Tag #139418 - Interview #78098 (Matilda Cerge)

Selected text
Every year I go to Greece for summer vacation. We go to Hanioti, a place near Halkidiki [a peninsula southeast of Thessalonica]. It is a place which is very comfortable and inexpensive. Before the season it is always very inexpensive.

I go there with my sister and brother-in-law and friends - always with people. I have been going there since the beginning of the break-up of Yugoslavia, when we could no longer go to Hvar. The sea is warm in June, which is very important, and exceptionally beautiful. We go by bus, that's why it's so cheap.

My mother died in 1990. She is buried in Belgrade, in the Topcider cemetery, where my husband is [also] buried. We have a family plot there.

My older granddaughter, Leana, went to the Jewish community for a while. And for some time I took the younger one [Sara]. They have drifted away from this and I don't know why. Leana studies acting and the younger one, Sara, is still in high school and very busy. She would like to do Israeli dance and I tell her to go.

But she says, 'Grandma I really can't.' We live far away; she goes to school, comes home, has extra courses in German and goes to music school. She is so overextended, she really doesn't have time. Maybe when she begins university she will have more time. I also try and convince her to join the choir because she has a nice voice.

I never sang in the Jewish choir, but I did sing in some state choir. But I only sang for a few years because I was very busy. I don't remember what it was called.
Location

Serbia

Interview
Matilda Cerge