Tag #121927 - Interview #87951 (Vera Amar)

I did not celebrate the holidays much, barely at all. Shabbat was a general holiday for us. I do not know how to explain it. Shabbat was not observed in our house, but it was felt in the whole neighborhood and probably that had an influence on my mother, since she certainly accepted something of the Jewish holidays, but not everything. The atmosphere was felt in the sense that life slowed down, the shops were closed, Father came home. But my father had to work on Saturday and even on Sundays. This is something that still bothers me today. I have the feeling that I lived between two religions. When I married my husband, he told me that on Shabbat his parents and sister closed the store and came home. His father smoked a lot and lit one after another, which I thought was very strange yet cute. In school I celebrated the Christian holidays. I remember Saint Sava, when I sang in the choir. There were also parties. I know that my father went to parties with my mother – not only in the Jewish center, which was located in the same place as it is today, but even more so to other places. She would sew a dress. My mother sewed at Regina Benvenisti’s, which was a well-known salon in Belgrade, and would go to the officer’s house for balls. They celebrated together. I did not have any connection to the community, and I do not remember which holidays they went to the community for.