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Of course, in the town there were also boys that were very religious, and they weren’t in these two organizations, they had Mizrachi [12]. Our outlook on their philosophy was that they were wrong. Slowly we were ceasing to believe in the religious way of Jewishness that our parents believed in. I saw the poverty, but not only saw; I experienced it firsthand. When I lived with Auntie Ilonka, their house was near the Laborec River, and when the water rose, the rats would get all the way up into the house we lived in. At night I wore a cap, in the naive hope that the rats wouldn’t bite my ears. As a child I had ‘as many as’ two outfits. One for everyday wearing, and one for holidays. Most of the time I ran around only in shorts, a t-shirt and tennis shoes, that was all I had to wear. This poverty had a great influence on me. At the age of 15, 16, a person begins to think differently. He tries to understand some things and I wanted to understand them.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Bernard Knezo Schönbrun