Selected text
This was like an irradiation for me, and right there and then I joined one of the youth Zionist organizations of social democrat character called Habonim Dror. They told me in this movement that it wasn’t enough if one kept talking and stood at home, but that we should move in and declass ourselves deliberately. Namely to learn manual labor and practice it, because they did not need as many intellectuals as there were among Jews. I joined the movement, I said good-bye to my mother and said that from then on I would act according to my convictions.
Then I went to Pest for 6 weeks’ training, to a seminar. The Zionist movement was still legal at that time, we were in a Jewish villa, its owner had been killed. We lived there, too, there was about 40 of us, 20 boys on bunk beds in one room. There were girls there, too, they were equal with us, moreover they were often the cleverer, they were often the bosses. Otherwise very famous people taught us, psychologist Ferenc Merei lectured to us and Albert Molnar, who was an excellent social democratic social scientist. The Joint supported us, just like they had supported my parents at the beginning, but they rather supported movements than private persons.
After 6 weeks I went to Szeged, to Szeged-Algyo. There was also a villa, where there was an orchard, and they taught us how to look after fruit trees. There was a gardener who knew how to do it, and he taught us how to cut back the vines and fruit trees, and how to do the agricultural, horticultural work. And I was there until the end of 1947, when one of the inheritors of the villa turned up, and he sold the villa and the garden to someone and we had to leave. Then I came to Budapest with the group, which was broken up again. They sent me to a villa, where I didn’t have to learn what I had learned in Szeged, but I became a mechanic apprentice. I stayed there, I lived there, and I was a mechanic apprentice until the beginning of winter 1948. In the meantime I visited my parents regularly, and because I didn’t have money for a winter coat my parents had a winter coat made for me.
Then I went to Pest for 6 weeks’ training, to a seminar. The Zionist movement was still legal at that time, we were in a Jewish villa, its owner had been killed. We lived there, too, there was about 40 of us, 20 boys on bunk beds in one room. There were girls there, too, they were equal with us, moreover they were often the cleverer, they were often the bosses. Otherwise very famous people taught us, psychologist Ferenc Merei lectured to us and Albert Molnar, who was an excellent social democratic social scientist. The Joint supported us, just like they had supported my parents at the beginning, but they rather supported movements than private persons.
After 6 weeks I went to Szeged, to Szeged-Algyo. There was also a villa, where there was an orchard, and they taught us how to look after fruit trees. There was a gardener who knew how to do it, and he taught us how to cut back the vines and fruit trees, and how to do the agricultural, horticultural work. And I was there until the end of 1947, when one of the inheritors of the villa turned up, and he sold the villa and the garden to someone and we had to leave. Then I came to Budapest with the group, which was broken up again. They sent me to a villa, where I didn’t have to learn what I had learned in Szeged, but I became a mechanic apprentice. I stayed there, I lived there, and I was a mechanic apprentice until the beginning of winter 1948. In the meantime I visited my parents regularly, and because I didn’t have money for a winter coat my parents had a winter coat made for me.
Period
Location
Hungary
Interview
Ferenc Leicht