When my father-in-law saw that he finished the five grades, and he was preparing for the doctorate, he said: ‘Well, I have no hopes anymore.’ Thus everything got open for him, and he gave him money to buy himself a dinner-jacket and patent-leather shoes, since he had to wear already that collar and patent-leather shoes. And he gave him [money] to rent an office. But not too much: he bought a typewriter and a cheap sofa with two armchairs. My father-in-law went further, he got up on the cart, next to the coachman, and he told everybody he was delivering the goods: ‘If you have any problems, I have a lawyer son in Marosvasarhely, go to him, he will solve it at a low price.
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Bella Steinmetz
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The fact is that a nice Romanian gymnasium was built, it still exists in Beszterce, that they glazed in for free. He received for this a document saying that all the Almasi children can study there for free. This was very convenient for my father-in-law, he had two sons [apart from Andor]. He sent both of them to the grandfather, and they attended there the Romanian gymnasium. I know nothing about his time in Beszterce. His benefit was that the county-court was placed in Nyaradszereda, and the former lawyers didn’t speak well or didn’t speak at all Romanian, they all studied at Hungarian universities, and my husband spoke Romanian perfectly. In the morning he was helping my father-in-law, and in the after-noon he went to offices to translate from Romanian to Hungarian, from Hungarian to Romanian. That’s how he finished the five grades.
My husband didn’t want to [take over the business] at all, therefore his father didn’t give him any assistance. He provided him lodgings and meal, nothing else. Thus the poor fellow could hardly finish the five grades. My husband spoke Romanian perfectly, despite the fact that he was born in Nyaradszereda.
My husband, Andor Almasi was already enrolled at the university in Kolozsvar, he was a correspondent student. He studied to be a lawyer. He got his doctoral degree in Kolozsvar [at the University of Law]. Nagyvarad, Iasi and Kolozsvar had such universities. Back then one didn’t have to get a doctor’s degree in all places, Kolozsvar emitted the diploma only if he took his doctorate. Fortunately there wasn’t any university in Marosvasarhely yet, that’s why it was cheap, it was a small town with 45 thousand inhabitants.
I finished school in 1927-28, I already knew my husband, because his elder brother, Izold Almasi was a bank director for a while in Toplica. He moved then to Kolozsvar, he was transferred there to a bank. He had a family and children. There is a photo too, my husband is on it with his brother’s son in front of the Matyas statue [in Kolozsvar].
In the theatre I watched operettas with Hanna Honty, Kalman Latabar, I watched all [the repertoire] every autumn, I was in the theatre every evening. No matter if the boys came or not – but usually they did. For four weeks performances went on from seven until nine, by the time one came out from the theatre it was half past nine. Sometimes one or two waited for me after the show, and we went together to a café, we drank a simple coffee or a champagne-and-soda. And we were listening to a performer who sang couples, poems set to music with piano accompaniment and bass drum. There were famous performers, for example Vilma Medgyaszai, she was like Edith Piaf. Her performance was magnificent. And there were Gypsy children bands with hundred members. I remember the Emke café, but they didn’t play there, there was a café next to it, and the Gypsy children played there. The Emke was more commercial-like, I used to have breakfast there and read the newspaper to find out what they would be playing that night in the theatre.
I had so many suitors. I learnt a lot from them, since they all were cultured kids. They took me to performances. I heard there for the first time what a reciting choir was, and I heard the famous reader of Hungary – I don’t remember his name. But they took me not only to gaffs, but we went in the after-noon to elegant hotels for a five o’clock tea. A piano and a violin, soft music. We ate a cake or a chocolate, and we set there for two hours. I went out with them, they were suggesting: let’s go here or there in the after-noon.
My father had holidays in winter, he visited my grandfather in Maramarossziget for about three or four days, from there he went to Torokszentmiklos, to his younger brother. He was very rich, he had two huge factories in Torokszentmiklos. They adored each other. They went to Pest together, and had fun, they went together to the theatre, but mainly to clubs. Commercial Club was its name. It was a very elegant club – a huge house in downtown, with marble stairs, – where transactions took place too. I was with them once. And people were playing cards, but not the ‘here’s the red, where is the red’ type, but it was funny, and they were playing five or six hours long. In the meantime my uncle established business connections. He didn’t have any children, and he was always trying to persuade daddy to give me to him, so that he adopted me, saying that daddy had a son too. ‘You’re completely nuts! Have you ever heard about a Jew who had two children and gave one for adoption? You’re not in your right mind.’ They didn’t talk to each other for days, but then in today words he sponsored me, he invested a lot of money in me.
Usually women didn’t discuss politics, but there was a Jewish Women Association in Marosvasarhely. It didn’t have branches in smaller settlements, like where my parents lived.
My parents didn’t discuss politics, as far as I know. I know only one thing, dad was a great Kossuth follower. Before the war I didn’t know what politics was, I wasn’t interested in it, I was such a blockhead. But I was engaged in music, literature, languages, I was living an average [middle-class] social life.
We never celebrated Succoth, since I was always in Marosvasarhely because of my studies. While dad was alive, I went home at Shavuot and Yom Kippur, after his death I didn’t go at all. After that we celebrated here in Marosvasarhely. I wasn’t at home on other holidays, but they observed them surely. It consisted of a different [more ceremonial] meal. I don’t know for which holiday they prepare fritter, maybe at Pentecost. [Editor’s note: Fritter is prepared at Chanukkah, because Jews prepare meals fried in oil for Chanukkah.] The fashion [custom, tradition] is that they eat mainly milky, but fine things. Mammy prepared milky lunch, potato soup with sour cream and varga strudel-cake, and cake with sour cream or pudding also with sour cream. Mammy prepared very tasty things.
Dad didn’t go to the office at high holidays, at Shavuot and Yom Kippur.
And in the women’s room tables and chairs were installed, that was the custom in villages. Before praying we all took breakfast. I don’t know what the procedure is in the very observant communities, but we took breakfast. We went there with mammy. Mammy went up at nine o’clock, me at ten, half past ten and at one, at half past one it was over, and we left. We walked there, anyway this was the single way. And after that we had lunch, then we rested.
But dad rented a large room, where the Banffy baths are today, I think it’s transformed into a restaurant now. In the autumn, when we had holidays, dad rented it, I think on his own expenses, and they celebrated there, because there were many Jewish workers at the enterprise. There were at least 30-35 Jewish families there. And all the men went to the synagogue, and women too, but in a separate room. They had a Torah, he sent for a chazzan, they had everything. The room had glass above, like a glass door let’s say, and it was open, so the chazzan’s prayer was audible.
Sometimes I entered the synagogue for one hour or two. For example there was a synagogue in Toplica.
On Sabbath we had a good lunch. Dad didn’t go to the synagogue, he had to go to the office. My mother didn’t go to the synagogue on Sabbath, only on high holidays: at Pesach and at Yom Kippur.
My mother never waited the Pesach, because she had to be prepared all the time. The table was covered all the time with white table-cloth, a glass of wine on the table – we always had wine at home. In the mornings guests dropped in – they weren’t all Jews – that ‘Aunt Helen, could we get some latkes?’ They knew that it was Pesach at aunt Bacher’s or aunt Helen’s, and she had delicious latkes. She had a big baking dish in the summer kitchen – not in the interior kitchen, thus all the apartment would have been full of the smell –, the girls were frying it there, they knew as well how to do it, they brought it in a large plate with sugar on it. Three or four employees ate all in two minutes, and they drank a glass of wine. They adored this latkes. In some cases we didn’t put icing sugar on it, but my mother put pepper. They loved it even more with pepper. I like it with pepper as well, my father ate it so too. Only mammy ate it with sugar.
At Pesach we had guests. There were many employees, many young men in the factory where dad worked. And we had a special meal, the ‘hremzli’ [latkes] or potato pancakes: mashed potatoes, eggs and matzah meal fried in goose fat. Jews didn’t use any other kind of fat.
At Pesach we didn’t have bread or any kind of flour for eight days. We didn’t have rice or semolina. My mother put dumpling made of matzah meal in the soup: many eggs, pepper, salt, it had a bit of goose fat too, it thickened, and it was cooked in the soup alike the dumpling. It gives such a good taste. Sometimes when my vegetable soup is flavorless, I make soup with matzah meal dumpling, because it gives a good taste.
We had Pesach cake, but we didn’t eat of it, because one can’t eat milky food after meat. I don’t know, maybe after four hours after meat one can eat milky. My mother always prepared orange cake with orange cream, and it had coconut butter. But sometimes we had nut cake with orange cream. Sometimes she put an orange into the dough, two in the cream: the skin and the juice of the orange. It is very delicious. Next day we had coffee for breakfast, and we chopped the matzah into it. At New Year Ilka [Editor’s note: The woman who takes care of Bella Steinmetz] ‘stole’ my recipe, as I have a recipe book, and she surprised me with an orange cake.
Romania
Only among very Hassid Jews women go to the synagogue. It’s not compulsory for women.
Romania
Both were the same. Especially the children weren’t bored by this, because they got presents twice. It happened sometimes that after dinner, after I got my present, I fell asleep. We always had very fine sweet wine, I drank a bit as well, as we saw it from dad, and I fell asleep. Dad kept on reciting with mammy. Mammy was just sitting, she didn’t pray. In fact women don’t have to recite any prayers, everything falls to men.
We had two eves of Seder. They observe two in Europe, and one in Israel.
We observed Seder eve. There is a prayer book, the Haggadah that has to be recited and explained. And there is everything on the platter: horse-radish, one boiled egg, green parsley, nut [and apple] mixed with wine in a small glass. And when he [my father] was speaking about it, he showed it, why the matzah was there, that the Pharaoh chased out the Jews so quickly, that they didn’t have time to let the bread rise and to bake it, but they were running, and when they arrived on the plain, they rolled it out and dried it on the sun. That’s how the myth of the matzah was born. We had already learnt it, the bocher who had taught me, explained me all this, but I saw at home in my childhood. And it has an element of play too, he [the head of the family] smashes a piece of matzah and puts it in a napkin. The dinner is over, but in the meantime he has to go out three times to wash his hands. While the father went out to wash hands, the child hid it, always the smallest, because it’s a game. So daddy is searching for the matzah, where could he put it, but he doesn’t find it. ‘Where is the matzah?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Where is the matzah? Now, give it to me!’ ‘I won’t give you, daddy!’ It was always me who hid it. My brother was rarely there for Pesach. And we started to negotiate. ‘Daddy, I know where it is. What would you give me for it?’ Well, he offered me, let’s say five penny. ‘No, I won’t give you for that money.’ ‘Well then, I’ll give this or that sum.’ Finally we came to an agreement, ‘You’ll get this.’ I know that once I was twelve, and I asked for a piano… And dad said: ‘Well my child, dad doesn’t have so much money.’ ‘Dad, save up the money, but promise me that you would give me.’ In fact I and my mother had agreed that dad had already saved up the money [for the piano]. So he promised that in one or two weeks ‘I’ll go to Marosvasarhely and buy you the piano.’ And I was so happy, I gave him the matzah, and everybody was given a bit of it. Children waited this impatiently, you can imagine, where there were three or four children, all of them got a present, because they all said ‘I know as well! I know as well!’ But it was the most interesting for the youngest, for a twelve years old child it wasn’t that interesting. It was a game for him too, because of the negotiation, and they asked something too. Dad asked the four questions, and I always answered them – I knew the answers more or less, but I read it out from a book in Hebrew. Dad asked me in Hebrew, he translated it into Hungarian, and I answered in Hebrew.
We did big housecleaning only at Pesach, because then we had to change every pot, otherwise we did just ordinary cleaning. And everything had to be washed, the drawers in the kitchen had to be cleaned from every breadcrumb. And we had to put out every pot we had used during the year. My mother observed this one strictly. The servants worked with my mother, and she checked if everything was alright. We had a large apartment, there was a great store [some kind of shed] above the summer kitchen, where the kneading troughs and the chopping boards were, that was their place [of the Pesach pots]. Whoever had a loft, they put it there. We brought down from the loft the Pesach pots. That’s how I still have some of my dear mammy’s stuff, as we put them up as well at my place, when she moved here in 1942.
We didn’t do [big] cleaning on Fridays. We did it when we had to. Our house was clean, we had two servants at home.
The Jews, the Orthodox, when they eat bread, they say a prayer, they thank God that they can eat a piece of bread. There is a separate broche for the meat, there is a prayer of thanks over every meal. I forgot some things, I observe the basic thing: the lighting of candles on Friday evening. Everywhere, even if I stayed in a hotel in Budapest, I lighted candles even there. I have a small folding candlestick; it can be carried in a handbag. And nobody ever asked, nor the chambermaid, nor the waiter, nobody why I was doing that, because they knew. Certainly I wasn’t the only one who did this. I wasn’t kosher: I ate here and there, but there were traditions that I observed.
Romania
On Friday evening mammy lighted two candles. There was a specific prayer she recited. I light candles too even today. I light two candles for seventy-two years. I recite that prayer in Hebrew, as it has a prayer. These prayers are called broches.
We called this challah in the family. They baked two challah for an ordinary Sabbath. And the custom was that they put the challah one next to the other, it was covered with a tablecloth, my father took it down and cut it into slices, and he gave a small piece for everybody. That’s how it started. But we didn’t salt it. We dunked it once, at Shavuot. But not into salt, but we had honey in a little pot, daddy gave everybody a bit. It is a symbol, so that the new year would start sweet and well. We were a small family, four maximum, as my brother didn’t come home every time.
Mammy was a housekeeper. They observed all the high days according to the Jewish religion. Friday morning mammy cooked the Friday dinner – what she prepared depended if it was summer or winter – and she cooked for Sabbath as well. Friday evening we had fresh dinner – for us [Jews] every holiday starts in the evening, and it ends next day, when the star rises. For example we liked fish very much, and Friday evening we had fish in aspic, tee for those who wanted and challah. The challah wasn’t milk loaf, but dough kneaded with water. The difference was that the challah was made of whites, and it was twisted to make it elongated.