We had to drink wine from a glass, and we had to break the glass after that. This is the ‘Mazel Tov’. The ceremony ended with this. The rabbi shouted 'Mazel Tov’, this meant good luck to you or something like this. But it was a really stunt. I didn’t like it at all. But seriously. The rabbi told us in Hebrew that we could kiss each other, and then we went to the dining room. There was an enormous ‘U’ shaped table, we sat at the head of the table but there was only one place setting. When I noticed that I asked: ‘Who wouldn’t eat, me or my husband?’ ‘You have to eat from the same plate!’ I began to laugh like a drain...It was ‘gold soup’, meat soup in fact, and I remember exactly that really looked like the gold, and one of us could eat with his/her right hand and the other with the left. I don’t know how we did it, but we laughed more than we ate.
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Anna Eva Gaspar
They stood the groom under the chuppah and I had to walk round him. I had to walk round him three times, and my poor grandmother stumbled over something. The guests stood round the chuppah. And of course the neighbors were there also. There were only a few Jews in that area.
And I found out later that the men had to put on a white tallit or something like this. But he didn’t put up that on his suit, he put it up under the suit. So he married in a black suit.
And so we became friends and he began to court me. He was older than me, and when I graduated he was summoned to forced labor. He spoke with my mother, because he was afraid that he would lose me. He told that if he went to forced labor, I marry somebody else, and better we married before he joined the army. We had to marry because of this. There were such things then. My mother wasn’t agreed, she opposed the marriage tooth and nail: ‘My daughter, don’t do this!’ Try talking with an girl in love... And I don’t know even now, why mom got agree, although we were very young. Perhaps because I wanted so. The fact is, that we married in 1943 in Nagyvarad.
And then the Germans took him to Poland. After I came back, [from the deportation] I went to Kolozsvar and I inquired about him… but his whole troop disappeared. He and his classmates, a troop with 25 members disappeared. They joined the partisans? They were shot by the partisans? Maybe the Germans caught them? I shall never find out. I hoped that the Russians captured him, and he will come home from somewhere. I hoped for a very long time. But in vain… And the most terrible thing about it is, that I don't have even one photo with him.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
He was 20 when he became forced laborer and he was taken to Nagybanya. And I never saw him again. He was in Nagybanya for one, one and a half year. We corresponded with him, and we sent packages monthly. His letters were censored.
My parent’s marriage wasn’t a subject of conversation, it took place probably in Zerind, but I don’t know exactly. They had both a civil and a religious marriage, and it was particularly difficult for them to divorce. Jews usually didn’t separate the couples like the Catholics. [Editor’s note: The comparison is incorrect because the Catholic Church forbids the divorce. Anna Gaspar referred to the fact that the Halacha strictly regulates the divorce procedure. The Halacha doen't recognize the civil divorce, the divorce procedure must be conducted under the supervision of the bet din (the Rabbinical Court).] It took quite a long time, but my grandparents insisted on the divorce. After they divorced, my mother assumed again her maiden name, and was registered as Olga Weiss. After they divorced, my mother remained single and so did my father. My mom’s photo was all the time on my father’s desk. He claimed my grandmother was the one who separated them. To be honest, my grandmother was a damn bad woman. It’s not nice to say this, but she was a very bad woman. And I believe she separated my parents. But I never found out why.
They divided the grandfather’s estate during their life. Each child got his/her share and lived on that. My uncle built a house in Tasnad and bought land from his share. They managed my mother’s estates as well, and she got some share after her those lands. We lived very well on that.
They divided the grandfather’s estate during their life. Each child got his/her share and lived on that. My uncle built a house in Tasnad and bought land from his share. They managed my mother’s estates as well, and she got some share after her those lands. We lived very well on that.
‘I remember now, I was the sadhen…! I arranged for your mother to meet your father, but then I heard that the marriage went wrong.’ I don’t know where he knew my father from, but it doesn’t matter. But he blamed himself for that. Around then the parents made kind of a fair, and traded what they would bring in. What could one feel for a stranger? Nothing. There wasn’t any courting. My mother became a fiancee, and then they made arrangements for the wedding. It was a great wedding, I think. They married around 1917-18.
My mother’s name was Olga Weiss, she was born around 1890. She was the only girl of her parents. She attended the Catholic school and high school from Nagyvarad, but I don’t know why. There are things I remember and I realize I reconciled with everything. I agreed with everything they did. Why mom was raised by nuns? Her parents were in Zerind, she was in Varad, and she attended the convent there. I don’t know why. I am sure this she was so warm-hearted because nuns raised her. She graduated the high school, although the girls weren’t really used to graduate then. She knew only one Romanian sentence: ‘Merge la padure’ [Goes to the forest]. She didn’t speak Hebrew neither, but she knew German. In our family everybody knew German [we learnt from the governess].
My mother had a third brother, uncle Herman Weiss, who remained in Zerind. His wife wore a wig, her father forced her to do so before the war, but then she took it off. I was a big girl when he got married, it happened around 1933. He wasn’t deported neither, because he lived in Romania, and they emigrated to Israel in 1948. The Jews were taken from the villages to Arad. And they lived there during the war, but then they moved back to Zerind. He wrote me in a letter what he found in the two houses, and how many wheat and corn there was in the granary… so he wrote down all the wealth and he said it would all be mine...
Romania
The other brother, uncle Wili, lived in Szilagy county, not far from Nagykaroly, in a village called Tasnad. He built a family house there and he was a farmer. He married the wealthiest girl from Varad, a girl called Leitner. She was the wealthiest girl and my uncle married her. So there was plenty to bite on. Money wasn’t a problem for them. They had two daughters, Agi and Evi. They were deported and their parents didn’t come home. None of them. The girls didn’t come home, neither. When the girls were liberated, the Swedish soldiers asked them, who wanted to go to Sweden. The girls didn’t want to come home, and they spent one or one and a half year in Sweden. They met their future husbands there, one of them went to America, the other to England. One of them died in America.
Romania
My mother had three brothers, she was the only girl among her siblings. At that time we all had our own governess [Fraulein] for the boys and for the girls. This was in vogue in the elite families, and we belonged to those. My mom’s oldest brother was Bela Weiss, he lived in Kolozsvar. They had a distillery on Arpad street 38. I spent many holidays there, mostly the Christmas holidays. They were wealthy, but they had no children. My uncle married auntie Irma, an extremely decent woman, they were full cousins, the mother of auntie Irma was the sister of my grandfather. She became pregnant, but there were complications, premature birth and thrombosis, and the baby died. And the doctors told them they couldn’t have more children. When my brother started the seventh grade, my uncle came to us and he asked my mother to give him my brother. He wanted to sign over their wealth to him, and he said a boy needed a father, a man, to raise him. And my poor mother cried so much after my brother… but enough about this. And my brother finished the high school in Kolozsvar, and he was taken away to forced labor from there. I never saw him again. They didn’t adopt him, just raised him.
Romania
My grandparents always spent the winter in the town, in Varad. They were old and they had to be under permanent medical supervision. They were in Varad when the annexation took place, and that’s why they were deported. If they remained in Zerind, they would have avoided the deportation… But unfortunately they were taken away. When this happened, my poor grandfather was around 83-85 and my grandmother 74.
Romania
I never heard my grandfather discussing politics. My grandparents were not interested in politics. All what I know is that my grandmother Regina sat down near to the radio, and when Hitler spoke, she scolded him all the time. This was their only political manifestation.
My grandfather was a religious, honest and reliable man. The father of his son’s wife always told him that ‘You are a…’ – it was a special expression for that and it meant he was not a believer, although they met in the synagogue almost every Saturday. He disesteemed my grandfather because he wasn’t so deeply religious. He observed the religious rules generally, but he wasn’t a bigot… he did only what was necessary. I think he didn’t cheat anybody during his life. He didn’t wear payes, he had nice white hair. He had a small, white goatee. He wore a hat. He always had a problem with my brother because he didn’t wear a cap: ‘Laci, you lost your head again! Where is your head?’ Especially when we sat down, and my grandfather said the prayer, then we had to put on a cap.
I also loved Chanukkah. It had such an intimate atmosphere. There was a special candlestick, the chanukkiyah, which had 8 candles instead of 7, and they lit every day one more candle. My mother didn’t light candles, I think my grandfather lit them. There were eight plus one candles, he lit one of them, and the others using this one. [Editor’s note: The first candle was the shammash.] It was forbidden to light every candle with match. They always gave presents to the children at Chanukkah. But not only at high holidays. They were very open-handed. To be honest, they were wealthy enough to be open-handed, but my grandmother was a avaricious woman. I wasn’t on good terms with my grandmother, I couldn’t accept her temper. She was so avaricious that when they brought in the terrine, and my mother drew out the soup for everybody, she looked into the terrine and said what was left was not enough for the housemaids. And she took the water-jug and poured water in the soup. I stood up from the table and I wasn’t willing to eat together with her anymore. These things irritated me terribly. She was very avaricious indeed. If she was poor, I would have understood her. My poor husband used to say when I didn't buy something for me: ‘I can tell you are your grandmother’s granddaughter’ – and this was the worst scolding I could get from him. So I didn’t love her, I know it’s not nice to say such things, but she was a bad woman. As good as my grandfather was, so bad was she, with everybody. She was angry all the time because she had to do this and that, to cook separately for that kid, this was me, but she went to the pantry [in secret] and she ate enough. She, alone…
My favorite holiday was Purim. Purim is a high holiday. If I remember well, we had to eat eight kinds of fruits. They were winter fruits, there was St. John’s bread, and that is a kind of fruit too. We had to get eight kinds of fruits. They observed this. And we, the children, were very happy. They got bananas, oranges, apples, plums and I don't know what else... [Editor’s note: Anna Gaspar confuses the customs of two subsequent holidays.
At the holidays of fall we made a tent in the yard, in our garden from Varad, because the grandparents were already in Varad in the fall. There was a kind of summerhouse which had a removable roof, they covered it with twigs and so they converted it into a tent. But we never ate there. My grandfather used to pray there, several times a day, but we didn’t eat there because it was too small. My grandfather never ate or slept there. Children used to decorate the Sukkah. I decorated it together with my brother, we used colored paper, branches and flowers… But it was a really pleasant place for sitting, but it was forbidden to go there when my grandfather was praying. It wasn’t a large place, it was a small summerhouse. Otherwise it had furniture, a table with chairs, but it was small.
The really big ceremony was at Pesach. Before Pesach there was the chametzing. My mother spread crumbs and my grandfather gathered them with a small dustpan and a brush. He had to go to every room to gather the crumbs. And then they brought down the Pesach dishes from the loft in a big chest. The Pesach dishes were a different service. They changed the chinas, the glasses, the cutlery, the cookers, absolutely everything. Nothing remained from the everyday ones. They put the everyday ones aside and took out the Pesach dishes. The Pesach dishes were a Rosenthal service, the most famous china. I don't know exactly whether they were made in Germany or Austria, but I think the Rosenthal chinas were made in Austria. We couldn’t use wheat or yeasty flour at Pesach, but we could buy potato flour from the store. My mother made yellow cake from that…I didn’t eat it and I will never eat that good yellow cake, made from potato flour. She made it like the normal cake. She mixed the egg-yolk with sugar, put in the mousse and the flour. And from this a yellow cake is made. And then one can put coca in it, or nuts, but the base is that yellow cake. And it had to contain flour. But instead of flour she put potato flour in it, but that wasn’t that dry, but this yellow cake was quite dry, and has a much better taste, at least I liked it better. There was a label on every food-product that ‘sel Pesach’. We had special milk; we couldn’t buy milk from the store, we got the milk from the Jewish Community and that was Pesach milk. We did it in the same way at my grandparents, in Zerind and in Varad also, because they lived in Varad since 1940. The chicken are taken to the shochet and he slaughters them, right? It was forbidden to eat it, the shochet had to see it first whether it was kosher or not. There was a shochet in Zerind. He slaughtered the cows and the sheep and all the other animals too.
At Pesach the first evening is the eve of Seder. On the eve of Seder all the family gathered in Zerind, and we sat to the table in the enormous dining room, it was a very long table there, my grandfather sat at the head of the table in a large armchair and he leaned against the armchair, because one had to lean sometimes to the right, then to the left, just as it is written in the Haggadah. [Editor’s note: According to the Haggadah, during Seder eve one has to lean aside to eat what’s on the table. The Haggada provides an instruction for this in the section starting with ‘Mah nisstanah’ (What is the difference? i.e. between this night and the others): The fourth question of Mah nishtanah: ‘Why is this night different from the others? On the other ones we eat sitting down and leaning, but this night leaning.’ The custom of leaning comes from the Roman custom according to which the free, full citizens used toe at leaning on pillows. The Jews gain their freedom at the holiday of Pesach, when they managed to get free from the pharaohs rule. The custom of leaning on pillows symbolizes the status of freedom. There is no chalakhic rule for this. One has to lean to one side, but according to some traditionsone has to lean to the left and to the right, but this has no chalakhic motivation.] My oldest uncle, Bela, together with his wife, sat on my grandfather’s right-hand side. They had no children. On my grandfather’s left-hand side there sat uncle Vili with his wife, then my mother and my youngest uncle with his wife and we, the children. We were four, my two cousins, my brother and myself. We sat at the other end of the table. All the grandchildren were there. My grandfather sat on the head of the table and he led the Seder. That was a great experience. He told us what to do: we had to eat this and drink that. And of course we, the children, used to giggle, because we didn’t care too much… We sat at the other end of the table, and we played silly pranks, but it was very impressive… Not really because of the religiousness, because I'm not religious at all, I couldn't believe in something after what I went through, but the grandparents imposed us the ceremony. The plate I have now in front of me is a special china plate, a large white plate with a few dents. In every dent there were different vegetables, horseradish and parsley and I don’t now what, but to be honest I didn’t really care. But my grandfather gave it to me to put them between two matzot, and that matzah was a special matzah, not this thing we eat now. They were thick and handmade, not machine-made ones. The other matzot, the ones we bought, were machine-made, but those from the top of the plate, separated with table napkins, were special ones...
My grandfather had a big, silver goblet, the boys a smaller one, while we had a little one, but also made from silver. That was in front of us, and we had to drink from it when my grandfather told us to. It was a really intimate atmosphere. We put a separate goblet for Eliyah. That one was an even bigger goblet. There are so many things that were wiped from my memory, and I don’t really want to think about them, but I remember the table very well. Everyone’s face was in front of me. Although I had no photos of my uncles and aunts or anyone else, I can still see them even now. Everyone had a silver goblet. I was very upset because aunts had smaller goblets than the uncles. Feminism was already working inside me. From the head to the other end of the table the goblets became smaller and smaller. But it was only allowed to use those goblets at Pesach, on Seder eve.
We had to say the mah nishtanah, and my grandfather read the Haggadah in Hebrew. We didn’t understand it, nobody explained it to us. They told us if we didn't understand something we only had to ask and they explained it. But who cared? We were children. Adults always told the children what they had to do, so we did the same. I remember we had to dip our sins with our little finger in the glass and shake it off to get rid of them. And when one of the children, I don’t remember who, put his/her finger in his/her mouth, my grandfather scolded him for that, because he/she could remain with the sin in this way. He explained it something like this. At mah nishtanah they always asked another child’s name, and he/she answered. We, the children, had approximately the same age. One of my cousins was born in 1923, the other in 1924 and my brother in 1921. So we had almost the same age, and we always decided who would say the mah nishtanah. My grandfather asked who would say the mah nishtanah. In fact there are some questions in the mah nishtanah regarding how/why we did this or that. It is a crying shame that I don’t remember the mah nishtanah, even though I finished the elementary, the middle and the high school in the Jewish school. We had religion classes and separate Hebrew classes, taught by that poor Leichmann, and we learned how to write and read in Hebrew, but I don’t remember anything now. One of these days it occurred to me that I don’t remember even the Hebrew letters. But then they asked the mah nishtanah in Hebrew, the booklet was in front of us, but it was written with Roman letters. Not with Hebrew letters, to avoid the confusion. In a word we had to read it out if we didn’t want to stammer.
There was a ceremony where one of my uncles distracted my grandfather's attention, and we had to hide a piece of matzah somewhere in the room. He didn’t have to know where the matzah was, he just told that the person who hid it to bring it back. It wasn’t so strict that he had to find it. Usually a child hid it, and he gave it back, in exchange for a present. A kilogram of chocolate, or anything you asked for… I know my brother requested some writing utensils, because he always wanted to learn. There were no computers and this kind of things. I think my cousin asked for clothes, but I don't know exactly... But we had everything we needed. Every year it was a different grandchild who stole the thing we had to hide, and he/she got something for it …, he/she gave it only in exchange of a present.
We opened the door, and we waited for the Messiah to come in. [Editor’s note: According to the liturgy Elijah is expected, who is the messenger of the Messiah’s coming.] A really funny thing happened once. There was the new part of the house, my uncle built it. It was near the old house, and we had to go up ten steps to the corridor. And the apartment opened from the corridor There were many rooms there. And they opened all the doors, the door of the dining room, the front door and the outer door. And who came in? A cow popped in its head through the door. I’ll never forget this. Everybody was so shocked about how could this have happened...? They surely took up the coachman for that. The cows were in the stable, and probably this one wasn’t tied well, nobody knew, I don’t remember, but I know it was a great fuss because of that, and they sanctioned the coachman. And the cow popped in its head. But only its head. I can almost see it even now, it had a mottled chop, but you could imagine the face everyone made. My grandfather told that if he was superstitious, he had to believe that the soul of the Messiah moved in a cow. But he didn’t believe in such things… he opened the door for the Messiah. Well, this was funny event. And I related this to my religion teacher, and he enjoyed the story also. This really happened.
At Pesach the first evening is the eve of Seder. On the eve of Seder all the family gathered in Zerind, and we sat to the table in the enormous dining room, it was a very long table there, my grandfather sat at the head of the table in a large armchair and he leaned against the armchair, because one had to lean sometimes to the right, then to the left, just as it is written in the Haggadah. [Editor’s note: According to the Haggadah, during Seder eve one has to lean aside to eat what’s on the table. The Haggada provides an instruction for this in the section starting with ‘Mah nisstanah’ (What is the difference? i.e. between this night and the others): The fourth question of Mah nishtanah: ‘Why is this night different from the others? On the other ones we eat sitting down and leaning, but this night leaning.’ The custom of leaning comes from the Roman custom according to which the free, full citizens used toe at leaning on pillows. The Jews gain their freedom at the holiday of Pesach, when they managed to get free from the pharaohs rule. The custom of leaning on pillows symbolizes the status of freedom. There is no chalakhic rule for this. One has to lean to one side, but according to some traditionsone has to lean to the left and to the right, but this has no chalakhic motivation.] My oldest uncle, Bela, together with his wife, sat on my grandfather’s right-hand side. They had no children. On my grandfather’s left-hand side there sat uncle Vili with his wife, then my mother and my youngest uncle with his wife and we, the children. We were four, my two cousins, my brother and myself. We sat at the other end of the table. All the grandchildren were there. My grandfather sat on the head of the table and he led the Seder. That was a great experience. He told us what to do: we had to eat this and drink that. And of course we, the children, used to giggle, because we didn’t care too much… We sat at the other end of the table, and we played silly pranks, but it was very impressive… Not really because of the religiousness, because I'm not religious at all, I couldn't believe in something after what I went through, but the grandparents imposed us the ceremony. The plate I have now in front of me is a special china plate, a large white plate with a few dents. In every dent there were different vegetables, horseradish and parsley and I don’t now what, but to be honest I didn’t really care. But my grandfather gave it to me to put them between two matzot, and that matzah was a special matzah, not this thing we eat now. They were thick and handmade, not machine-made ones. The other matzot, the ones we bought, were machine-made, but those from the top of the plate, separated with table napkins, were special ones...
My grandfather had a big, silver goblet, the boys a smaller one, while we had a little one, but also made from silver. That was in front of us, and we had to drink from it when my grandfather told us to. It was a really intimate atmosphere. We put a separate goblet for Eliyah. That one was an even bigger goblet. There are so many things that were wiped from my memory, and I don’t really want to think about them, but I remember the table very well. Everyone’s face was in front of me. Although I had no photos of my uncles and aunts or anyone else, I can still see them even now. Everyone had a silver goblet. I was very upset because aunts had smaller goblets than the uncles. Feminism was already working inside me. From the head to the other end of the table the goblets became smaller and smaller. But it was only allowed to use those goblets at Pesach, on Seder eve.
We had to say the mah nishtanah, and my grandfather read the Haggadah in Hebrew. We didn’t understand it, nobody explained it to us. They told us if we didn't understand something we only had to ask and they explained it. But who cared? We were children. Adults always told the children what they had to do, so we did the same. I remember we had to dip our sins with our little finger in the glass and shake it off to get rid of them. And when one of the children, I don’t remember who, put his/her finger in his/her mouth, my grandfather scolded him for that, because he/she could remain with the sin in this way. He explained it something like this. At mah nishtanah they always asked another child’s name, and he/she answered. We, the children, had approximately the same age. One of my cousins was born in 1923, the other in 1924 and my brother in 1921. So we had almost the same age, and we always decided who would say the mah nishtanah. My grandfather asked who would say the mah nishtanah. In fact there are some questions in the mah nishtanah regarding how/why we did this or that. It is a crying shame that I don’t remember the mah nishtanah, even though I finished the elementary, the middle and the high school in the Jewish school. We had religion classes and separate Hebrew classes, taught by that poor Leichmann, and we learned how to write and read in Hebrew, but I don’t remember anything now. One of these days it occurred to me that I don’t remember even the Hebrew letters. But then they asked the mah nishtanah in Hebrew, the booklet was in front of us, but it was written with Roman letters. Not with Hebrew letters, to avoid the confusion. In a word we had to read it out if we didn’t want to stammer.
There was a ceremony where one of my uncles distracted my grandfather's attention, and we had to hide a piece of matzah somewhere in the room. He didn’t have to know where the matzah was, he just told that the person who hid it to bring it back. It wasn’t so strict that he had to find it. Usually a child hid it, and he gave it back, in exchange for a present. A kilogram of chocolate, or anything you asked for… I know my brother requested some writing utensils, because he always wanted to learn. There were no computers and this kind of things. I think my cousin asked for clothes, but I don't know exactly... But we had everything we needed. Every year it was a different grandchild who stole the thing we had to hide, and he/she got something for it …, he/she gave it only in exchange of a present.
We opened the door, and we waited for the Messiah to come in. [Editor’s note: According to the liturgy Elijah is expected, who is the messenger of the Messiah’s coming.] A really funny thing happened once. There was the new part of the house, my uncle built it. It was near the old house, and we had to go up ten steps to the corridor. And the apartment opened from the corridor There were many rooms there. And they opened all the doors, the door of the dining room, the front door and the outer door. And who came in? A cow popped in its head through the door. I’ll never forget this. Everybody was so shocked about how could this have happened...? They surely took up the coachman for that. The cows were in the stable, and probably this one wasn’t tied well, nobody knew, I don’t remember, but I know it was a great fuss because of that, and they sanctioned the coachman. And the cow popped in its head. But only its head. I can almost see it even now, it had a mottled chop, but you could imagine the face everyone made. My grandfather told that if he was superstitious, he had to believe that the soul of the Messiah moved in a cow. But he didn’t believe in such things… he opened the door for the Messiah. Well, this was funny event. And I related this to my religion teacher, and he enjoyed the story also. This really happened.
But Saturday was a very important event. It was not my grandmother who prepared things, I don’t want to show off, but we had a house-maid and a cook, and they did everything. My grandmother only told them what to do, and they did that. The cook was a villager, so she went home every day, but there was a house-maid who helped her, and she did the housework. On Saturday it was forbidden to do anything, we were allowed only to read the prayer book. I read it, but I didn’t pray too much. But it was forbidden to tell the house-maid to ‘turn on the light’ when it was getting dark. It was forbidden to sew as well. In a word we could do nothing, because my grandfather didn’t let us. I spent the time with reading, and I used to go out for a walk. I was a child, and I went with my girlfriends. I didn’t stay at home on Saturdays, I went home just for lunch and then I went away again.
On Friday evening my grandmother brought out a Menorah, she lit all the seven candles and she prayed. She held her hand above it and she mumbled the prayer. My mother [at home] lit only two candles, separately, but I don’t think she prayed. My mother wasn’t religious. And then came the dinner, which itself was a whole ceremony. For side dish we had fish aspic, and then meat soup, roast and a meal called ‘ritschet’, which I didn’t like at all. It was a specialty made from bean and gershli, but I did’t like it, and my grandmother always scolded me because I didn’t eat it. Then we had fruit. But it was a great dinner, it always commenced quite early, because, you know, the candles were lit already at dusk, and lasted quite long. Grandfather graced us, he put the shawl on my head and the cap on my brother's head. He always took up my brother, telling him ‘Laci, where is your head?’ This meant he had no cap, he wasn’t wearing it. And he graced all of us, first my grandmother, then my mother, my brother and I was the last. This happened before dinner, after the candle-lighting. He said the 'broche' for everything. I think I knew some broches then, but now I don’t remember any of them. You had to say broche for every dish and for the fruit also. And then you had to mumble something.
They prepared the cholent for Saturday. On Friday the house-maid took the cholent to the baker, to put it in the stove. It was always a big question mark how the cholent would be. For example I liked it more juicy. My grandparents liked it toasted. We competed with each other – but usually I won. And there was kugel in the cholent, they removed the skin from the gooseneck, but they didn’t cut it, and they stuffed it until it looked like a sack. After I came home I always tried to find out how they made the stuffing, but nobody could tell me. I liked the kugel very much, boiled in the cholent, and when the bean became toasted, the kugel became toasted as well, and then they cut it up. It was delicious, I loved it. They baked the cholent in a pot, which was covered with paper. The servant had to go after the cholent on Saturday at a fixed hour. On Saturday we had cholent, soup, meat, and all kind of meals. My poor grandfather liked very much to eat, he had two strokes, both of them after Saturday. Finally my mother didn’t let him eat fatty things, she cooked garlic soup for him, but when my mother turned away, he always took the dip from the meat soup terrine and he put it in the garlic soup, to make it tastier. We ate in the room, of course, not in the kitchen. Now we eat in the kitchen. But then we didn’t go to the kitchen at all. Grandma didn’t really go to the kitchen, she just gave out the instructions. My mother did. The eating was a ceremony in itself.
On Friday evening my grandmother brought out a Menorah, she lit all the seven candles and she prayed. She held her hand above it and she mumbled the prayer. My mother [at home] lit only two candles, separately, but I don’t think she prayed. My mother wasn’t religious. And then came the dinner, which itself was a whole ceremony. For side dish we had fish aspic, and then meat soup, roast and a meal called ‘ritschet’, which I didn’t like at all. It was a specialty made from bean and gershli, but I did’t like it, and my grandmother always scolded me because I didn’t eat it. Then we had fruit. But it was a great dinner, it always commenced quite early, because, you know, the candles were lit already at dusk, and lasted quite long. Grandfather graced us, he put the shawl on my head and the cap on my brother's head. He always took up my brother, telling him ‘Laci, where is your head?’ This meant he had no cap, he wasn’t wearing it. And he graced all of us, first my grandmother, then my mother, my brother and I was the last. This happened before dinner, after the candle-lighting. He said the 'broche' for everything. I think I knew some broches then, but now I don’t remember any of them. You had to say broche for every dish and for the fruit also. And then you had to mumble something.
They prepared the cholent for Saturday. On Friday the house-maid took the cholent to the baker, to put it in the stove. It was always a big question mark how the cholent would be. For example I liked it more juicy. My grandparents liked it toasted. We competed with each other – but usually I won. And there was kugel in the cholent, they removed the skin from the gooseneck, but they didn’t cut it, and they stuffed it until it looked like a sack. After I came home I always tried to find out how they made the stuffing, but nobody could tell me. I liked the kugel very much, boiled in the cholent, and when the bean became toasted, the kugel became toasted as well, and then they cut it up. It was delicious, I loved it. They baked the cholent in a pot, which was covered with paper. The servant had to go after the cholent on Saturday at a fixed hour. On Saturday we had cholent, soup, meat, and all kind of meals. My poor grandfather liked very much to eat, he had two strokes, both of them after Saturday. Finally my mother didn’t let him eat fatty things, she cooked garlic soup for him, but when my mother turned away, he always took the dip from the meat soup terrine and he put it in the garlic soup, to make it tastier. We ate in the room, of course, not in the kitchen. Now we eat in the kitchen. But then we didn’t go to the kitchen at all. Grandma didn’t really go to the kitchen, she just gave out the instructions. My mother did. The eating was a ceremony in itself.
My grandfather built a Jewish temple in the yard of their house. It wasn’t a synagogue, just a prayer house. It wasn’t allowed to build storeyed houses, I don’t know why, but there was a separate hall for men and women. I was a child, I didn’t go to the temple, but I saw people coming on Friday evening, and they were quite many, around 40-50. The ceremony took place according to the Orthodox ritual. A rabbi used to come there on high holidays, but he didn’t live in the village. There was a chazzan, but there was no rabbi. The temple was only open on Fridays, Saturdays and on holidays, on weekdays people used to pray at home, at least those who did...
My grandfather was Orthodox, a strict one. He observed the Sabbath, the Pesach and all the other holidays. He used to pray every morning, he wore all the religious clothes on his head and his arms. When they visited us in the town, and we lived in the same place, he never missed the morning prayer. He was deeply religious. I saw him praying in tallit. I got out of the room, but my presence never bothered him. It was mandatory to read the prayers. Once I asked him why, if he has to say the same prayer every morning. You are not allowed to recite it because you could omit a word. That’s why one has to read it. And he read the Talmud almost all the time. He read a few Hungarian novels as well, he was allowed to. He always used to say these novels had only two kinds of outcome, the people [the characters] either died or got married. He was a very educated old man, I was the only one who argued with him quite a lot.
There was an administrator. The wholesalers used to come and buy from us. There was a completely different world then. My grandfather gave up farming and my uncle took over. In fact, they just managed the estate. And each part of the estate had a responsible leader. My grandfather just managed things. He did the paperwork, and he only dealt with the large enterprises and the suppliers. They didn’t bother with small things like retailing. And to be honest, I was a child and I didn’t care. Not to mention that after we were annexed to Hungary, and Zerind remained in Romania [Editor’s note: It was in southern direction from Nagyvarad, so it belonged to Southern Transylvania.] I didn’t go there anymore. The border was there. Until then we went to Zerind by train, so I got used to travel with the train since my childhood. I sat near the window and I stuck my head out, I remember that the wind got in my eye, but I wasn't afraid.
After the graduation he learnt chemistry, because my uncle decided that my brother will inherit the distillery from him. The distillery still exists in Kolozsvar. My brother finished the middle school, and at age 16 he went to Kolozsvar, to my uncle’s family. They had no children. I went together with mom to visit him in Kolozsvar, before he became a forced laborer. This happened around 1942… And then I saw him for the last time.
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This was supposedly the best school in Kolozsvar. He went in for sports also. We used to swim and skate in the same place, we always went together until he lived in Varad.
My brother also attended school in Varad, the Jewish high school. He finished the tenth grade there, and then he went to Kolozsvar, to the ‘Liceul Pedagogic Universitar’
In 1941 I had my own camera already, I got it as a birthday present from my uncle, my cousins' father, uncle Vili. My mother said that the photography does not look nice for a girl. But I wished a camera. Agi and Evi knew this, and they told their father. It was made by the Agfa company, it was like an accordion and I think that was a 6x6 format camera. I could make 12 small photos with my camera. It had to be operated with a long wiry thing [the cable-release], which I had to push and exposed this way. And how I rejoiced at my camera… I liked to take a photo about everything what lived and moved. I wanted to record everything and I took a plenty of photos. I think that I had some rolls of film which remained undeveloped.
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We went to Borszek by cab. It was expensive, but it didn’t matter. My poor mother didn't bear the serpentine road, she always felt unwell. We spent there maximum 3-4 weeks. We ate in the kosher restaurant. It happened that we were just two, my mom and me, but sometimes my two cousins from Tasnad were together with us also. Sometimes my mother went together with the three girls, and sometimes my cousins’ mother, auntie Tusi, that is the short form of Etus. We lived in a mansion, we had to reserve a room with four beds and I remember even now where the mansion was.
In 1937 we spent the summer holiday in Borszek, they took me there in every summer because I was a thin, puny girl and I needed a change of air. The doctor advised my mother to take me to Borszek, on the stipulation that we had to remove the drapery and the bedspreads, because those could contain bacilli. Not to fell sick. It was terrible how they protected me from anything, not to fell sick.
This happened every morning in the summer, from age 7 until I got married. And in wintertime I skated. I liked very much to dance also, and I used to go to rhythmic gymnastics together with my cousins, twice a week. I played tennis frequently in the summer holiday, because my uncle had a tennis court in the end of the garden.
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