weren’t posl (faulty), not torn or worn out anywhere. Those of us who had no (financial) means, received tzitzith from the community. Those who had money gave contributions for it, because the Putnok community supported the synagogue, the cantor, the rabbi and the teachers. They paid for them.
At the upper school we read only Rashi and Talmud for five years, four hours a day. The teacher who taught religion from the fourth form onwards was named Wiess. From the age of ten or eleven we went to learn Gemarah (part of the Talmud, commentary to the Mishna) on Sundays. That also was taught by Mr. Wiess, but that cost money so nobody from our house could attend the Gemarah classes.
It was very important for every Jewish child in Putnok to attend Jewish school. There was a state school and there was the Jewish school besides that. From the first form untilthe fourth form we learned Hebrew in the mornings, and in the afternoons from two until four or five we learned Hungarian. We were given food at the school: every day we got a glass of milk and a croissant in the morning when school started.
Yom Kippur was the biggest festival of all. I remember that our dear mother went to synagogue in her wedding gown. Though our father was not very religious, he still went to synagogue in kitl at Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Even though we were poor, all the children got new clothes for the festivals.
I tried to learn the reiningen (cleansing). This means that from bovines, calves or any other ruminants, only the front part of the animal is supposed to be eaten. There, mostly in the thighs, are muscles from which the blood does not pour out easily. The reiningen is that the veins there must be cut with a knife. I wanted to learn this work because it was well paid. But I had no time and later no will to do so.
On Saturdays, if we did not go to the synagogue for some reason, the children of the family got together. We had a prayerbook from which a certain part of the Torah had to be read for Saturday. We put on the talith or the tzitzith and then we imitated what we had seen the adults doing at the synagogue. We called each other up to the Torah; we said the mishe berach (blessing). This was sort of a game for us.
Nobody in the whole town worked on Saturday. At eight in the morning the prayers began and we were at the synagogue until noon. On Saturdays at noon, as the women descended from the balcony, I would take their prayerbooks, as it was forbidden for them to carry anything on Saturday.
I used to be invited to a Jewish family’s place. My father was working in their vinegar factory. I had lunch every Saturday with them, because they had two sons with whom I was friends. The lunch began with an appetizer of eggs and goose fat, and then there was meat soup or cholent. In autumn it was meat soup, and in the summer, cholent. Then there was a roast, and after that, cake. We had fruit too, because they were wealthy Jews.
Every Thursday, my mother, and later my sister, bought a goose that we took to the shochet, as there was a kosher butcher there. When my sister opened up the goose, we were standing around the table to see the liver, hoping for it to be big, because then we could sell it. A doctor or lawyer would buy it and we could buy the next goose for the following week out of that money.
We were considered very religious. My parents even took on a duty in the community. When someone in the town died, they would be washed – by my dear mother if it was a woman, by my father if it was a man. We were very kosher.
We were educated to love the Jewish religion. My father was less religious than he was a hard physical labourer, but he kept the Sabbath. Our mother, however, was very religious: she did everything to ensure that her children felt Jewish. All the children were taught to read Hebrew and all had to have their Bar Mitzvah.
I was six when we moved to Putnok. There were roughly 380 Jewish families there. We Jews lived in one area, but there was a strong hierarchy between us. Because of my poverty I could never have married in Putnok. From this point of view, there was no great cohesion there. The poor were looked down on. Putnok was a very observant town, with a very orthodox Jewish community. It had a yeshiva, they educated bochers (students) in Putnok. There was a very observant rabbi there. He was bearded and had many children. He wore a caftan, and he had tzitzith on it.
My Jewish name is Efrahim. I received this name, and my other name Ferenc, in honour of my grandfather.
We lived on the farm, in a house made of mud bricks. It was a very poor house, but still we were glad to have a roof above our heads.
My father doled out the payment to the workers. He had a position between that of accountant and storekeeper. Those workers were summas, the lowest category of hired farm labourer. They were not given money for their work, but they were paid with products. It was seasonal employment. They worked during spring and summer, but there was no work during winter.
My father joined the army as a hussar in the First World War. There he met a lieutenant, who had a rented estate near Nyiregyhaza called Rakoczi Farm. The lieutenant was a Jew and he liked my father so much that he took him to the farm. So that’s how we got from Diosgyor to Rakoczi Farm. Corn and wheat were cultivated there and there was a distillery as well. There they produced the raw material for a factory too.
Then he worked in Diosgyor as a boilermaker. That was rare among the Jews, because most of them were farmers in Szentistvand too, but he had to go to Diosgyor to find work.
They came back from Auschwitz after the war and they went back to their house. However, later they had to run away, because there was a pogrom in Karcag. They ran away to Israel in 1947.
My grandfather was an observant Jew and a prayer leader. He always had his head covered and wore a beard. My grandmother wore the sheytl (wig).
My maternal grandfather was named Ferenc Kortner. His family lived in Szentistvand, a small village near Mezokovesd. They were pottery merchants. They did not own a shop but they went to fairs to trade. They had a horse and cart, which they loaded with merchandise and took to market. They went from fair to fair. They lived in difficult conditions.
I stayed alone after that for six years, not thinking of a fourth. But I came home and met my wife. Her name is Edit Czitrom. She was born in Budapest and is a teacher. Her mother was 91 when she died and she my wife was with her mother until the age of 58. She did not want to leave her. We have a flat here and another in America; I’ve got a car, and a very good wife. What more could I want?
The widow was my intimate friend at first for nine months. I asked her to visit me in Hungary and then I told her that I wanted to marry her. The family was well off enough to try to talk me out of it, but I told them that I was family-oriented and I wanted to marry her. We decided to get married here in Hungary.
I was between life and death when there was war in Israel. I arrived in Israel at the most critical moment. I went to see my younger brother in Haifa during the Six-Day War. I was there only until the war started in earnest. A friend told me not to go. He had a position where he was well aware of the real political situation.
On Yom Kippur I did not work at Csemege. The director had a secretary. She had been a nun and we agreed about religion. OnYom Kippur I was at the synagogue on Dohany Street. I left and phoned her to ask if there was anything unusual. To this Magdi said: “Feri, dear, just get back and pray in peace, there is nothing.” She covered me whenever I was at the synagogue at Yom Kippur or other festivals.
My elder brother changed his last name to Deak. At this, my younger brother Deri and I said: “Our father was burnt in Auschwitz, and he was burnt as Vilmos Deutsch. I remain Deutsch. I do not want to give up my name. I do not want to give up my Jewishness.
She and I kept the festivals. We had the Jewish feeling, and never left the faith.
I had an agreement with the finance minister of the time, that I wanted money in deutschmarks. And so we went to other countries for my wife’s enjoyment. When she became ill, I retired before the required age.