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I started having a Jewish identity when they took my Bocskai-cap - in the Lager, on the 2nd may exactly.[Editor’s note: The Bocskai suit was a black textile suit with black frogged buttoning, fashionable in the 1930s. The cap, which belonged to the suit was a cap without a border, made out of long-shaped parts, emboidered with frogging on the side.] The wearing of the Bocskai-cap, which was typical of the Hungarian middle-class indicates the success of the assimilation] This identity meant that I had to do everything I could to help the Jewish people. Not the Jewry, because that’s a different concept. Because that isn’t united just like any nation. The Jewry for me isn’t religion, but an ethnic group or even more a way of life. I didn’t start keeping the traditions because I wasn’t raised in them, I had neither the knowledge nor the urge to do so. But when Vera was still home and my parents lived my wife and I went to a lot of synagogues, once we went here, then there, Friday evening we went here, on Saturday we went there, but not to make friends, only to look around. We went to almost all the synagogues, because I wanted to know what kind of people go there. And to be honest, most of these places got on my nerves.
At the Dohany Street Synagogue there was a rabbi called Henrik Fisch at that time, [Editor’s note: Neololog rabbi from Kapolnasnyek.], who had an organization called Leanyegylet [Girl’s Association], led by a very funny girl valled Kato R, and Vera and I helped her from the end of the 1950s already. This Leanyegylet organized coffee or cocoa hours once a month for solitary old women in the cultural room of the Jewish community called Goldmark Room, which held 250 people, and which is a on Wesselenyi Street no. 5, on the second floor. There were barely any men, but men could also participate. They paid a symbolical amount of money, and for that they got a cookie and a cocoa. We helped in the organizing: my wife lay the tables, served, and I stood in the door and arranged the rows, seated everyone. And I had another task, namely Jewish artists regularly came there to perform for free. The most famous ones. Lajos Basti still lived at that time, but non Jews also came, Imre Sinkovits for example, who was known as a rightist, also came there voluntarily and performed for free. And I discussed with the artists, who got a bottle of kosher wine after they were done. Everyone performed what he wanted, it was a completely mixed program, they told me ahead of time, and I compared them. We worked in this for years. This was our social work, and the social work of our parents was that they babysat our children. We participated at the events of the Jewish community until chief rabbi Fisch left to Germany, because he had been invited to the German Jewish community. Then doctor Laszlo Salgo came [Editor’s note: (1910–1985), national chief rabbi, the chief rabbi of the Dohany Street synagogue from 1972.] who was a party member and a chief rabbi at the same time at the end of the 1940s. He changed the system that the women could have a coffee at the long tables. He had the chairs put in rows, just like in a cinema, and he didn’t give any coffee or anything, but the artists performed and that could be watched. But he still collected the money for it, he even made it more expensive. I hated him very much already at that time, and Vera and I left him there.
At the Dohany Street Synagogue there was a rabbi called Henrik Fisch at that time, [Editor’s note: Neololog rabbi from Kapolnasnyek.], who had an organization called Leanyegylet [Girl’s Association], led by a very funny girl valled Kato R, and Vera and I helped her from the end of the 1950s already. This Leanyegylet organized coffee or cocoa hours once a month for solitary old women in the cultural room of the Jewish community called Goldmark Room, which held 250 people, and which is a on Wesselenyi Street no. 5, on the second floor. There were barely any men, but men could also participate. They paid a symbolical amount of money, and for that they got a cookie and a cocoa. We helped in the organizing: my wife lay the tables, served, and I stood in the door and arranged the rows, seated everyone. And I had another task, namely Jewish artists regularly came there to perform for free. The most famous ones. Lajos Basti still lived at that time, but non Jews also came, Imre Sinkovits for example, who was known as a rightist, also came there voluntarily and performed for free. And I discussed with the artists, who got a bottle of kosher wine after they were done. Everyone performed what he wanted, it was a completely mixed program, they told me ahead of time, and I compared them. We worked in this for years. This was our social work, and the social work of our parents was that they babysat our children. We participated at the events of the Jewish community until chief rabbi Fisch left to Germany, because he had been invited to the German Jewish community. Then doctor Laszlo Salgo came [Editor’s note: (1910–1985), national chief rabbi, the chief rabbi of the Dohany Street synagogue from 1972.] who was a party member and a chief rabbi at the same time at the end of the 1940s. He changed the system that the women could have a coffee at the long tables. He had the chairs put in rows, just like in a cinema, and he didn’t give any coffee or anything, but the artists performed and that could be watched. But he still collected the money for it, he even made it more expensive. I hated him very much already at that time, and Vera and I left him there.
Period
Location
Hungary
Interview
Ferenc Leicht