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We never kept the Sabbath. My grandparents didn’t either. Just the New Year and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. We didn’t have seder at Passover. But a couple times, when I was a child, my father took me to a seder evening organized by the religious community.
That was the maximum, and that was just so I could see it and hear it. We bought matzah, but we ate it along with bread. Passover was a nice holiday, like the others. Everybody cooked really good things at Pesach, for example our acquaintances who knew we didn’t have it [that is, didn’t celebrate Pesach] made fabulous cakes out of matzah.
To this day I always have matzot at Easter, and we make dumplings out of it. The only one who likes them is my son-in-law, who isn’t a Jew. We didn’t keep a kosher household. We partook of the best of everything living.
We only fasted for the Day of Atonement. Everybody did, even me. I’d like to say something about fasting. After the war, when I remarried, I went with my husband to Switzerland in 1947– he was officially in Switzerland, so I could go with him. It was the first time I was in the so-called West, and it was Yom Kippur.
I told my husband, ‘Let’s go eat something nice today, because I’m going to fast until tomorrow night.’ I had already found out where the temple was. This was in Geneva. He said to me, ‘Let’s go have dinner, you already fasted enough for a lifetime in the Lager [camp].’ I didn’t leave it at that, I fasted.
I didn’t eat breakfast, but when my stomach started to fight, I had lunch. It didn’t take more than two hours – the first time in my life, and I hope the last – I got such a colic [stomach cramp] that the little money we had, we were forced to spend it on a doctor so he would give me an injection for expensive Swiss franks. I’m convinced to this day, that was God’s way of punishing me for eating. After that, I always fasted. In my seventies, I only fasted a half day, now I don’t fast anymore.
My parents didn’t go to the temple for New Year or Yom Kippur, but they went when there was a holiday to pray for the dead. [The last day of Pesach, the second day of Shavuot, during Semini Aceret and for Yom Kippur there is a maskir, or memorial for the dead]. I do that, too. I go to the synagogue here when there is a maskir.
My parents were believers. Not [regarding] what was proper for religion, but what was proper for the good Lord [sic]. I never came across religion and traditions, that kind of thing. I never heard about a bat mitzvah, only when I was already an adult. I definitely got a certain faith from home, and this faith has stayed in me to this day.
This was how it was for my parents, also, which was intensified in me. At my old age, now that I have quite a lot of problems to struggle with, the only good feeling I have is that I’m Jewish. I wouldn’t want to be anything else.
Now, we always celebrate Christmas. I came home once in my childhood saying all the girls were talking about Christmas trees, and I realized that I was the only one without one. So my father went to the confectioner’s, bought an artificial Christmas tree, not big, but we decorated it with candies and put it in the dining room. It was Channukah at the same time. We naturally lit Chanukkah candles, while my father said a prayer. Since it coincided with the twenty-fourth we lit a candle on the tree as well.
The tree fell over, and caught fire. My mother had the wits about her to throw a huge tablecloth over the burning tree. The fire didn’t last for more than two or three minutes, and then everything was okay. My mother said, ‘This will never happen again, the good Lord told us with his threatening finger not to light candles on a Christmas tree at Channukah.’
After that, we really never did that again. I never had another Christmas tree, except now, but none prettier. For my part, I really like it, I like the Christmas holiday. It somehow seems that a whole lot of horribly bad people are a little nicer at Christmas.
That was the maximum, and that was just so I could see it and hear it. We bought matzah, but we ate it along with bread. Passover was a nice holiday, like the others. Everybody cooked really good things at Pesach, for example our acquaintances who knew we didn’t have it [that is, didn’t celebrate Pesach] made fabulous cakes out of matzah.
To this day I always have matzot at Easter, and we make dumplings out of it. The only one who likes them is my son-in-law, who isn’t a Jew. We didn’t keep a kosher household. We partook of the best of everything living.
We only fasted for the Day of Atonement. Everybody did, even me. I’d like to say something about fasting. After the war, when I remarried, I went with my husband to Switzerland in 1947– he was officially in Switzerland, so I could go with him. It was the first time I was in the so-called West, and it was Yom Kippur.
I told my husband, ‘Let’s go eat something nice today, because I’m going to fast until tomorrow night.’ I had already found out where the temple was. This was in Geneva. He said to me, ‘Let’s go have dinner, you already fasted enough for a lifetime in the Lager [camp].’ I didn’t leave it at that, I fasted.
I didn’t eat breakfast, but when my stomach started to fight, I had lunch. It didn’t take more than two hours – the first time in my life, and I hope the last – I got such a colic [stomach cramp] that the little money we had, we were forced to spend it on a doctor so he would give me an injection for expensive Swiss franks. I’m convinced to this day, that was God’s way of punishing me for eating. After that, I always fasted. In my seventies, I only fasted a half day, now I don’t fast anymore.
My parents didn’t go to the temple for New Year or Yom Kippur, but they went when there was a holiday to pray for the dead. [The last day of Pesach, the second day of Shavuot, during Semini Aceret and for Yom Kippur there is a maskir, or memorial for the dead]. I do that, too. I go to the synagogue here when there is a maskir.
My parents were believers. Not [regarding] what was proper for religion, but what was proper for the good Lord [sic]. I never came across religion and traditions, that kind of thing. I never heard about a bat mitzvah, only when I was already an adult. I definitely got a certain faith from home, and this faith has stayed in me to this day.
This was how it was for my parents, also, which was intensified in me. At my old age, now that I have quite a lot of problems to struggle with, the only good feeling I have is that I’m Jewish. I wouldn’t want to be anything else.
Now, we always celebrate Christmas. I came home once in my childhood saying all the girls were talking about Christmas trees, and I realized that I was the only one without one. So my father went to the confectioner’s, bought an artificial Christmas tree, not big, but we decorated it with candies and put it in the dining room. It was Channukah at the same time. We naturally lit Chanukkah candles, while my father said a prayer. Since it coincided with the twenty-fourth we lit a candle on the tree as well.
The tree fell over, and caught fire. My mother had the wits about her to throw a huge tablecloth over the burning tree. The fire didn’t last for more than two or three minutes, and then everything was okay. My mother said, ‘This will never happen again, the good Lord told us with his threatening finger not to light candles on a Christmas tree at Channukah.’
After that, we really never did that again. I never had another Christmas tree, except now, but none prettier. For my part, I really like it, I like the Christmas holiday. It somehow seems that a whole lot of horribly bad people are a little nicer at Christmas.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Katarina Löfflerova