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My uncle Martin married a Spanish, or Sephardi, Jew, a really beautiful woman. My mother wouldn’t let me go to the house of her parents because she thought that Spanish Jews weren’t as clean as we were. So, I used to go to their house without my mother knowing about it. They had delicious food. But they were untidy but very interesting people. They had a different mentality then we, the Jews from Vojvodina. They were good people but rather primitive -- I guess that was because of the society of those days, but I didn’t understand that then, because I was very small. My uncle had two children, unfortunately they all died in Staro Sajmiste in 1943.
Mother had both Serbian and Hungarian books. I got books from my grandmother. I liked to read fairy tales when I was little. I practically learned to read Hungarian on my own from books.
My mother was very angry with the Jewish Community because when my father died they did not take care of us as they should have. Others took care of us. The Orthodox Church did. I received a winter coat, shoes and the like from them and not from the Jewish community. I only know that they yelled at me when I converted to Catholicism and married a Catholic man. As if this mattered since I was still a Jew. We celebrated holidays in our home, my mother and aunt. For Yom Kippur we went to the synagogue, on the other holidays we stayed at home and had celebrations of our own. We would have dinner, lunch, grandmother cooked something. I don’t think it was kosher, anyway we didn’t eat kosher in our house. And we didn’t keep Sabbath.
I do not remember if we had Jewish neighbors. The majority of my parent’s friends were not Jews. The majority of the Jews lived in Dorcol1. Most of these Jews were killed at Staro Sajmiste.
Mother had both Serbian and Hungarian books. I got books from my grandmother. I liked to read fairy tales when I was little. I practically learned to read Hungarian on my own from books.
My mother was very angry with the Jewish Community because when my father died they did not take care of us as they should have. Others took care of us. The Orthodox Church did. I received a winter coat, shoes and the like from them and not from the Jewish community. I only know that they yelled at me when I converted to Catholicism and married a Catholic man. As if this mattered since I was still a Jew. We celebrated holidays in our home, my mother and aunt. For Yom Kippur we went to the synagogue, on the other holidays we stayed at home and had celebrations of our own. We would have dinner, lunch, grandmother cooked something. I don’t think it was kosher, anyway we didn’t eat kosher in our house. And we didn’t keep Sabbath.
I do not remember if we had Jewish neighbors. The majority of my parent’s friends were not Jews. The majority of the Jews lived in Dorcol1. Most of these Jews were killed at Staro Sajmiste.
Location
Serbia
Interview
Livia Teleki