During holidays and summer vacation I used to go stay with my aunt in Galanta [Sidonia Hertzova].
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Displaying 13111 - 13140 of 50826 results
magdalena seborova
The residents of Mocenok were mainly of the Catholic faith, we were the only Jewish family in town. Beside our house there was this house with eleven chimneys, meaning that eleven families lived there. One of them was a Gypsy family. They didn't all live under one roof [meaning they didn't live all together]. The house was divided into eleven sections. Each one had one room, a kitchen and a stable. The Gypsies didn't have a stable. Eleven families in one house. Almost all of Mocenok lived like this. In some places there were only three families and in some, more. We lived with the aforementioned Bendiks. We had excellent relations with them, but we didn't have conflicts with the other neighbors either. Our house was located on the main street. There was a bus stop close by.
My father wasn't a member of any political party. No farmer, what's more one that had had everything stolen, was a party member. Those were terrible conditions. Someone on a disability pension wasn't of interest to anyone. During Communism they took everything away from us.
Sabbath was observed every week. My stepmother always dressed up, everyone was nicely dressed. We had a cooked supper. Otherwise at suppertime we had the same thing as for breakfast - coffee with milk, and bread. But for this holiday we really did cook, even with those modest means. We also performed the Havdalah, but we didn't have one of those nice colored candles, only a white one. My father poured some slivovitz [plum brandy] over something, lit it on fire, and we enjoyed the aroma of that 'spice box.' Then we went to have a look at those three stars. We didn't have a Jewish calendar. At our house we did everything, but I can't say that I had some sort of love for it, because on the other hand my fellow citizens humiliated me. I took it as some sort of punishment.
During Yom Kippur my father fasted all day, and was only in the synagogue. During Passover we ate matzot and prepared seder. My father usually led the service, but my stepmother also knew how to do it, because she had observed holidays with her first husband as well. It didn't look like my father had to guide her. At our place the service was done only in Hebrew. Most of our prayer books were written in Hebrew.
After the war my father remained an Orthodox Jew. In everyday life it manifested itself in that he prayed with those straps - tefillin. He always wore a hat.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Our fellow citizens regularly broke the windows of our house, that was routine.
I remember that at one time religion was compulsory, up to I don't know which year, when school reforms took place. On my report card in the 'religion' column I had 'unclassified.' At one time I also attended Catholic religion classes, but I've got to say that the deacon, or whatever he was, was really disgusting. He spoke in a very anti-Jewish way, how we'd crucified Christ and so on. During that time, when religion class was being held, I walked around the courtyard even on the coldest days, rather than listen to that.
In prewar times there had been a smaller Jewish community there, but I'm not sure if there had been a synagogue. In childhood I thought one building could have been it. It wasn't later that it dawned, when I was talking with a friend, who found out that she's one quarter Jewish and didn't even know it, that the town also had a Jewish school.
Grandpa preferred to go to the old-age home in Bratislava. It was true poverty, we had nothing to eat, only what grew in the garden. Before we'd had fields, we also had flour in sacks at home. We got a commission on the peppers we raised. We handed in the peppers in sacks; I don't know how much the peppers could have weighed. We had fruit growing in the garden, which we made preserves from.
Our daily routine began with morning hygiene. We had to wash and pray. They watched over us, so that we wouldn't make a mistake in Hebrew. After the morning cleansing we had breakfast and then went to school. The school was across the street, there where Nesporova Street is, down a few steps and then there's Podjavorinska Street. That's where I went to school.
Once a week we'd go to the theater and to Grossling to the covered swimming pool. We also used to go to the movies.
I remember how they moved us out, already during Communist times, the few of us that were left at the end. Most of the children left, and suddenly there were only a few of us left in that three-story building. The building belonged to the Jewish community, but back then no one asked them whether or not they'd give it up or not. They made it into an apartment building.
We had a three-room house with a kitchen and workshop. The house also had a larder. We had electricity, but not water. We had a well in the courtyard, but as I've mentioned, it was bad because of the neighbors. There was an artesian well not that far away, back then I was healthy, I carried forty pails of water and we'd do the laundry.
Right after the war we lived on whatever we could grow. We had rabbits, a cow, goats. In the garden we had corn, plums and potatoes, all kinds of vegetables. We could make preserves out of it, so that's what we ate. And when it ran out, we'd sell a piece of furniture or part of the garden. And were nicely cheated in the process.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
We didn't have a lot of property, but they returned it to us.
My father always told me that Czechs are decent people, because they brought us food and water when those trains were sidelined. We left Sered for Terezin. As I later found out, it was the last transport from Slovakia that aimed for Terezin.
I wasn't my parents' only child. My brother was born in the concentration camp, but died in four days. It was in Sered.
My mother spoke Slovak, Hungarian and German.
I know that my aunt from Galanta was in hiding, she wasn't in a concentration camp. She was in hiding with someone in Plavecky Stvrtok.
I think that he joined the army at the age of 16. During the First Republic, while he was still single, he worked as a superintendent of a farm in Mocenok.
He was 40 when I was born. It was wartime, in hiding, a while here, a while there. We even hid in Austria.
My grandfather [on my mother's side] also knew how to speak Gypsy [Roma]. When we lived in Mocenok, Gypsy women would often come begging at our door, and he'd normally be able to talk to them. He knew Hungarian and German, and my father even spoke Serbian and Croatian. During the time of Austro- Hungary it was necessary.
What do I think about the division of the republic [the division of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic in 1993]?! There's always been more swine than troughs. I'm not a minister, or an ambassador, but those that wanted it, they're the ones that divided the republic. Normal people didn't want it, because after these 70 years we're so mixed around that everyone's got children here and parents there. I definitely did better to stay in Brno, as health insurance is better here. I'm a sick person, I'm an invalid, for me it's important. I can't say who I feel closer to, Czechs or Slovaks. We Jews prefer a larger crowd, so we can get lost in it and not stick out.
I don't observe any Jewish traditions at home.
I got into the Jewish community in Brno very easily, but for a long time I didn't want to join, because I didn't like the people there.
My impression of the Prague Spring was that I thought that things were going to be better. Well, and when the Russians came, my personal situation didn't change much. Just that in those years I got a better job than at that post office.
In 1980 my husband and I were on vacation in France, in Cannes. But not in a normal way, that we just got into our Trabant and went. My husband was working as an interpreter for a youth soccer team from that factory he worked in at the time. He got to know some Frenchmen that he was corresponding with.
When I'd been in Israel for two years, they stopped my disability pension in Czechoslovakia.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
In Brno I began attending a women's association. I wasn't a member, I just used to go there.