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After 1935, when my parents returned from Holland, my father didn’t really go to temple. I went with my mother and my grandmother, and, of course, in Jewish school with my class. We weren’t kosher at home. We didn’t eat pork, but we didn’t keep the dairy and meat products separate, and we didn’t buy kosher meat. But, say, a chicken paprikash with sour cream – that was impossible to even imagine. The customs stayed. We bought a goose in the fall, and we’d bake the fat out of it, and then we’d use the fat. In November, December, and January we’d eat goose several times, and those geese, I believe, were always kosher. For instance, if we wanted a chicken killed, we’d take it to the shochet, and he’d kill it for us.
But we kept those holidays. I remember we had separate Pesach dishes. The chomets, that is, food containing yeast, was cleared out of the house. The point of that was really the cleaning. We’d get a woman – she’d come to do the washing too – who would help us, and then she would clean the whole flat, so there wouldn’t be a crumb anywhere, and then we’d bring the dishes out from the attic, and we’d use them during the Pesach holiday. We’d eat matzoh, and we made pastries with the matzoh, things they hardly even know these days, dumplings out of matzoh flour, plum dumplings. When my grandfather died, my father didn’t hold the ceremony at Pesach, but Seder evening was held, because we’d either go to temple, or acquaintances or friends would hold the Seder. We knew a lot of Jews, and either we’d go to their place, or they’d come to ours to hold Seder.
On Friday evenings there was candle lighting; my father wouldn’t be home, because he had to work, but my mom and grandma did it. They’d put scarves on their heads, and that’s how they’d bless the flame. There was challah, too. I was still a child, but I knew the prayers, and I’d say them together with my mother and grandmother. Then that slowly ended too. We ate a lot of sauce with our Friday food, I remember. We went to temple on Friday evenings and on the Sabbath. We didn’t go in the mornings, because that’s when there was household work, cooking, and cleaning to do. There was never anything like us not lighting lights, or not taking a tram, or anything like that. My father went to work. I went to school.
We kept Yom Kippur, and we would fast, and we took part in the celebration of Sukkoth that they organized in the temple.
But we kept those holidays. I remember we had separate Pesach dishes. The chomets, that is, food containing yeast, was cleared out of the house. The point of that was really the cleaning. We’d get a woman – she’d come to do the washing too – who would help us, and then she would clean the whole flat, so there wouldn’t be a crumb anywhere, and then we’d bring the dishes out from the attic, and we’d use them during the Pesach holiday. We’d eat matzoh, and we made pastries with the matzoh, things they hardly even know these days, dumplings out of matzoh flour, plum dumplings. When my grandfather died, my father didn’t hold the ceremony at Pesach, but Seder evening was held, because we’d either go to temple, or acquaintances or friends would hold the Seder. We knew a lot of Jews, and either we’d go to their place, or they’d come to ours to hold Seder.
On Friday evenings there was candle lighting; my father wouldn’t be home, because he had to work, but my mom and grandma did it. They’d put scarves on their heads, and that’s how they’d bless the flame. There was challah, too. I was still a child, but I knew the prayers, and I’d say them together with my mother and grandmother. Then that slowly ended too. We ate a lot of sauce with our Friday food, I remember. We went to temple on Friday evenings and on the Sabbath. We didn’t go in the mornings, because that’s when there was household work, cooking, and cleaning to do. There was never anything like us not lighting lights, or not taking a tram, or anything like that. My father went to work. I went to school.
We kept Yom Kippur, and we would fast, and we took part in the celebration of Sukkoth that they organized in the temple.
Period
Location
Budapest
Hungary
Interview
Peter Reisz