Tag #138502 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

Back home at Magyarlapos there was no Hungarian public library. The Jewish community only had a Hebrew library, where you could find just religious books. There were Reformed and Catholic confessional libraries, but Jewish people didn't go there. There you could find literature, not only religious books. But they didn't borrow books for Jews, so they borrowed books from each other. There were well-situated people who bought books, and these books circulated in the Jewish community. Usually Jews enjoyed reading very much. My father really liked reading, in the morning, or in the afternoon, when he had nothing to do, he read books or newspapers. My father read rather classical literature. He read just Hungarian books, he practically didn't know Romanian, then he learned it, but he newer spoke it perfect. I used to go for the books, they told me go now to X and ask him for that book. It happened that X told me: 'I don't have the book, Y has it, please come after 5 days' and then Y sent me to somebody else. My father had a few books, because we bought books, too, so he used to lent out books himself. Books were very expensive, but we still bought them. Back home we had some sixty-seventy books. Not every Jew, but 10-15% had libraries at home, comprised of several books. There were well-situated Jews, who bought every serious thematic novels and itineraries. There were also those traveling traders who sold books.