עדותה של וייס (הרשטיק) רבקה ילידת 1934 Kiskunhalas הונגריה על קורותיה ב-Kiskunhalas, בגטו Szeged, ב-Strasshof, ב-Wien וב-Teresienstadt

Name of Interviewee: Rivka Weisz

Name of Interviewer: Ronit Wilder

Cassette Number: VT-8090

Date: January 1, 2008

Name of Typist: Cheryl Balshayi

Names:

Kiskunhalas

Szeged

Strasshof

Wien

Terezin

Q: January 20, 2008, י"ג ב'שבט, תשס"ח. This is an interview with Mrs. Rivka Weisz. You were born as Rivka Herstik in Kiskunhalas, the area of Szeged of Hungary, 1934.

A: That’s right. Correct.

Q: Let’s begin with your background – house you were growing up in. Can you tell me a little biut about it?

A: My childhood. Can I just say that I leave this “messer” as a testimony to my children, my grandchildren and all future generations, and for the Holocaust deniers who say that it didn’t happen. I am still alive to tell this story and I was in this dreadful, horrible place as a child, and this is a true testimony.

I was born in Kiskunhalas in 1934 to a family of seven. My father was a “dayan” in town and my mother was just an “ezer kenegdo” (Hebrew), she was helping. She was just a mother.

Q: It is not “just”. With seven children, even if she was just a housewife, it is not “just”.

A: There it is. Housewife. Today you say “housewife” and you are not working. But then it was something…

Q: But with seven children and at that time, you used to do everything at home.

A: Everything. I will come to it. We were a very, very happy family. There was always a lot of noise and love and singing, mainly singing. My father comes from a musical family and…over to this. “Chazonim”, the big “chazonim”, “Chazonim Hershtik” of the “Beit Knesset HaGadol” in Ramat Gan, they are all our family and they are all my father’s pupils. But we have been always very busy in Hungary. My father was busy with the “clal” because we had…

Q: You mean with the public?

A: With the public.

Q: With the congregation.

A: With the congregation. We had a very big courtyard. It was the shul’s courtyard. There we had a “rav”, we had a “dayan”, we had a “chazzan”, we had three “shochtim”, you know, who…you know what a “shochet” it? “Shochtim”. Do you want to say it in English? To slaughter the chickens. And we had Jewish schools there. We had a very big hall for social events – “chassones”. Also there was a little forest (?). It was all a closed place. All of them lived in this…the “shochet” and the “dayan” and the “rav” and we all lived in…

Q: It was like a Jewish street?

A: It was more than a Jewish street.

Q: A quarter.

A: A quarter. That’s right. A quarter. And then there were plenty of Jews who lived outside this quarter, who had vineyards and business.

Q: We are talking about a small town.

A: It was not such a small town. There were a lot of Jewish people there. That’s why we needed a Jewish school.

Q: We are talking about thousands of Jews?

A: I don’t know. Five hundred families about, but they all had…We had seven children. Big families. It was a very busy household. I remember from childhood memories how everything we had to do alone – baking the bread, drying the fruit for the winter. Wash days – we had special wash days. My mother Leah, “aleha hashalom”, she had two “ozrot”. One was a live-in and the other came in just to help.

Q: Gentile?

A: Gentile, of course. She had a very red face and we called her “Piroshka”, you know, like “Kippa Aduma”. Sher was very busy with the household because in those days you couldn’t get nothing. There was no milk. We had to go to special places to milk. Water there wasn’t. You had to go to the “ya’ar” (forest) and “lishov mayim” (to pump water).

Q: You didn’t have a well at home?

A: Not a well. We had to have it pumping. This was already a very big…

Q: But it was far away from home?

A: No. It was in the middle of that courtyard. But we and the “rav”, we had running water inside our house, which was a very, very big thing. And we had a beautiful house.

Q: When you say running water, you mean you had a bathroom at home and the toilets were at home?

A: No, the toilets were outside in the yard, but we had running water, I think, in one place. In the kitchen. But bathroom, I don’t think we had bathrooms. We had such big containers, today what is a “bath” called. Maybe it was from tin. You know about this bath? I don’t remember. But I know that we were very lucky. We did not need to bring the water from outside. But the rest of the people, they had to…not a well, not with a “dli” (bucket), but just with the hand.

Q: To pump it.

A: To pump it. We had a lot of love and singing. That was the main agenda in our house. It was always very, very lively and very musical, and we were always preparing for “yom tovim”, you know. We had a beautiful “Succos” – the whole congregation came to us. And for Pesach, you know, my father was very…he likes very nice things, so he went to do his best to buy the nicest dishes to lay the table with. And for “Rosh Hashana” we had all the singing and the choirs, you know, preparing for “Rosh Hashana”. The whole time went away with this preparing for the…

Q: So you inherited your good taste from your father?

A: Yes, I wasn’t behind, but he had very, very good taste. For instance, for “Succos” it wasn’t enough that we made alone the “kishutim” (decorations for the succa. He called a special person who just made huge stars and the "succa" was full, so everybody had a "succa", with the “shochet”, two “shochetim”, on the rabbi, but our "succas" was always the nicest because we were a lot of girls and we could make it very nice and after everybody, after "shul", they came to “succa-in” (?), you know, to see who is in that "succa". We were always…

Q: There was competition?

A: There was competition. Not openly, but they just “hisvu”, they compared one "succa" to the other, but ours was always the nicest. And they came after "shul" for singing sessions with my father. He has a beautiful voice. My father, he was a very gifted person. He not only was a “dayan”. G-d gave him a beautiful voice, so he was singing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the "shul", and also “shabbatot”. And that was a very funny “shiluv” (combination) because we had a “rav” but the “rav”, Dr. Dohanyy, the “rav” could speak, but he couldn’t sing, and the “shochetim” could “shecht”, but they couldn’t sing. So my father was a big, big “talmid chocham”, but he could sing as well, so it was a very…he was a very colourful personality.

Q: So he was the “chazzan” together? There was a special “chazzan”?

A: No, nobody. My father sang. And in fact, he had such a beautiful voice that they wanted to take him to Budapest to Kazinszki, because that was a bigger shul. There was a religious "shul", Kazinszki, and then was a modern “Rambach”.

Q: You are talking about the orthodox and the neologue.

A: And the neologue. But they called him to be…he had, but he didn’t want to leave Kiskunhalas. We lived there already until the (?), happy there. And what I remember mainly from my childhood, that a lot of “chessed” was done in our house. Kiskunhalas was a more affluent town. There were a lot of poor people around. There was never a “shabbos” table by us, there was not a poor person who happened to be in the town that my father didn’t bring him home to eat and we were used to it. But other things – there were a lot of Hungarian soldiers, you know, Jewish people, who called them into the Hungarian army and then poor people, and they just knocked at night at the windows and my father, “alav hashlom”, opened the windows, and where should they sleep? So he got us up from our beds and he let them sleep, because there was nowhere to sleep, and they left it dirty and sometimes even… “ech omrim kinim”? (Hebrew – how do you say “kinim”?)

Q: Lice.

A: Lice. And we did it, and my mother went along with everything. It was very interesting. For “Shabbos” everybody made cholent, so they had a special big oven where the whole townspeople…

Q: They didn’t take it to the bakery?

A: This was a bakery. So they put the cholent into the bakery and everybody was “shlepping” and after “Shabbos” and “shlepped: home the big pots with the cholent. And what is “charut b’memory sheli” (Hebrew), that was bread in it. We had to make our own bread, so they had such big wooden things and my mother was making the dough and we had to take it also to that bakery where they put the cholent for “Shabbos”, and everybody came home with huge breads. Today, when I think about it, that you just go to the shop and you buy it ready…that was enough…a whole, big, big bread.

Q: You baked a bread for a week.

A: Every week, and for “Shabbos” they baked “challah”, but for a whole week…

Q: But it was separately, the “challot”.

A: It was separate. Of course, that is only for “Shabbos”. But it was so big, I remember, we had it enough for the whole week. And then there were special days when they went to the market and they brought loads of fruit and they dried it for the winter. And then they had goose and how do you say the other one?

Q: Ducks?

A: Ducks, goose and ducks. So they took out the liver and they put the liver in “schmaltz” and they put it in “mezavim” (Hebrew – storerooms) for the winter, in storehouses. And I remember all the “balabustas”, everybody was just doing again “hitcharut” (Hebrew – competition), whose storehouse was more full, yours or… “Oh, what did you do?” and “What did you do?” and “When did you do?” And we had everything written exactly what day it was, so life was very organized. And there were wash days every single week, the same day. The two washer women came and again in this huge container they were washing and the next day this ironing, so there was not much time in the week. And we were very happy, always playing and singing. It was a very, very, very happy childhood.

Q: You were five girls…?

A: Six girls and one boy. And my mother, “aleha hashalom”, had four “hapalot”.

Q: Miscarriages.

A: Miscarriages, because in those days, with “meyaldot” (Hebrew – midwives). There were no hospitals. Actually, there was a Jewish hospital as well, but not for “meyaldot”. “Meyaldot ba’u habayita” (Hebrew midwives came to the home). I remember we always heard the screaming. This is how they lived.

Q: The miscarriages were with the children or…?

A: She had miscarriages and then she had three daughters. And then my mother was very afraid, as my father. Miscarriages and daughters. So he went to a very big rabbi, to the “Munkacse” rabbi. You heard about the “Munkacs” rabbi? I’ve got his picture here. My father was a follower of his and he said, “I want to be a ‘sandak’ by you next year.” So we knew that we will have a boy and “Baruch HaShem” we had our only son, a very “mutzlach” boy, and after my mother had another three girls, so we were all in all seven children.

Q: He was very, very spoilt?

A: He was spoilt, he was spoilt. He was a very gifted boy as well.

Q: What was his name?

A: Moshe. And my father, he was a very big “noem” (Hebrew – speaker) as well. He could speak very well. He could write very well. He was singing out of this world. And he was a very big “talmid chocham”. So in between learning and “shabbatot” weree very, very nice. We always had lectures and learning and teaching, and he taught us only religion, religion and “sippurim m’tzaddikim”. Always our “shabbos” table was full of that.

Q: You said that there was a lot of singing. And you were six girls.

A: All of us can sing.

Q: The girls also sang?

A: Yes, because we were allowed to. It was my father and…yes.

Q: But there were also guests, I understand.

A: No, well when there were guests then girls didn’t open their mouths, but when we were alone, so we were singing. I know all the “niggunim”, I know all the “chazzonishe” songs. As a “chazzan” - up to now I know very much the “chazzones”.

Q: But you said that every week, every Friday your father brought someone…

A: There was someone. It was necessarily we had the Friday night and “shabbos”, so the “arucha” that we didn’t have, so the girls and Moshe sang with my father. It was a very, very jolly house, happy house. There was big harmony between my parents, and we concentrated, my parents concentrated on the children. But besides, he was very much busy with the “kehilla”.

Q: What were your parents’ names?

A: My father was Mordechai Herstik, and my mother was Hannah. And she was a girl Pamer, from Ujhely - Satoraljaujhely, and (?), my father got his “smicha l’rabbanim” “b’gil teshe esre” (19) from there.

Q: Seminar in Budapest?

A: No. Ujhely – that was higher up, a bit north. And he got his “smicha b’gil teshe esre”, which was a very big thing, from the “Madde Rav”. He was a “rav” in Ujhely. And my mother was a Ujhelyi girl, and when he was studying there, so they…(?)

Q: Ah, so that wasn’t a “shidduch”?

A: Wait a minute. So he went to a “chassone” and he saw my mother there.

Q: A wedding in Satoraljaujhely.

A: In Satoraljaujhely. And he was a very handsome man, my father – two meters tall. Very “mtzuchtzach”. Very, very nice, very good-looking person. And so was my mother a beauty. And he went to a “chassone” and he saw that beautiful girl and he said, “She is going to be my wife.” So they told him, “What are you talking? You know her? You know anything about her?” So they arranged a “shidduch” and they met and that was…they got married.

Q: So it was not a real “shidduch”.

A: It was a real “shidduch” because it only went through “shidduch”. I don’t know how segregated those times people were at “chassones”. It must have been…it is going back a very, very long time. I don’t know if they had high “mechitzas” (Hebrew – partition) or “mechitzas” from flowers. I see you know all about it. You heard these stories.

Q: I think that today it is more segregated than it used to be.

A: Today is more segregated. Even my “chassone”, we didn’t have a “mechitza”. But today you can’t have a “chassone”, not any “simcha”, not a “bar mitzvah”, nothing at all.

Q: From what I hear it was much more relaxed.

A: More relaxed, yes. So he saw that beautiful woman and said, “She is going to be my wife.” So they asked somebody to arrange it and they arranged it and they met – I don’t know exactly how it was. I know them only as a husband, my father and my mother.

Q: Your mother never told you about meeting your father?

A: Maybe she did. She told us stories, my mother, that once she went from Budapest to somewhere on a train, and a “graf” – how do you say a “graf”? – this very…like a lord, Hungarian lord. They also were travelling on the same…and he started to talk to my mother. And after the “graf” went on…you know, this…

Q: “Graf” is something like a count.

A: A count. A Hungarian count. And after my mother went on, he said, “Can I meet you?” So my mother said, “No.” So he left a paper and he wrote, “Fraulien, ich bitte eine keinman….” (German).

Q: “I will never forget you.”

A: “Never forget you.” And that was this, you know…But she wasn’t a person to praise not herself…I mean, she was so beautiful. When my father and mother – this I remember – when they went out from the “schilhoff”, from the “chatzer” from the “beit knesset”, you know, how did you say before? Not a courtyard. A whole quarter it was. And they went for walks. Every single window opened to look at them, what a couple. She was a beautiful, beautiful woman, but she had…good “middos”. She was quality. She was pure. She was not jealous. She never in her life spoke bad about people. Her only pleasure was to see her children – we were good-looking kids – and that was her only pleasure, to dress us and, you know, when she did the house, as you said, that was a full-time job.

Q: You said that your father was mostly a “dayan” and at that time a “dayan” didn’t earn so much.

A: That is true.

Q: And you are talking about a house that…I have the impression that economically you were quite well off.

A: You know what? He got a wage then as high as a prime minister. I mean, he got a very high wage. Why? Because he did two things. He was singing and he was a “dayan”. I remember the “din-torahs” came to us at home and my father had cold compresses putting on his head from the “tzores” (Hebrew – troubles) what other people brought home and he had to make peace. And he got a very, very, very high wage. There were a lot of very rich people in Kiskunhalas. They didn’t live in the “schilhoffs”. They lived outside in beautiful villas, and I think they were the only ones who had cars at that time. Who had cars? Everybody went with “agalot” (Hebrew – carriages) and horses and “soosim” (Hebrew – horses), and we walked it. They kept the “shul” going and I think they paid also for…very, very rich people. Very rich people they were. And they kept also the “shochet”, the “dayan”, the “rav”. Somebody had to pay for it.

Q: So economically you were quite okay.

A: Yes, because we had two…quite okay. Not like today. We didn’t have “matarot” (Hebrew - luxuries), but “shiksa” we had to have. How could my mother (?)…washing and cooking and baking and drying the fruit for the winter.

Q: Your mother let the maid come into the kitchen?

A: No. Cooking my mother did. But peeling vegetables and the fruit, what they dried. Apples I remember and prunes and cherries. You know, all the fruit. They came home.

Q: Did you make jams?

A: Jams they made and they dried the fruit. A lot of jams they made. All kinds – strawberry jams and cherry jam and dried apples.

Q: It was all summer.

A: All summer. They made it for the winter. We had very hard winters. We had snow up to here, so you couldn’t…

Q: You are talking about the winter, and yet when you are talking about the “succa” that you had at home – here, September, October, it is autumn. The weather is relatively…once in a while it is raining. But in Hungary sometimes it is even snowing in Succot.

A: No. I remember we had even carpets and beds in the “succa”. We had carpets on the floor.

Q: It wasn’t very cold?

A: The houses were also cold. It wasn’t heated like here. We had in the centre such a…and we had to put in wood. That also we had. A woodcutter came and he prepared a lot of chopped wood for the winter, for heating the…it was such a tall thing, with a chimney. It was a different, entirely different life, but we loved it. We did not think it was something strange. Everybody lived like that. And we went to school.

Q: Just a minute. Before school. About Succot. Your father and your brother, I suppose they slept in the “succa”?

A: Yes, yes.

Q: Girls also?

A: No, no, no.

Q: You didn’t want to sleep in the “succa”?

A: No, never. We never. Only men. No, it wasn’t a question. Women did not need to sleep. No.

Q: And you remember your father sleeping the whole time in the “succa”? Even if it was raining?

A: If it is raining it is no “mitzvah” to sleep in the “succa”. But he was very, very religious. He did not wear a “shtreiml” like the “shochet” wore. Dr. Dohanyy was a more modern person. He was the “rav” of Kiskunhalas. He was a very, very big orator. And my father liked very much that he was so highly intelligent. And we were very friendly with Dr. Dohanyy. And the other people didn’t like it because they considered us modern because we were friendly with Dr. Dohanyy, because all the “shochtim” were “chassidim”, the “shtreimlech”, you know, all the “lavush”, and we were more modern. But my father was more religious than all of them, but I don’t want to pull down the “chassidim”, but my father was modern-looking, without the “shtreiml”. He never wore a “kapote”.

Q: But if you say that your father belonged to the “Munkacsi Rebbe”, so he was also a “chassid”.

A: He was, but you can have a look from the photo. He was modernly dressed, and the “Munkacsi Rebbe” accepted him because he was so brilliant. He had conversations. The “Munkacsi Rebbe” was an ill person. He was very small and thin, and he had to go to Karlsbad every year. And who took him to Karlsbad? My father was like a “horsebocher”. It was quite a long way from Munkacs to go from Kiskunhalas. I will show you the photo and have a look what a modern-looking person. And the “Munkacsi Rebbe” put up with it because my father was a very big “talmid chocham”. He could learn, he could discuss things. He was always fighting for religion all his life. This is what he implanted in us as well. Through religion, but without “shtreimlech”. He was…

Q: Not necessarily the outside side of it, but mostly inside.

A: Inside. And this is how he – I will come to it next, the “messer”, what he gave us all his life. All his life he was just teaching us to be religious. He had one brother who sat and learned all his life, and he also had a family. His wife was “Kahan Frank…”, the biggest “rav” in Budapest. His daughter was his wife, and he sat and learned all his life. That was my father’s brother. And my father, from his wages, sent all this money every month to him, so we had less. And also people came to borrow from him money, and he had such a good heart. Because the people, the “shochtim”, had a lot of children. By the end of the month they had no money, so they came to borrow my father money, and my father couldn’t help. He gave – I remember this story – so my mother, aleha hashalom, said to him, “Go and ask the money back. We need it. I also need it.” My father was shy. He sent my mother to ask the money, so they said to my mother, “Did I borrow it from you? I don’t owe you nothing. Your husband should come.” So I don’t know if he got the money or not, but this is how it was. So my father was very, very friendly with Dr. Dohany. If there was any free time, they had discussions – (?) discussions, with, you know, philosophy and…

Q: Did you have at home regular books, not “sifrei kodesh”?

A: No. My father had a whole room just “sifrei kodesh”. He had a very, very big library.

Q: Secular books? Not at all?

A: No. Besides school books, what we needed to have.

Q: Your mother didn’t read “romans”.

A: I don’t think so. She didn’t have time. She didn’t have time. But I don’t think so. We already in Israel, when we came as girls, we did, but in Hungary we were young children. You know how old I was? I was, ’34 I was born. In ’44, the Germans, so I was ten. There was no…it was a different…No, we did not. But in Yaffo after, when we lived – I wouldn’t say that we didn’t have “romans” and newspapers.

Q: In terms of today you can say that you were “charedim”?

A: By all means. What you mean “charedim”? Very, very “charedim”. So “charedim” – my brother, you can’t imagine. I will tell you when we come later on how my brother behaved in the war, that he never ate “chazir”. A little child. What you’ve seen, if this is not “charedi”, what is it? And we were very…my father “hocked” in us all the (?) about religion and that and that. (?) about his parents, how they lived. It was a different world. We were very “charedi”, but definitely did not…he was a more modern, without the “streimlech”. But he was more “charedi” than…

Q: Was there any connection to Zionism when you were a child?

A: No, no. I don’t know. I don’t know about it.

Q: If I am not mistaken, the “rebbe” of Munkacs, I think he was against Zionism.

A: Probably he was, probably he was. And so was the Satmar Rebbe. Yes, because they were afraid that the religion will be forgotten. But we were too little.

Q: You don’t remember that at your home there was the saying that “to Eretz Yisrael only after the Mashiach comes”?

A: One thing I tell you, that after we got liberated and we went back to Hungary, we had a choice, to go to New York – my mother, “aleha hashalom” – had there two brothers – or to come to Israel. My father said, “There is no question. We are coming to Israel.” This Israel, for “Eretz Yisrael”…what do you mean? “Eretz Yisrael” – this was a dream of ours and most of the people. Of course, it didn’t come into question.

Q: For instance, do you remember the blue box of “Keren Kayemet” at home?

A: No. We had Rebbe Meir Balagnese (sp?). That I know we had, and I also have, and I have got here for the “chayalim” as well, but no, I don’t think, I don’t know. I don’t know. We were little children. I don’t know.

Q: Will you give me the names and the order of the sisters and brothers?

A: Yes. There was Rachel and Leah and Sarah and Moshe, the boy who…

Q: The prince.

A: The prince. And Rivka, me, and Miriam and Shoshana. And we all had Hungarian names because in the school we had…I was Rozsi (sp?) and she as Shari.

Q: Rozsi? Rozsi was not Shoshana?

A: No. Shoshana was Edit. I was Rozsi.

Q: Rozsi should be Shoshana.

A: Yes, funny. I was Rozsi, Rebecca, and Shoshana was Edit. And Rachel was Klari and Leah was…I don’t remember. Sarah was Sarolta. We had to have Hungarian names.

Q: You used them?

A: Only in the “goyishe” school after.

Q: At home no?

A: No, no. Only Jewish names. No, no, no. Rivkele and Surike and Rochele. No, no, never. Only on “teudot”. Never, never. Only Jewish names.

Q: What was your first language?

A: Hungarian. Yiddish they didn’t speak by us.

Q: Not at all?

A: No. What I learned, my meagre Yiddish, this was after my marriage to my husband. He comes from Grosgerdam, from Nagyvarad, Oradea. It was Transilvania. And he taught me, but he only spoke Hungarian. My mother, “aleha hashalom”, she spoke very, very beautiful German and Yiddish, my father spoke, but I don’t know. It didn’t catch us.

Q: When they didn’t want you to understand something?

A: So probably they spoke Yiddish. Yiddish, so we understood some Yiddish, but it didn’t…we spoke mainly Hungarian. “Shabbos” I think we had to speak Yiddish, but it didn’t catch up.

Q: Did you know your grandparents and your uncles and aunts?

A: I knew my uncle, my father’s brother, who lived in Salgotarian.

Q: Who was… (?).

A: And he had a sister, Rachel. She was a beauty, a star beauty. And I knew my father’s mother. You see, my father was a “usem” by the age of eight.

Q: An orphan.

A: An orphan, and he had no father, so he looked after his mother. And he had a beautiful voice. How should he have? To “lefarness” (Hebrew – financially support) his mother. So he went for a “ra’ayon” (Hebrew - interview) to sing and they said, “What is this child coming for an interview?” So they took a little stool and they put my father on it and he sang and he got the position.

Q: To provide his mother with singing?

A: Yes, he was singing in order to keep his mother.

Q: In the synagogue.

A: No, that was not in Kiskunhalas. That they lived somewhere else.

Q: Yes, but it wasn’t in a synagogue?

A: Probably, probably. But I remember the story that they put him on a little stool, that he should look taller – he was a very tall man. But from the age of eight he looked after his mother because he had no father. And I remember the funeral, when my father took her in. My mother, “aleha hashalom”, looked after her mother-in-law fifteen years. In those days it was very, very noble. It just shows what a woman, to live with a “ruma” (?) in the same house.

Q: She lived with you?

A: She lived with us. And she was a very strong personality.

Q: Strict?

A: Strict. And she always had to have everything done. When it was market day, so she said, “Hurry already. We have to go to the market.” And my mother, she had children – one was ill, one was…You know. You can’t always have it…

Q: She should be a daughter-in-law and…

A: Yes, and she was very…and it was difficult for my mother, but never a word. Fifteen or sixteen years is the biggest “kavod”. She looked after her mother-in-law. And I remember, I was a little child when my “savta”, my father’s mother passed away and we had to go out from the room.

Q: You really didn’t have family in this town because your parents weren’t born in that town.

A: No, we did not have any family. The nearest family was in Salgotarian and Wihell (sp?) and Abaujszanto, but who could…? We went a lot to Salgotarian because my father was visiting his brother, but otherwise I don’t know if they travelled so much. You had to travel by train. I don’t know if they travelled so much.

Q: It wasn’t like it is today, for instance, at Pesach, that all the family gathers together. It was every family for its own.

A: No, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t. I just remember that one of our uncles had a very big vineyard, and he sent us “Tokaj-Tokajip-Bor”. That is a very famous wine. And the had vineyards, so for every Pesach we got big containers of wine for Pesach, but I don’t think they came as well. I don’t remember.

Q: I suppose it was a kosher wine.

A: Well, of course it was kosher wine. And one of my mother’s, “aleha hashalom”, they lived in Szanto. They had a bakery, so we got Purim, beautiful cakes for Purim. But everything was sent. People didn’t travel that time as much as they travel today. There was no money maybe, there was no time. The children were little. There was no amenities to move about like you move today, but people were quite happy.

Q: So you hardly knew your…

A: Your relatives. We knew them by name, we knew them by photos, and my father…

Q: From stories, but you didn’t really know them.

A: No, no, no. Beside my uncle in Salgotarian, the grandfather of this big “chazoner”, we didn’t…

Q: Your mother’s side…?

A: Also not. No.

Q: Your mother never went to visit her parents?

A: I don’t know if she had parents. I don’t know. She had a sister. I don’t know if she had parents. She had brothers and sisters. I’m not sure if she had parents. But just the same, we, the family, we were a very tightknit family “ve’histapaknu b’zeh” (Hebrew – and that was enough for us). We had (?) Pesach all the singing and “Ma Nishtanah”. All the neighbours came to listen late at night. It was always music, music blaring by us, coming from our house. That’s why I love today “chazones” like a man. You know, it’s very funny for a woman to like “chazones” and I do because I heard it all the time.

Q: What holiday did you like best at home?

A: Pesach. What a difficult holiday it was.

Q: It was so much working before the holiday.

A: Working, working, working. She made alone beetroot, my mother, because they didn’t use nothing. She made alone fat from the chicken because they didn’t use nothing. Everything she had to make weeks before. They covered it. Now you remind me. And they covered it with cloth that, G-d forbid, not a drop of crumbs should fall in it.

Q: You had to help her?

A: No, I don’t think so.

Q: No one of the girls?

A: I don’t think so. My mother was only all her life that we should study and learn. Young age and all the days. When I was a “gannenet”, I was already a finished “gannenet”. She always said, “Go to ‘rythmitka’.” And she always was for it that we should be more educated. She didn’t allow us never to work at home. She wanted to do everything that our hands should be soft, like a real “yiddishe” mother. You know, she protected very much her daughters, which today I don’t think it is right. Maybe we should have helped more, but we were busy in the “gan”. We had to prepare things and part of my sisters are teachers and they had to look through books after, later on in life.

Q: But as children you didn’t help at home?

A: Oh, we helped. Listen, we had to…

Q: Not preparing for…not cleaning house?

A: Listen. We had to go to the milk, to the farm to bring the milk. We had to bring in the wood, the chopped wood we had to make the fire.

Q: You had to go to the one who owned the cows because he wasn’t Jewish, and to stand by him?

A: We stood by him, we stood by him, yes, until the milk…it was a gentile, but I think there was a Jewish place as well. It was (?), where should we have (?), so some people bought “eizim” – how do you call “eizim”?

Q: Goats.

A: Goats, and they had them in the courtyard. There was no shortage of space. Everybody had plenty of space, so they had the “eizim”, they milked them, and this was…but we hated, the children, we hated goats’ milk. It had a special smell. So we had to go and milk. And the bread we had to take and bring it home. And the cholent, “Shabbos” we had to take. Of course, we took it to the…

Q: I suppose also you had to take the chicken to the…?

A: Slaughterhouse, yes. And my mommy was…

Q: I think that for a child it must be a trauma. You don’t remember it as a trauma?

A: When they “shechted” it? We have seen it and the whole “shechtsteibl” was full of blood.

Q: And to take it after that home.

A: At home, and then they plucked it and the “kashered” it. It took hours. I don’t know how they managed. Three hours in the salt and after they put water. We have seen all these “dinim”.

Q: You had a special job maybe to go to buy milk or to go to the “shochet”. What was your job?

A: Mine? I don’t know. I think I took the bread to the bakery and then “Shabbos”, Friday we took the cholent, but you couldn’t take it one because it was two big handles, so one had to hold it here with these towels and bring it home when it was still hot. Of course we helped. How could we not help? And we had a very big house and it had to be clean. Of course we helped, but we had “meshorsim” (?) as well. We had two “meshorsim”.

Q: Maids.

A: Maids. Piroshka was a full-time, and then we had the “kovsot” (Hebrew – washerwomen), and for dealing with the fruit and vegetables to dry for the winter. It was very busy. People were busy. We made alone “itriot”.

Q: Noodles.

A: Noodles. They did it and they made it like that and they put it to dry and they cut it to pieces. What a lot of (?)…They went with it, I don’t know, so where was time to read “romans”? There was not time for it because the whole day you were busy doing things, what you go to there and buy…

Q: You remember your mother was cleaning the kitchen?

A: Yes, yes. She was always hovering around in the kitchen and giving orders to Piroshka. You know, we had to have the white wash separate and the coloured wash separate and the bedding separate. And after to hang it and iron it. This is what she had to be always on top of them, to give the orders. And she went to the marked with a “shikse” to buy, you know, the big…the horse and carriage came because you couldn’t carry it. They went once a week or once in two weeks and they brought all the fruit and my mother was always on the seat. She was a manager. You had to run such a house.

Q: She wasn’t a housewife. She was a housekeeper.

A: She was a housewife, she was a mother, she was an excellent wife. She was everything. She was a very, very big “tzaddikes”. She was “tuv lev” herself. She just wanted to give and give, and never spoke bad about the…I mean, there were “machloches” in the “shulhoff”, you can imagine, between children fighting with balls, breaking windows. And there we could afford plenty. We could afford, but she was always making everything smooth. “Kinderlach, leave it.” You know. She was a…

Q: Was there a synagogue in your (?), that you were told, “This one we are not going inside”?

A: No, no. There was only one big synagogue, but a huge, beautiful, modern, with two huge entrances, with two floors, you know, that you can… “Ezrat Nashim”, what you looked on. Today’s Beit HaKnesset HaGadol here in Tel Aviv, this we had it. So how would we have it if not rich people would have…and I remember the men went in separate and the women went in separate. And Dr. Dohany gave a speech every “Shabbos” and then the “Chassidim”, they moved out and they made their own “shteiblech” because they couldn’t stand this German. He spoke German, I think. He spoke “Hochdeutsche”. And also he was a doctor. They didn’t like this.

Q: It was too modern.

A: For the “Chassidim” it was very…and then they separated and they had their own…

Q: You went with your mother every Saturday to the “beit knesset” or only “yom tovim”?

A: I think only “yom tovim”. My mother went every Saturday, but we, the children, I don’t think so. No, I am a “shul” goer. I never, ever miss. But when I was a child? I don’t remember. “Yom tovim” we went and then “yom tovim” these rich people came, you know, posh, elegant.

Q: Mostly Rosh Hashana?

A: No, they came more. They came more than three times a year. It was a very, very far way to walk. They were “chiloni’im” sort of – no “sheitlech”, no that. But they were religious.

Q: Not secular, but Neologue. It’s like Conservatives today.

A: I don’t know if they were Conservative. No. I don’t think so, because we went to teach them. They always took private teachers, so we went to teach them and “mesartim” (Hebrew – servants) open the gate, you know. They lived in beautiful villas. We taught their children religion. If they would be Conservative, they don’t need to teach the children. No. But they came to the “shul” and then everyone was looking at them. Elegant and…you know.

Q: I suppose that you were quite elegant as well. You said that your father and your mother were quite elegant.

A: My father went with my mother to choose her clothes, what she should wear, and they went to the poshest dressmakers. And I remember in Purim the whole community came to us for the Purim party. Everybody was dressed and we had the big…we had a beautiful big dining room and a big “seuda” and my mother, I remember, one Purim – that is the only Purim I remember – she wore a dress, such a colour maybe, and here it had an appliqué with flowers inside. It was all from a very posh dressmaker. And my father made sure that she should be dressed according to her beauty. Beautiful she was dressed. Yes, he was very “estheti”.

Q: You, as the fourth girl, did you receive everything from your older sisters?

A: Yes, we did. We changed all our lives.

Q: Not new clothes? Even at Pesach and Rosh Hashana? You didn’t get new clothes?

A: I don’t remember. We were not short. Later on in life probably we had more, but we always exchanged between the sisters because they had the same figure and you know, we never threw away. It went on always, always, always. Always. But my father, according to his…he had high wages, but what? He gave it away. He gave it away to his brother and he gave it away to the poor, but I don’t think he got it back. He always sent my mother (?) to ask. My mother said, “You gave it. You go to ask.” And it was “tzedaka”. And we learned in that school, in the Jewish school, and our headmaster was Feuerstein, Dr. Feuerstein. He has somebody, a Feuerstein, here now. Also in “Misrad HaHinuch”. A very great person. And that was his grandfather. And I remember when we misbehaved, so we had to have the…we got plenty on our fingers.

Q: With the ruler?

A: With a ruler. This I remember. I don’t think today you could do it, today’s days. No, you are not allowed to, but “anachnu haenu tzrichim l’tziyet” (Hebrew – we had to obey) and we were very good pupils. And my big sister, Klari, Rachel, she was a very, very, very clever girl. And when she went from the “kita vav” to higher school, so they wrote a letter with her that “now you are getting a genius”. That they should treat her accordingly. And we had to go to the “goyishe” school every “shabbos”. There was no…

Q: She finished what you called it “polgari”.

A: Polgari, “nachon”.

Q: And she had to go to the gymnasium.

A: That’s right. So they forced us to attend “shabbos” school.

Q: To go on Shabbat, but you didn’t have to write.

A: Not to write. How do you know? So we had our “meshorsim” – they took the “yalkut” and they came with us. We didn’t write, but we had to attend and we had to obey. You know, you live in a “goyishe” country.

Q: There wasn’t “tchum Shabbat”.

A: We didn’t carry. Inside the “shulhoff” we could carry, but outside I don’t think so. It was a very big town, and people lived very far from each other. You had to walk miles. I remember my mother, “aleha hashalom”, once took me to visit somebody. She always visited the old and the sick. That she always…she was always doing “chesed”, “chesed”. She went to visit and she took me once for a walk. It was the end of the world. But people didn’t live near. There was plenty of space. It was a very green place.

Q: So your sisters went to gymnasium and then they had to go on Shabbat without writing?

A: Without writing, yes, sure, but they had to attend. So they listened to the lessons and the “goy” came to take the…

Q: But in elementary school…

A: No, the Jewish school. It was Jewish school. That was in the “shulhoff”. Yes. And all the “chasones” were there as well because there was a very big hall.

Q: A break.

A: I hope I didn’t jump from one subject to the other.

Q: No, no, it’s okay.

A: You know, I prepared myself “nekudot”, but when it comes to it…

Q: Now you can check what you missed.

A: Doesn’t matter what I missed. Probably I don’t need to say.

Q: When you were talking about Jewish school, that you went as a child, you are talking about a regular school, or only Judaism you learned?

A: No, no, no, no. We learned everything. Yes. Definitely.

Q: And it was in Hungarian?

A: In Hungarian. Yes. We had a very happy childhood. I remember there was nothing outrageous or different.

Q: You remember yourself playing outside?

A: And how. Plenty. And I remember when it was raining, that there was such a saying, “If you stand in the rain, you will tall grow.” (Hebrew) So we took off our shoes and we stood. And we were standing in the rain, pouring the rain. And we were always dancing and we were…

Q: You wanted to be tall?

A: We wanted to be tall.

Q: You added two meters…

A: Alright, but then we were not children.

Q: You didn’t have to…you will be short.

A: Well, none of us is tall. We shouldn’t be, because he was very tall. And I remember we had a lot of fruit trees, a lot. Cherry trees and, how do you call this? This maroon one.

Q: Chestnut?

A: Chestnut. And we were walking, children, we made long queues and dancing, dancing, dancing, until we arrived to the trees and we picked the fruit and we put it in. We had a very, very happy, carefree childhood. We were always in the garden, always playing. And with the snow we were standing in the snow. You know, the snow came up. Very cold winters we had. And we were playing snowballs. It was a very, very happy childhood.

Q: You had…I forgot the name of the “ski stripes” that you have, that you can, on ice, or to have ski.

A: Korcsojazni (Hungarian). An ice rink? I don’t think we had. I don’t think. If we had, I don’t know if we went. No.

Q: You didn’t have special shoes for the snow?

A: No, boots. No. I don’t think we had an ice rink. If we had…probably there was. It was a town. I don’t think. There was no transport. How would my mother take us there and bring us back. It was different times. Everything happened in the “shulhoff”. It was a huge yard and all the children got together and we played happily. We had a forest, we had hide-and-seek.

Q: It was not far away from your home.

A: What?

Q: The “shul” yard.

A: It was a closed section. All the, you know…No, of course not. Definitely not. It was five minutes’ walk from us, maybe more, to the “shul”, when we went.

Q: Did you have non-Jewish friends?

A: No, no, no.

Q: Not at all?

A: No, no, no. No, no.

Q: I understand that you didn’t even have non-Jewish neighbours.

A: We had on the opposite side, but it was just “shalom” and “boker tov”. – “Jo regelt” (Hungarian).

Q: No connection to the gentile population?

A: No, no. The only connection we had – they brought us eggs home, the “goyim”, and they brought the chickens. I remember they showed to my mother, “aleha hashalom”, if it is a good chicken or not. They brought the goose and they measured it here and they showed, “Look how he is marvellous eat,” and they fed them. These they brought all the “goyim” home, and we had a very good connection with them.

Q: You don’t remember as a child anti-Semitism?

A: Well, after we have seen, when they took us to the ghettos, anti-Semitism, but until…the only anti-Semitism for us, that they forced the Jewish people to go on “shabbos” to school, which was very much against our wish, but we had to do it. That was the only anti-Semitism, but after, when the Germans came in, then already we had to wear the yellow stars. That was a new “parsha”.

Q: But before the war you didn’t...anti-Semitism.

A: If there was…my youngest sister was seven, the next one was eight. I was nearly ten. My eldest was fifteen. I don’t know.

Q: Your brother was before bar mitzvah?

A: Much before. My brother was bar mitzvah when we came back from the war. We were in the war about fifteen months. Can we go over now to the Germans and the Germans took us…

Q: But just a minute. Before you said that your sisters went to a non-Jewish school after the primary school

A: Right, “polgari”.

Q: And you know, there were people who said, “I don’t sent my daughter to a non-Jewish school because anyway a daughter shouldn’t be so educated.” I understand that it wasn’t like that in your home.

A: No, no.

Q: Your mother wanted you to be educated.

A: Very much. Always forward, doing things, learning. Whatever there was. You know, (?). Not sewing.

Q: Knitting?

A: Knitting and tablecloths.

Q: Embroidery.

A: Embroidery. You know, always she was on learning, learning what a woman has to know. She said, “I don’t know that you should do it, but in case you will need to do it in life, you should know it.”

Q: But only what a woman should know, or also general things?

A: Yes. We were young. We were young. We were young at home in Hungary. This was all before the war we are talking about.

Q: Yes, For your mother, was it important that you will be good students, all of you?

A: I suppose so. I suppose so. I suppose so. She wanted us to excel, but she was very quiet about it. Not a pusher. “You have to be, and you have to achieve.” No. No, there wasn’t…

Q: You liked school?

A: I liked very much school. I liked. I don’t say that all my sisters liked school. Some of them wanted to…there were days they didn’t want to go, you know, when they had a special subject, and they didn’t. I liked school, but some of them wanted to avoid school. But you couldn’t If you didn’t come one day to school, immediately the headmaster – I told you, he was very, very strict, Dr. Feuerstein – and immediately they phoned up, “Where was your daughter yesterday?” There had to be a valid reason for not coming. You know, if there was an exam or something. We were children like any other normal children. Like today, but not so much “chofesh” like today’s children. Today’s children, I mean, they had the most expensive toys and cars and every child, “pelephone”. It wasn’t…those days (Hebrew) we were satisfied with much less. We didn’t need so much. (end of side)

It was a word, a vanished word.

Q: Did you feel any patriotism towards Hungary? Did you like it was your – how you call it? – “mamaland”?

A: The only patriotism is what I feel. I like Hungarian people. By “shidduchim” I always looked if they are one side Hungarian because we speak the same language, we have got the same one thing. We have got the same taste. We cook the same. So I was looking for…but this, that I loved Hungary?

Q: You were brought up mostly as a Jew and not as Hungarians?

A: Inside the school we are mostly…no, no. Definitely not, definitely not.

Q: Let’s say at the 15th of March, I don’t know if it is the independence day or something in Hungary. Do you remember yourself as a child going with the Hungarian flag in the street?

A: No, no, no. Inside, in the schoolyard from the “shul”, it was strictly only religious people living there. I don’t think we felt…we lived in Hungary, but within us we were Jewish.

Q: Kind of a bubble.

A: It was a bubble.

Q: And you say religious people. All of them were the same type of religious?

A: Well, some of them more, as I told you, and some of them less. We didn’t get in contact.

Q: All of you were orthodox. There were no Neologues or status quo in your community.

A: No. In Budapest there were. There was a very huge Neo…what was this called? They are making now the “shul” over. Somebody gave two million dollars for it, to remake the “shul”, but we did not belong to that society. We were never taught. I told you, my father was only concentrating on “yiddishkeit”. “Yiddishkeit”, Torah, that was our house.

Q: No secular Jews in your town at that time?

A: What do you mean? Who were not religious at all? Probably there were, but I don’t know. We had no “magaim”. There were quite a lot of Jews, but we had no “magaim”. But there was no intermarriage like today. It didn’t exist. I don’t think so.

Q: As a child did you ever go to the big town? For you it was Szeged, or even Budapest.

A: No. Budapest was. Budapest was. Don’t know. My eldest sister went to be there first. The elder ones, yes, because my father did a lot of shopping. He bought beautiful dishes and for “Succos” he bought damask You know? The most expensive…he bought a whole roll to cover the "succa" (Hebrew). We didn’t just leave the wood. It was beautiful, all the side, with damask, and whatever nice things we had, we went up to Budapest to buy. So my elder sister and maybe the second one as well. And that was the “maga”.

Q: You said that your father was “dayan”, so sometimes people came to your house, couples or people who had problems.

A: And fighting.

Q: Came to him to…

A: Money, and borrowed. Yes. They borrowed and they didn’t give it back, or…

Q: It was at home or in a special place?

A: No, he had a room there in the house. We had a room. It was never in front of us. But I just remember my father came out breathing, and my mother had to give him a wet cloth to put on his head because he took it so much to the heart, that other people are fighting. There were “machlokot” like… “Ha’kol over”.

Q: Like between people.

A: Of course, of course. And then the Germans came in, after all this peaceful…

Q: Before the Germans came, you didn’t feel any difference? For instance, when they took the Jews to the labour part of the Hungarian army? Your family, it didn’t concern.

A: My father, every time, I don’t know why they singled him out, he had to go to the army. And there was a special person who brings those “hazmanot” for the army. (?) “Here is a ‘hazmana’ for you.” And my father had to leave us….

Q: It was not really an invitation. It was more an order.

A: An order, but he brought it like on a…you know, this is an order and you had to go. And he was away a few weeks. I don’t know where they took him. When he came back, so we were very, very, very happy. And everybody said to my younger sister, Raizie, said, “Why don’t you kiss my father?” She said, “This is not my father. Where has he got this…”. You know, his beard. She didn’t recognize him because the first thing was that they cut the beard.

Q: The whole beard, because he had a long one.

A: He had a long beard. He had a beard to here and they cut it. That was the first thing. And probably the “peyes” as well, but I don’t remember. But she said, “This is not my father. Where has he got this…?” She couldn’t express herself. And then he came home and we were “simcha ve’gadila”. Then they called him a few times, and the second time they called him again and he was away and we heard that he has no food to eat because he only ate “kosher”. They suffered very much, these religious people. The other people touched other things and my father, of course he was a “rav”, so my mother cooked and baked and she, as a “rebbetzin”, hired a motorbike which had such a boat on the side and she sat in it, and just imagine, with a man, a “rebbetzin”, and she went to take food to my father. It was not far from Kiskunhalas. And she arrived there and they wouldn’t let her in. To bring food? Who heard such a thing? What is it? A picnic? And my father had very, very big “chen” by the “katzin ha’elyon”. He always had discussions with my father about Jews, general, and he had seen what comfort my father gave to all his people who were together. He never waited that they should tell him “Good morning”. He said alone “Good morning”. He was not shy. He was always ready to bend down, and he said, “Good morning”. And he had seen the “yachas”.

Q: The Hungarian officer knew that your father is kind of a leader?

A: Yes, because they just called him “Tisztelendo-ur (Hungarian) – “Kvodo”. You know, like “marine”. I don’t know how to…

Q: Your Highness? Something like that?

A: But for a rabbi. And he said once, he asked him, “Just tell me, tell me, why do your people, the Jews, love so much money and gold?” And he said, “You had already the golden “egel” already, times back.” So my father had to explain to him philosophically. He said, “But you still don’t love the Jews. The Jews always are a name, that we are money, “betza” (Hebrew) the money.” Anyhow, they allowed my mother in and she took in the food for him because my father was…(?) with this “goy”, and my mother came back and we were very happy that she had seen my father and he had food, and after they released him. But third time when they called him, always my mother complained, “Why do you call always my husband? There are plenty young people here without children. We are seven little children. Why don’t you spare him?” But there was no pardon. He had to go. And third time when they took him, that was already…(?) when they needed the soldiers. That was the last time when we have seen him. But we have seen him during the war – after I will tell you the rest of the story.

Q: So besides taking your father a few times for a few weeks…

A: A good few times. He always came back, but…

Q: Until '44 you lived a completely normal life.

A: Normal.

Q: You didn't feel anything what is going on.

A: Yes, but we heard already stories and we heard already "shmuot" (Hebrew – rumours) what is going on in the rest of the world.

Q: But you didn't feel it personally, your family.

A: No. We felt it when they put us into a ghetto. In 1944 they came in, in March, beginning of March. We had to go…

Q: 19th of March.

A: 19th of March, I think it was. How do you know? It was the 19th of March. We had to go into the ghetto and we had to wear yellow stars.

Q: 19th of March the Germans came to Hungary. I suppose it took a few days until…

A: They didn't, because after the Hungarian "gendarmes", they had such…

Q: The gendarmes, with the feathers.

A: With the feathers. They were murderers and they took over. We didn't really see the…

Q: You remember this Pesach? This year you still were at home?

A: No. Then we had to get in already to the ghetto.

Q: During the Pesach you were in the ghetto already or after, immediately after Pesach?

A: I don't know. It was at Pesach time? I don't remember, but then things were already bad. It was less food and the chickens didn't arrive and the eggs didn't arrive. We smelled that something is boiling. And then not only that we had to be in the ghetto. We could go out, but we had to wear the yellow stars. It was closed from all sides, the ghetto.

Q: The ghetto was in your town?

A: In town.

Q: And I suppose that it was in your quarter because that was the Jewish quarter.

A: The largest place. So they brought all the Jewish people, the rich ones, the doctors, "haminahelet" (Hebrew – the principal), that she was the "minahelet" in our school, and Dr. Feuerstein. Everybody was on the same level. They brought perhaps twenty people to our house. And every single house, they filled it up with Jews. And it was murder. You know…

Q: Inside the ghetto?

A: Inside the ghetto, because there were no bathrooms and everybody had to go out to the outside toilets and so many people living and everybody with their own "minhagim" – sleeping and…But we had to make do. And we stayed, I think, in the ghetto a few weeks, four or five weeks. I think so. And we didn't have to do with the Germans. Only with the gendarmes.

Q: At that time you didn't even see the Germans.

A: We did not see the Germans at all. Only the gendarmes. And one day they came and…Every day they came with different orders. Every day there were different orders. You could go mad. This you were not allowed to do and this you are not allowed to do. And you are not allowed to move and you are not allowed to go out. And we were very, very restricted. We knew already that things are going. And one day they said that, you know, everybody should pack the most necessary belongings. "We are taking you away from here." We asked where.

Q: You remember what did you put in your rucksack?

A: Probably clothes, what to wear, and some food. But the food was already less food because we were already five weeks, I think five weeks – four or five weeks we were in the ghetto when everybody came. You had to share. You couldn't eat yourself and the other person also had to eat. And so many children. These were already bad times.

Q: At that time your father was not with you.

A: No. This was the last time already when they called him. We didn't see him.

Q: It was before the Germans came, the last time he was called?

A: Yes, they took him before the Germans came. Probably they needed him for the Hungarian army. And then one day the gendarmes came. They never came alone. They came two or three. Frightening when they came. You know, they had on their legs, they made a noise.

Q: Yes, like the Germans.

A: Like the Germans. It made a noise. They knocked together and it made a noise and here their feathers. And they said, "You pack. You have to leave, you have to go." So we said, "Where should we go?" They said, "We are taking you somewhere and everybody should pack the necessary things." I think they told us not to take too many things. How much could you take already?

Q: But for you, those five, six weeks in the ghetto, because you were still at home. You were children.

A: Yes, but we were closed. We were not allowed to go out. No more music and no more dancing and no more singing. It was a very depressing atmosphere. All the people from the rest of the town came in with us. A lot, a lot, a lot of people. And my father had all the important manuscripts. He had the (?), what he got at the age of nineteen, and he wrote a lot, a lot of "chidushim". Every time he just wrote on the side of the book "chidushim" and it was very "yakar" to us. And we did not know who to ask. My mother alone. Everybody was busy with himself. So because we were so friendly with the rabbi, so my mother, "aleha hashalom", went to the rabbi and she asked, "Where should I hide these things?" So the rabbi said, "Put it in the "shtechshteibl", he said, "with all the blood there and all the filth, they will not touch." The "shtechshteibl", it was where they were "schecting".

Q: The slaughterhouse?

A: The slaughterhouse. There were holes there, and she said, "Hide it there." So we wrapped in nylons and we hid it. And we hoped that after the war we will find it. (?) This was a very, very sad time, when we had to leave our house and we had nobody to ask not to take. We had jewellery. We had nobody to ask. My father had insurance for the girls, "chasone" plans, because we had so many children. With Adriatic, with Italy – that was the insurance. And it was very bitter because we had to rely only our…what to do.

Q: You begin to hear the rumours?

A: Definitely. We heard the rumours.

Q: But not about Auschwitz or places like that. Not yet.

A: No. Not yet. Not yet.

Q: But they were talking bout going to the east?

A: Yes. They said that people are going away with transport, but nobody knew. And we asked, "Where are you taking us? Where are you going?" So there was no answer and I remember my mother, "aleha hashalom", asked him when we finished packing, "What shall I do? Shall I close the door or should I leave it open?" So he said, "You can do whatever you want. Everything will be alright." And my mother took the keys, she locked the house and she took the keys and we were seven children. You know, you don't know what to do before, what to take – food and clothes or a blanket or a coat. It was…And then from there they took us to Szeged.

Q: The older sister at that time was fifteen?

A: Fifteen she was, Klari.

Q: The youngest was seven.

A: Was seven. And they took us to Szeged, and this Szeged was a "beit haroshet shel etzim" (Hebrew) (wood factory).

Q: "Etzim" or "levanim"? Not "levanim"?

A: (Hebrew) Perhaps one side bricks, but it was also "etzim". We saw only "etzim", building materials. We saw only "etzim", so maybe the other side was "levanim". And you know, there were "pundles" of wood and this is what we had to sit, and we sat on these "pundles" of boards for weeks, two, three weeks. And after, then the food already went less and less and then first time here in Szeged we felt hunger. Hunger and cold and no toilets and so many people there. They brought to Szeged from all over, and one day they came and they said, "Get ready. We are taking you with transports away. We are taking you away with transports."

Q: When you were in Szeged, in that factory, there was a roof over you?

A: There was a roof, but I don't think it was closed on the side. It was closed on the side. There was a roof, but the side…

Q: It sounds like a brick factory.

A: It was a brick factory, and a wood factory. We were on the part with the wood. First they came and they brought big buckets and they said everybody to throw in their jewellery. And my mother, I remember, "sh'hitaksha" (Hebrew – she insisted), and she said, "How can I throw away my 'tabat nisuim' (Hebrew – wedding ring)? It's mine." They said, "You throw it in." And they brought big buckets and it got filled up immediately. People tried to hide, but we had to get rid of all the jewellery. That was before the transports left. That was the Hungarian people who took away all the jewellery. And after, they came and they took away the transports. And we always begged to my mother, "Let's always go to the gate." There was a gate. You couldn't just escape from there. There was a gate, also in a huge yard, there was a gate, because otherwise probably everybody would be stolen, and when you left this, you had to open a big gate. So we also, every body ran to the gate to go. You did not know where you are going, but you wanted to go. You thought you go somewhere better than before. And that was already very sad time. Don't forget we were five weeks in the ghetto and then here two, three weeks, and cold and hunger. And we also begged my mother, "aleha hashalom", "Let's go." And she had, I don't know what. She always told us what to do. “Nevua”, we are so many children. "Later, later. We will go later." And they went, the transports. They were not only from Kiskunhalas. All over they took. So there were plenty transports. And later on we heard that all these first transports, they all went to Auschwitz. And my mother said always, "Wait, children, wait." And we were in the last transport.

Q: Before that time, your mother, you can say that she was an independent woman? She was used to taking decisions by herself?

A: No. She always rode on my father. Every decision was for my "chazen" and suddenly she was a father, she was a mother, she was everything. And my elder sister – she was very clever, but what could a child say? A fifteen-year-old girl. She had (?).

Q: She consulted her? She asked her opinion?

A: I don't know. We said, we just said we want to go. She didn't ask.

Q: With all the others.

A: With others. We said, "Please let's go, let's go." And after we got to know that these other people from our town who never came back, we knew that they went after to Auschwitz. And in the meantime, my father, "alav hashalom”, they were taken with the Hungarian army to make trenches, to dig trenches because they wanted to put down for the trains "pasei rakevet" (Hebrew – train tracks).

Q: Was inside Hungary? Not on the Ukraine front?

A: Yes. Inside. No, not yet. Inside Hungary. They needed to take away people with transport, so they needed to put down "pasei rakevet". And they had to make the trenches, you know?

Q: To dig.

A: To dig, to dig, to dig. So my father heard one day that tomorrow is bypassing a "kvutza" (Hebrew – group) from Kiskunhalas, so for two days he was saving his food – they also had very rationed food – and he saved his food, "efshar" we would meet. And then how did they take us from there? “ימח שמם” (Hebrew – cursed be their names). They took us in cattle trains, you know, not ordinary train, just where they shove in the cattle. And they put in about eighty people to one. And after they locked the door – it made always such a noise. It clicked, that we should not escape. And on the window, from both sides, there were little hinges. How do you call it?

Q: Wires.

A: Wires.

Q: Bars.

A: Bars. And my mother, every time they took us in these trains she fainted because she was very claustrophobic. She couldn't stand to be closed in. (Hebrew – cursed be their names). And they shoved in there old and children and grandmothers and grandfathers, one on top of the other, so in the beginning people had enough room to sit in that train on the floor, but later it got filled up. They pushed in more and more people and one was on top of the other. No toilet. No food. No water. So one day, when the "rakavot", these wagon trains, started to move, what they did, they always put the people in the wagons and they let them wait because there was no room. The first one…they had to make room. And one day we hear somebody shouting, "Is there a Herstik here? Is there a Herstik here?" And we thought we heard the Herstik, so we wanted to go to the windows, but we couldn't. It was full up. So people were very, very nice, so they have seen our plight, so we stood on top of each other, everybody.

Q: On the shoulders.

A: On the shoulders from each other and my mother, "aleha hashalom", as usual, she was always in the background. They pushed the children to the tiny, little window, and we saw my father there. He said, "'Kinderlach, kinderlach'. Where are they taking you?" He wanted to see my brother Moishe, and he wanted to see my mother. Of course, my mother couldn't go, because there was no room to move, so my mother was shouting that "Here I am". He said, "'Kinderlach, kinderlach'. (?)" Do you understand Yiddish. "Where are they taking you?" So we said we don't know. So he was heartbroken. He said, "I have got some food for you." So he threw in the food through the bars. Of course, by the time we turned around there was no food left. And he said, "'Kinderlach', (Yiddish). I don't know if we will see each other." It was a very sad…

Q: Was in Yiddish, you think?

A: He spoke in Yiddish.

Q: Because you said that usually you spoke Hungarian.

A: Yes, but he spoke Yiddish now. No, he spoke, because Moishe and with my mother – the "messer" was to my mother – that "'Kinderlach', (Yiddish) I don't know if we will ever see each other again. I just want you to remember whose children, who was your grandfather, whose grandchildren, and you should keep in front of your eyes" – this I remember all my life – "To Zion Hashem. Hashem mekadesh, Hashem berabim" (Hebrew) That we will be religious and will hold onto the religion. Whatever happened to you. And this "messer" (Hebrew) accompanied us all our lives. And after they pushed the "rakevet" and we went first and then crying bitterly. And he said, "Don't forget." And he said two things: "Be religious" and "Look after your mother", that we should look after Mommy.

Q: You were the one near the window, that saw your father?

A: Yes, I saw, yes. Again, again, of course (?), and then the train went further and further and he was running after the train and our train was going further and so we lost contact with each other. "Nebbuch" in the meantime people had to go out to the toilets and they…

Q: There was a bucket.

A: A bucket. And we had to vacate that window and they threw the window the toilet. Through the window. But because the train was going, the whole thing came back again on us. They were low-lives. They degraded us, like animals they treated us. Didn't they think that people have to go to the toilet or people (?). Everything came back to us. And then we stopped and went again and we arrived to Strasshof. That was a "(?) ganglager", "machane ma'avar".

Q: A transit camp.

A: A transit camp. And there we still didn't think – that was already on Austrian ground.

Q: It was the border between Hungary and…

A: And Strasshof, yes. And there we still did not see any Germans, only Ukrainian people looked after us. And they were "shohim". They were as bad as the Germans or worse. They were wicked.

Q: The Ukrainians?

A: The Ukrainians? They were just batons and beating and beating. No talking, just beating. And when they served the food – we were very hungry already. That was already the hungry was killing everybody. Don't forget that it was already eight weeks after the ghetto and the huger killed everybody. And so they gave us food. You had to queue in long queues for the food. (break in tape)

(heavy background noise on tape) A: When we packed, when we left the ghetto, as my father was such a tall person, he always needed 46 or 47 shoes. We always needed to have shoes "b'hazmana". With a nice (?), you know, the softest…and also he was very tall. Trousers, everything had to be by "hazmana". And my mother, "aleha hashalom", said, "We are taking some clothes for my father. Don't forget." So we took a pair of shoes into trousers and jacket and that was the total what we had with us all over for fifteen months. And that we had to take. This what we took with us. It was…And we arrived to Strasshof and people got there food and somebody came to us. He went, he got the food. "Nebbuch", he went to the end of the queue and he came back in. And when he came to the distribution point, so (?). He said, "You got before." I don't know how he remembered it from so many people. He beat him nearly to death. He gave him with a baton, but so much that he didn't get up from his "petza'im". (Hebrew – wounds) So we knew that they would do to us….

Q: At that time, it was… or the Germans?

A: These were not Germans. These were Ukrainians.

Q: In Strasshof the staff was Ukrainians, but…

A: It was already Austria.

Q: Yes, but the hired staff was German.

A: We didn't see them. We had no "maga" with them.

Q: Only with Ukrainians.

A: Only with the Ukrainians. And after, from there, we were taken to Vienna, to an "arbeitslager".

Q: But in Strasshof you were something like a week?

A: I think we were in a week, yes.

Q: In barracks?

A: I remember always sitting on our luggage. I don't think we were in barracks. I don't think we were in barracks. Don't forget, it was (?) summertime. We left in March. Must have been still summertime. Not in barracks. So they took us to Vienna.

Q: Do you remember…(?) about Pesach. This was when…after Pesach. Do you remember…(?)

A: Then already that was such…the whole "Seder" was completely "mefutzatz". I don't know. There was no "Seder" anymore. No "yom tovim". Don't know. How could you? And so in Vienna they put us into a very big school and this school, it was next to factories. All the school was a big, huge school, a closed place, and it was next to factories. And as my mother spoke German, she was an interpreter, and we were about four hundred people in this "lager", as much as it could take.

Q: Some of them were from your hometown?

A: Yes. But there were plenty. Husbands and wives, children. There were old people without husbands.

Q: You had friends there?

A: I think so. I think so. I remember there school friends. There were not many (?) there, because in an “arbeitslager” they needed grownups, not children. But our luck was that my mother said, “Let’s go later”. But they had no use of children. They needed the grownups to work. We lived in rooms, you know, wooden beds, like wooden beds.

Q: Bunkbeds.

A: Bunkbeds, but without mattresses. You can’t even think about it. And we had no blankets. We had not cushions. Everybody just was on the bunkbed. And two things I remember – the cold and the very poor conditions. People were dying. And every morning they came and they gave two slices of bread and a little square of margarine and a little teaspoon of jam. That was the food. That we had to have for breakfast and supper. At dinnertime they gave (not clear) very big (?), containers, with a hot thing like what you get for the “chazeret”, but it was hot and it kept us alive. So in the morning we were so hungry we wanted to eat both pieces of bread and there was always a fight. My mother couldn’t say no because she had her heart. She was a mother. We said, “We are so hungry. Can we eat it up?” So my eldest sister, she took the initiative. She was the head of the…because my mother was a weaker (?) and a mother said to her child, “If you are hungry”. So she said, “No, we have to hide one slice for the night, otherwise you will be very hungry.” And we said, “I don’t care. I want to have enough food now and I don’t care what will be.” So sometimes we did, sometimes we didn’t, but we always went hungry together. (not clear) That was the biggest impression in our lives, the hunger and the cold.

Q: So what is worse, hunger or cold?

A: I think hunger. I think hunger because we had our “begadim” (clothes). That is all what we had. What did we have in bundle? I think hunger. It was terrible. It was just terrible. Crying, the children.

Q: You only think about food, from morning till night.

A: About food. Not big luxury food. Just bread, to be full. Just that we shouldn’t be hungry. So my mother, there came always a order from…They had a SS. He was called Fritz (?), and he came with the orders and said…. We said, “What are we going to do?” So he said, “All the women, all the able women, men and women, tomorrow people will come with lorries and they will take you to the (?).” And the lorries arrived in the morning and we, the children, stayed at home, and my mother, with my three eldest sisters and my brother, also I think they took them to Weinerbad (?) with everybody. And what was their job in the…?

Q: (?)

A: Weiner-wald. You know, the forest from Vienna. Johann Strauss, the waltzes, music. Beautiful, beautiful forest. And they had no petrol so they needed to have the wood. They needed to have the wood.

Q: (not clear)

A: She was fifty-three when she passed away. You know, I never worked it out.

Q: (not clear)

A: She was fifty-three. She passed away very young. I will work it out.

Q: They were married young.

A: Yes, about thirty-five. So our job was…you don’t know what the job was. They sent them to different places. We, my mother, “aleha hashlom”, with a group of people, they were sent to the Weinerbad every morning and they had to cut trees. The trunk of the trees they had to cut. But how do you cut these trees which are a hundred, two hundred…they were huge. So they gave everybody an axe and they gave saws and then they had to hit it with the (?), such a “chetach”, and then they started to saw. Just imagine. With (?) saw – not (?) saws. They sawed and sawed and sawed. They were two women, a man with a woman. And then when the tree was going to fall, sometimes they had to scream, shout, “Achtung! Achtung!” (?) This the German shouted, because it fell down. “Be careful not to hurt…” And then the youngest children who went, we had to take off the branches from the wood and then they had to saw this wood to precise, exact measurements because this is how it fitted into their factories. If it wasn’t to in an order – they were very orderly, the Germans, and very precise. If it wasn’t to the exact measurements, they were cursing and shouting. And we had no food. Everybody was hungry. You couldn’t saw quick, so it wasn’t fast enough. “Faster! Faster!” “Schneller! Schneller! Schneller!” That is all my mother said that she heard. And one day, “ימח שמו” (Hebrew – cursed be their names).), just imagine one….this Fritz, he was checking everybody to do the work properly. He had seen that they don’t work, like in Egypt. They had no “koach” (Hebrew – strength) to work. So he took this “garzen” (Hebrew – axe) and he said, “(German)” “You cursed Jew. You swine. You ‘chazir’. I will show you how to do it.” So he took the “garzen” and he gave a big swing with it, and instead of swinging it in the wood, he swung it into his leg. So “Baruch HaShem”, we got rid of him and we saw, “Baruch HaShem”, we got rid of that “roshe” (bad guy), but we got another “rasha”, a woman.

Q: They were SS men?

A: SS men, sure. So they went every day to the “lager”. Our jobs, the children, we were at home, we had to clean the “lager”. These filthy bunkbeds. Man’s toilet. You can imagine – four hundred people. There were no toilets. There were wooden (?) with holes. (?) How do you know these expressions?

Q: (?)

A: And this is what we had to clean and to (?). And this was our job. And then they started bombing, the Americans. And they started dropping (?).

Q: That means that many, many, many airplanes…

A: Airplanes. Every day the same time. Ten o’clock in the morning my parents went, my mother with my sisters, they went to the Weiner-wald. We remained down and before my mother, “aleha hashalom”, went away, she said, “Children, if there is an ‘azaka’, if there is an alarm, you don’t forget to take my father’s book.” That was only on her head. Just don’t forget to take the package. And we knew that it was holy, that once we forgot it, the alarm went already, but we had to go up again. And then there was a huge, huge cellar underneath, where they kept all the (?), and when the alarm came, ten o’clock in the morning, it was frightening. Ooh, and you heard the airplanes, you know, going in beautiful order. And they bombed and they bombed and they bombed and they bombed. And we, down in the cellar. The windows were broken, the cellar windows, and the whole smoke came in and pieces of glass and everybody was screaming and shouting. This was a terrifying experience.

Q: Now you are the oldest of the children (not clear), from the age of eleven, so you were ten years old and your sisters were younger than you, so....

A: We were all (?) in the “lager”. I was the mother of them.

Q: You were the adult now.

A: Yes, sort of. And also, sometimes, you know, when we were closed in that “lager”, we were very, very hungry, and you had to exist. And so we went out, outside to the garden, to the yard, where the children probably played, and we went to the gate there, and we begged people for some food.

Q: Austrian people.

A: Austrian people, who bypassed.

Q: It was inside the city?

A: It was inside the city. It was a big school.

Q: You could see the Austrians.

A: Yes. They were coming and walking and they knew what was happening with us. And my sister, Miriam, she used to (?), and she was younger than me, and she begged for some food and she got some food. She got a quarter of a bread. And he was just walking, walking, walking, the German, to see that nobody should run away. The gates were closed and we…(not clear). So he took the bread from her hand and he threw it on the floor and he crushed it to pieces and he had a baton, a wooden baton, with rubber at the end, and he gave her, on her head, split her head. It was bleeding. And that was not enough. He said, “That will teach her a lesson. You cannot beg anymore.” But she said, “I am hungry.” He said, “So be hungry,” and he put her down to that filthy dark cellar. And this cellar was every day people went down. And she had to stay there hours. Probably that was the toilet as well. And all the (?), “masriach” (Hebrew – stinks). And “hoshech” (Hebrew – darkness) and she was there, crying and crying, and he didn’t let her out. Only after hours.

Q: She was…(?)

A: She was about eight and a half years. There was thirteen, there was fourteen, was with the mother. And another after, and when this episode was forgotten, and whenever the alarm came, “ימח שמם”, the German, he didn’t come down. He was upstairs. He just came down a few steps because he was checking that…that was their worry – that we shouldn’t run away. They just wanted us alive to kill us. They didn’t want that we should escape. And my brother also, once he stayed at home and he also went to beg. And he caught him and he, he locked for a whole day. And my mother and I begged him, in German,, you know, begged him…(?), but my sister, Miriam, she has, up to now, “pachad” from “hoshech” (Hebrew – fear of darkness). She is an old woman already. She sleeps with all her door and lights on (?) because she is so terrified. And I don’t know how that head would heal. And my brother Moishe also. You know, he dreams (?) for the rest of the time. (pause in tape)

So sometimes they came late. Normally they came ten o’clock in the morning, the airplanes. And sometimes they did not manage to take the people, so everybody had to run down to the cellar and they were pushing and they were pushing on the steps to arrive. So many people going down. It was terrible. And people who fainted. And my younger sister was…always when she heard the alarm – you don’t know how frightening it was. It was “hooo” and not one airplane. It was a group of airplanes and you heard this (?), and the head (?). It was terrible. And everybody (?) next to “sifrei kodesh”, whatever. They were gathering around it and asking the “Ribono shel olam” to save us. It was terrible “pachad” (Hebrew – fear). We knew that any minute we can go. One day…and again, always the “messer” was from my mother, “aleha hashalom”, “Don’t forget to take the package”. So one day they went to the Weinerbad and the bombs came and again we went down and I went down with my sisters, and this time they bombed the “lager”. You see, why did they do that, next to that school, next to the factories? They knew if the factories will go, we will go. They couldn’t (?) kill us, but like that. So they dropped on the whole school bombs. There were no windows, no doors. It was open. It was terrible. And they were in the Weiner-wald and they heard “shmuot” (Hebrew – rumours) that we were bombed out, but they couldn’t come home. They had to wait until a certain time. They had to wait there. They were very orderly. That was the main thing – to come in exactly the same measurement, the same beautifully put down… So they came down, we came up, and he, (?) – what was his name? Fritz. He stood – he didn’t want to go down – so he stood on the step and “Baruch HaShem” (?) (Hebrew – took him up to the ceiling and he died), because he didn’t want to come down. But we were down in the cellar, so we were all alive, and we came up. Big smoke, terrible “heres” (Hebrew – destruction). “Levanim” (bricks) and shattered windows and water pipes and everything – it was terrible. So we went out in front of the “lager” and everybody sat, the children on the little (?), the grownups in the Wiener-wald. And at night when they came home, so everybody ran down…(?) (Hebrew) “Kinderlach? Where are you? Where are you?”

Q: So they knew that the area was bombed.

A: Yes, they knew that the area was bombed. They heard it. And everybody was looking for his children and the “simcha” that you have seen there. My mother (?) found us, and other people, their own children. It was indescribable. So we thought that they would take us to a different place now because we had nowhere. They came and they said, “You have to go back…(?)” And we went upstairs and there was nowhere to…So we had to clean from the glass. Before we were freezing with the closed windows and now we were freezing with the open windows. The wind and the “ruach” (wind) was blowing in and we were so hungry and so cold. And I remember my elder sister, one day when she hid some bread, she hid it on top. She hid it on top, that we shouldn’t catch it, that we should have it at night. When they bombed the “lager”, the whole bread went and we shouted at her, “See, at least we could have eaten it. We could have been…Now we have no bread and we are still hungry.”

Q: No one stole the bread?

A: She hid it. Probably they did not know exactly…You know, these breads were connected. There were always little…And she hid it. How much bread already was? We got only one slice of bread. One in the morning. And there was an old lady, Rebbetzin Lobich. She stayed in our room. And the whole day…she was alone there, with an “einicle” (grandson), a little (?) boy. Couldn’t have been more than seven. And he went to his “savta” and he said, “Babika, Savta, why are you so stingy (?)? Please give me a little bit of bread,” and he showed it on his finger, just such a little bit. So “Babika” said, “(?) (Hebrew) From where shall I take? I haven’t got.” And he said, “Babika, don’t be so.” He couldn’t understand. “Just a little bit of bread.” But we were also hungry. Everybody was hungry, so this was the main thing, the hunger and the cold and the “haftzatzot” (Hebrew- bombings). It was unbearable. And later on…

Q: And the “haftzatzot” – was it (?) a little bit? Knowing, seeing the Germans also suffer?

A: We did not know. We just knew that we were suffering and we were terrified and it went on our nerves and we had to run and we did not know if we would come up alive or dead. We did not know. It was terrible for us. It was absolutely terrifying. After already they couldn’t go to the Weiner-wald. So my mother, “aleha hashalom”…but they still kept us in that “lager”, in Schankebergasse (sp?). The whole “lager” was called Schankebergasse. And my mother, they sent her to work in “Ankerbrodfabrik” (sp?). “Ankerbrodfabrik”, you know this “anker”? You know there is…this was called (?), and they sent her, with another few women, down to the cellar. They came there, the German Nazis, “ימח שמם”, to eat their lunch, and they had sandwiches and they had sandwiches, what they had. And when they finished they threw away pieces, what they left. They had plenty. The leftovers. And this was mainly for the “chayalim”, this “Ankerbrodfabrik” factory, but also probably for the German nation.

Q: (not clear)

A: Could they take? They were definitely not allowed to take. They said, “If you will take, you will die.” But first I have to tell you that in the Weiner-wald, again, while they were sawing, that on Sundays the people came on picnics. On picnics. You know, it was a beautiful place. They came on Sundays on picnics. And my mother could speak German and she always…(German). You know, “Have you got a little bit of sandwich or something?” Some gave. They were not all “reshaim” (bad people). Some (?) and some said, “I haven’t got now. I will buy (?) and I will give you.” Or they gave “tlushim” (Hebrew – coupons). You know, they had “tlushim”, coupons, they also had coupons, and somewhere we exchanged it for bread. And my mother always had a bit of bread. And she was together with a “rav” from Lemberger, around Lemberger. Mako. Mako was a different, not Szeged, like…And he said to my mother, “aleha hashalom”, “I want to be together with one group with you”. He was a “rav” and my mother a “rebbetzin”, and they did it together. So on my mother’s advice, “because you are…”(?). That was the biggest (?)…So after my mother got into this (?), they brought them and they had to it “Schnell! Schnell! Schnell!”, to clean the table with water because the next group of Germans was coming and there was no time to wipe it, so they did it with water. They had to wear rubber boots because it was full of water. Because for the next lot the tables had to be clean. And they threw away bread, and they….(not clear) they wanted to take and my mother, she filled up her rubber boots with (?), with the dry bread, and they checked and she passed through. So she worked there for quite a few months, in the “ankerbrod”.

Q: The German…kitchen.

A: They checked every time. Yes, they had the (?) of the main floor, they had it just where these officers came and the way, when she came home, the way she came (?), this is how she gave us bread. “Rebbetzin, Rebbetzin.” They waited like for a “malach” (Hebrew – angel) to give a little bit of bread. But you don’t know. Bread was life.

Q: (?)

A: Not a whole slice. Just a crumb. We were happy for a crumb. And she gave to everybody as much as she (?). (?) they didn’t get her. And then one day things were very bad already, so they came again to my mother, that they should tell them, that people should pack, and tomorrow a big lorry is going to come and they will take them away to a place where they will not need to work and you can have plenty of food. So people, “nebbuch”, packed and they went again with the transports. And we were shouting to my mother, “Please. We have nothing. Maybe it will be easier. Maybe we will have food.” And she said, “We will wait for our turn.” And then the “lager” nearly emptied out. And we went to the windows and it was very dangerous because the windows had no windows already. It was open. And we shouted to them, “Please, if it will be good for you, think about us. Send us some food parcel.” We thought that they are sending to a good place, but again, these people went already to Auschwitz. Everybody. Or to Birkenau or to…To different – I don’t know – but to different places. They didn’t…

Q: (not clear) It was the beginning of ’45?

A: I think it must have been the end of ’44. I don’t know how long have we been in Theresienstadt – three, four months. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Q: (Not clear)

A: ’45? No, because we…

Q: Went from Birkenau…(not clear)

A: To other places, whatever there was, but they definitely did not go to (?) places. So after the “lager” got already empty, and we were also supposed to leave, whatever…(?) told to keep the “lager” for us, my sister, my eldest sister, Rachel, very much afraid from the SS, so they took her to a hospital and we couldn’t have left because my mother said, “I have to wait until she is released from hospital,” and this probably saved us. She stayed for two weeks, and by that time…

Q: It wasn’t contagious?

A: It was very contagious. You know, one of these “adamdemet” (measles). I don’t know which. And this they hated. So after they transported us…

Q: She was in hospital in Vienna?

A: In Vienna.

Q: In regular hospital?

A: I think so.

Q: Your mother could set with her?

A: I don’t know. No, but we had to know. She was with us, but we got to know if she was better and she was not better, and then they released her, so we also had to leave.

Q: And at that time there were still people in…?

A: Very few, very few. It was finished. There was no water. The water was running on the beds because the pipes were…no water and in this ice cold the water was frozen and the toilets didn’t fill because that was frozen. You know, it was inhuman. We couldn’t stay there. So they took us to Theresienstadt. And Theresienstadt was a model village for showing to the Red Cross. And in Theresienstadt we were already better off. The food was better, but very little. It was a better taste, not like what they gave for “chazerim” (Hebrew – pigs). They gave a little boiled potato.

Q: (not clear) because it was expensive for…

A: I don’t know, but it was so “magil” (Hebrew – disgusting), the food, that as much as we were hungry in Vienna, we just didn’t want to…we just closed our eyes to eat it because we were hungry and it was warm, but it was disgusting. I don’t know what they put in it. So in Theresienstadt it was a model village and there were musicians there and school and we went every day to school and a lot of drawing. And we went to “ginot” (Hebrew – gardens).

Q: (not clear)

A: Why didn’t (?)? It was just a “lager”, Theresienstadt was just a “lager”.

Q: Most of them spoke Czech or German.

A: Not always. They didn’t fill up Theresienstadt. From Theresienstadt they also took the first transport, all of them, to “l’hashmid” (Hebrew – to murder), but we came already late, and the “passei rakevet” (Hebrew – railway tracks) were bombed out, so they kept us there. And I remember Pesach we were there and my brother Moishe had a beautiful voice – he sang the “Ma Nishtana” and he asked the “Four Questions” and they were civil, normal. We drew a lot and it was very intellectual. Beautiful music. All big musicians – you could use your violins. Children were drawing the whole day. You know this famous drawing from Theresienstadt where children express their sad feeling, you know, you read today so much from these drawings. And it was more or less a normal life. But we were still very hungry. We only dreamed about…not good food, just that shouldn’t be, we shouldn’t feel hunger. And we were in a good mood, so we imagined the food, what we had at home – chicken. You know, the smell when you fry it, and we just spoke about goose liver.

Q: What did you fantasize mostly about?

A: Just to have bread to be full up.

Q: Yes, but when you talked about food?

A: Not cakes. We smelled as a food what we smelled at home, and my mother…you know, they made this chicken, roasted chicken, and it had such a beautiful smell, with the garlic. And we just smelled it and we imagined it like that, the nicest smell in the world. We just dreamt about it. And one day, after…I don’t know how many…we must have stayed there three months, I am sure.

Q: But at that time you remember there were coming transports, people from the camps to Theresienstadt.

A: Of course. We had “maga” (Hebrew – contact), but it was huge base. It was a town, Theresienstadt. Little houses.

Q: So those people, they were in much, much worse condition than you. Do you remember what we call “muzelman”?

A: No, it was actually…we got our food and we didn’t work and we went to school and we learned and it was…you know, they showed to the Red Cross everything what they speak about the Germans a lie. “Have a look how Jews live.” So of course we knew it was some forgery, but we did not know what (?). It came to the end of the war and one day we heard bombing and “ra’ash” (Hebrew – noise) and “totachim” (Hebrew – cannons). Then we knew something was happening.

A: We thought or they come to kill us or help is coming. Eventually the Russians came to liberate us. It was the 8th of May. But somebody came, they had a big plan in Theresienstadt, to tell that “You should know the whole town is going to be bombed.” They put bombs underneath. “They detonate. The whole town to go up in fire to kill the whole.” “I know where these bombs are, but “and if you give me my life and my family I will tell the secret.” Of course we agreed and this is how Theresienstadt was saved and the Russians came in and they saw I was…the jubilation, with the crying, the happiness, the dancing. I cannot describe it in words. And then they opened all the “machsanim” (warehouses), they had food warehouses. That was the first thing, what we went for. And they ate the food and they ate “chazir”. What do you mean? This was “pikuach nefesh”. And they also found Germans. The Germans…they dressed up in our clothes, borrowed clothes, but of course the Russians noticed everything. And they found the Germans…they couldn’t hide the (?), so they could search…and they put salt on it and they were very cruel because their whole anger they had to take out on these few Germans. You couldn’t blame them. We didn’t stay there a long time.

Q: Did they take revenge?

A: The Jewish people. (?) Yes they did. But you didn’t find them because they hid or they dressed up or they probably had (?). So they started…And my brother Moishe, he did not – we were starving and everybody was so hungry and there was a big fight about the food. You can imagine. The Jewish people, between ourselves, we were fighting, pushing and…we did not know how to open it quick enough. We had to survive and we were very sick and very hungry. And Moishe didn’t push. He only ate potatoes off the (?). He did not touch…He had no father to teach him. That’s what I am telling you. The religion of my father, taught us all his life. He was a little boy. He was less than thirteen. And then they started to put us in different trains, to take us back to Budapest, but again, there was no…the trucks. They were all bombed.

Q: Hungry and weak, all of you were healthy. All eight of you.

A: Yes. All eight. I don’t know how. Don’t ask me how, because, as you say, if I am after a fast day I am finished, or for drinks or for food. How we managed to go through this “lager” without windows, without blankets and the wind was “hooo”, you just heard “hooo” in the winter, and we lay there on the wooden…it was like these beds. What do you call them? The bunkbed. It was just plain wood. I don’t know how we existed. I don’t know, we were from (?).

Q: Your sister that was injured in her head…

A: It healed up. Yes, but she cannot, she is terrified of “hoshech” (Hebrew – darkness) and…no, we all…

Q: At that time it healed?

A: It healed, but listen. We all have got something. She is not well. I am not well. I can’t hear. I have got both ears hearing aids. Why? Because these bombs and these airplanes came. It probably affected me. Every sister of mine has got a different illness and I also. My back is (?) weak. We stayed in that “lager”, down – it was all wet and damp, and we stayed there hours, sometimes half a day, until the alarm went off and we could get up. And from the dampness I have got osteoporosis. You know. Not osteoporosis. (?) Something “osteo”. I have got terrible backache, all the time. I go for treatments. I have got all kinds of problems, and this is all (?). So we didn’t feel it after, but later on, in years, it came out, every single sister. All of them have got high blood pressure. It does this. The trauma is still with us, even we speak about it. So after we started to go back with the transports to Budapest. But there were no “maspeak kranot” (Hebrew – not enough train cars), because they brought from all over. So they put us in the “kranot” and we stayed for days in the “kranot” and after they shoved us a little bit more and after the train came, another direction, so they pushed us away and then we went back to the main track, and this is how…It took us probably weeks till we arrived back to Budapest…(no clear). But my little brother, he was very...and he did not grow out, over his hunger, and he found such a…When these trains were standing, so they all got sent over and we went out a little bit until they told us – these were the Russians who looked after us. (not clear) They were “chayes” (animals). They were four, five years in the war. And my brother found a few potatoes that he wanted to eat, and he found a “pushke” and made a little hole in it, and he found little pieces of wood and he put it on the trucks. From the train, when it come there it should break. So he managed a few times…And once they caught him there and they ran after him and my brother ran…he was in danger and he ran and ran until he came to our “karon”. And my mother had a “chaluk” hanging the middle, so he hid underneath and then we knew that the Russians were chasing him. And they put a blond “sheitl” on him and they caught my brother. And my mother was really screaming, they said that they are taking him away and she will never see him again. “That how can they do that to me? “I survived so far, so many months, and now you take away my only son. I have to take him back. (?) I want to go back.” And they punished him, they took him until the night alone, I think, and then they beat him down in the forest and he walked home. I don’t know how he walked home in the dark, and he arrived home and everybody was…(not clear). Whole “kranot”, everybody knew the plight of my mother, and of course he never did it again. And we arrived to Budapest and there was a big…all the transports from Hungary arrived from Budapest, and then the “Joint” people there. They made for us food and clothes, even chocolate. Very little we had. Chocolate. We have seen chocolate! They really…(?), but food, food. How much food we wanted. And then it was a very long procedure – two lists from each town, from each family. Who came back? How many people? Ages. You know, it was a very, very long, precise thing. And we stayed there. And they had such big “luchot” (Hebrew – billboards) – everybody wrote his name on it. “Please, if you find…” “This and this is looking for that” and “I am alive. Look for me.” This is how it went for weeks. And then, in the meantime, my father came back. We didn’t know if he is alive of not. He came back from Hungarian army and wanted to go back straight to Kiskunhalas. And Kiskunhalas was completely empty. A few people came back. Sorry. I am too long? Tell me.

So he had typhus and he was more in the other world than here and the rabbis told that Dr. Dohany’s daughter, one of them, came back, but the whole family didn’t come back. So she looked after him. They had no medicines, no penicillin. As much as she could. And he said all the time, “What you keep me alive? I don’t want to live. What should I be for? I have no family. I lost a family of seven children. Don’t keep me alive. It is better for me…” And he was skinny and ill. And in the meantime, in Budapest he heard that some people came back from Kiskunhalas, and somebody from the (?), you know, the one that gave you work (?), they said there is a Herstik, so he said, “There is a Herstik…? “She left us in Budapest and she went on to Kiskunhalas and she found my father. I don’t know who paid for these journeys. Probably the “Joint”. And my father opened his eyes. He was – I tell you – he was on the other side and he said, “Channahle, am I dreaming? Is that you?” So my mother said, “Yes.” She said, “She will be escorting Mordechai. She never called him Mordechai. She called him “HaRav Mordechai”. Always she gave him the biggest “kavod”. So she said, “Rav Mordechai, wake up. You have to be healthy.” (?) “I brought you back all your seven children.” And before the transport, my father always enquired, “Have you seen a big family? Have you seen a big family?” So they said, ‘Yes, we have seen one family.” “What do they look like?” He said, “What do the children look like?” So somebody said, “One of them has got very big eyes.” That was my sister Suri…He said, “That is my family.” And then my mother came to Kiskunhalas and she said, “Get up. Be well, because I brought you back your children.” And then my mother went back to Budapest. She brought us back to Kiskunhalas and we got together and my father slowly, slowly…took him months to recover and we went back to our house. It was (?). And my mother, she had the key. She was hiding. She went in and didn’t tell. It was empty completely. We only had the pussy cat waiting for us and my brother…when they cut his hair. That was on the wall. That’s all. We stayed there a few months, but things were very bad because the Russians were “chayos” (animals). They were just catching women and killing them all over, doing what they wanted, bringing them back or they killed them. So then my father had already big children and he said, “Kinderlach, we cannot go away.” (not clear)

Q: He told you to stay home?

A: (?) My father. Yes. (?) So what did the Russians do? We had a very big Russian…it was (?) “chayalim” (Hebrew – soldiers), so they came and wrote a note on the window, so we had to write that all the children and they knocked on the window and they wanted watches and they wanted…We didn’t have nice, not watches, so we had to give them something, and they always came. You had to give them whatever, but they were not allowed to see the girls. So one day my mother took out a bottle. It was very sharp drink from what you make sharp drinks. Very, very sharp. I don’t know. And she gave it to him. Like pure alcohol. It was very, very sharp. And he drank it down as if nothing would have happened. They were used to it. And my mother said, “Now they are going to kill us. He is going to. It will burn….” (?) but nothing happened to him. But my father said, “Please. We have to go away.” In the meantime it came Pesach and the whole town didn’t have matza, so my father went to his friend and he said, “We have to have matza.” And where you should have it, because the town started slowly, slowly, to get back. (?) people, typhus…

Q: You are talking about the Pesach of ’46.

A: Pesach of ’46. So my father went, “I will go to the Russian commander and I will ask him that please, he should close (?) one of the factories for…” So they told him, “Rav Herstik, (?). They will kill you.” So he said, “I can only try.” So he went and he was “נושא חן בעיני”. The Russian commander stopped for one day and all the Jewish men were at home, they went, they cleaned up and baked a big matzos and there was no matzos, only in Kiskunhalas, for the whole thing. At least for the first day they had matzos. This was a miracle. And during the war, when we “schlepped” the luggage always down, so they said to my mother, “What are you doing? What are you ‘schlepping’? You have no other worries?” She said, “We will need it someday.” She had such a “bitachon” (confidence) that we are going to be…All sort of…such horror, what we lived, that what will help us, and we would meet my father again. It was unheard of. So after Pesach, we went up to Budapest. The “shlichim” started to come and…to go to “Eretz Yisrael”, but everything was a big secret. So that is why we moved from Kiskunhalas, because everybody was there. And I went to work there. (not clear) I went to such a “pnimiya” (boarding school), for two months, and then the “shlichim” came.

Q: It was a boarding school?

A: It was a boarding school. Rozsi Neni.

Q: Or “hachshara”?

A: A boarding school, a boarding school. I was already nearly twelve. I was nearly twelve. Twelve I was when we came to Israel. So the “shlichim” came in secret to (not clear). “You are going to make “aliyah” and you are going to work and…” So they gathered groups and they put us in Yugoslavia. In Yugloslavia, in the wild, in the forests. And when we boarded the train in Budapest, it was in a secret. We were not allowed to know that we arrived to… “Rav Herstik! Rav Herstik!” So they recognized him. We did not know where to put ourselves. And we waited in Yugoslavia two weeks until the boat arrived and then you can’t take big groups of people. It was very, very dangerous because the Russians closed the gates and didn’t allow any Jews out. They didn’t, not from there, not from Romania, so we were very lucky. It was very early in ’46. By the way, we were liberated in Sophia. I told you that. That was younger sister’s birthday. My mother, I don’t know how she had candles to light in that the forest in Yugoslavia, and the boat arrived, a little boat. A little boat, which was supposed to be for six hundred people, and they pushed on it two thousand (?) people. And they pushed and pushed and pushed. It went away from Fiume. And the journey to Israel from Yugoslavia is nothing. It is only a few days. And “nebbuch”, the people went down the boats. They were unfortunate because they died from heat. It was summer. And we were lucky. We were up. And before we left Hungary we made a bit of money – I don’t know how – and my father made from it a little bar (?) and we built it in my brother’s shoe. He was (?) in the heel and my father, “alav hashalom”, said always, “Moishele, look after the shoe. We need what is in it. Look after it very much because…” So we went up on the boat and we sat everybody on the luggage and it was bad. We had to go down to the toilet. You couldn’t bypass. And downstairs the people died from heat. And until we arrived in the middle of the Adriatic Sea the boat was too little for so many people, so we started to sink. They put out an SOS four times. There were big holes in the boat and the “rav chovel”, the captain came to my father and he said, “Rabbi, pray.” So my father said, “Praying is not enough. Alright, we will gather and pray, but what will you do with the hole?” He said, “You put in all your luggage to block the holes because you are sinking.” So they put in all the luggage, what people from down below the deck, the lower deck, and after it sank again…four times it sank, they had SOS’s. After we arrived to the port of Haifa. It took us two weeks instead of five days. Two weeks in the middle of the summer. It was August. And we hear shooting, and who welcomed us? The English. That was them…and they came up. They shoot, they stop. “If you don’t stop, we will shoot to the whole ‘oniya’ (ship).” So the “rav chovel” stopped and (Hebrew) disappeared. (Hebrew) He immediately dressed as somebody else. So the English people came up with red berries – I don’t know how they were called – with red berries…With red berries.

Q: “Calaniot”.

A: “Calaniot”. They were (?). So they said, “Who is the boss here?” There was no boss. “Show me your captain.” There was no captain. They said, “Who brought you here?” So we said, ‘We don’t know. We just…” They said, “Who brought you here? I have to see the ‘machers’. I have to see.” So (Hebrew) they disappeared. No one said a word. And they said, “If you don’t say who your captain is, this is where you will stay.” They let us stay in that boiling heat for two weeks in the water (?), in the boat, in the middle of the summer in the Mediterranean. Boiling heat. And it was so hot – my father was upstairs – that his shirt, from the sweat, it stuck to his skin, and when they took off the shirt, the whole skin came off. Everybody got “makat shemesh” (Hebrew – heatstroke). They had “rachmones” (mercy) and we had no food, so they threw us up tins and we opened the tins and sardines – this is what was in. They had already “rachmones” and they gave us rubber boats, that we should go down to the water to cool ourselves. So the young people jumped into the rubber boat, but it was chained to the boat, that (?) we shouldn’t escape. So my brother Moishe also went into the rubber boat, but he left his shoe upstairs. He came back and my father said, “Moishele, where…(?)” Everybody was looking for Moishele’s shoe. There was no Moishele’s shoe. The gold was gone. Or they threw it down or they…the luggage there was not anymore because the “rav chovel” told, “If you don’t throw all your luggage to the ‘yam’ (sea)” – first we filled it up, the holes – he said, “We can’t arrive.” So the English people left us out there for two weeks, and “sof sof” (finally) they made a “hafshara” (Hebrew - compromise). They said, “We are taking to…Cypress.” They didn’t take us to Cypress. They took us to Atlit. Atlit, it was a very big camp. It just have been from the army, and it was also a closed enclosure. We were completely closed. And they counted us every single night like cattle. Where could we have gone? Just like the Germans. They counted us again to the rooms and they counted us. So we stayed there nine months. And in the meantime, “shlichim” came from “Eretz Yisrael”. I remember a Mr. Katz. He was a big…from Haifa and he heard that my father got a good voice and they brought him out. They released us before our time because they brought him out to sing in the “Yeshurun”. In the “Yeshurun”. “Yeshurun” was a “Great Synagogue”. HaRav Hertzog was there.

Maybe you want some cold water?

HaRav Hertzog was there a “rav”, and Dr. Eliash.

Q: In Jerusalem.

A: In Yerushalayim. They took us to Jerusalem. We got a house from the “memshala” (Hebrew – government). Very few people, I don’t think there were more than three hundred and fifty or four hundred thousand when we arrived in ’46. We were with the first “aliyot” to arrive. It was all the “aliyot” after us, they went for two years to Cypress. And because of my father’s voice, we were released earlier and he sang in “Yeshurun” and we got a house in Rechov Mea Shearim, in the very end house. It was “mul”(across from) Sheikh Jarrah, near Mandelbaum Gate. We could see the Arabs.

Q: It was not “Batei Hungarim” (Houses of Hungarians)?

A: But the very last, last house. And on the side…we had a balcony. We could see, one side we have seen “Beit Cholim Italki” and in front of us was a very, very big “rechava”, empty space, no-man’s land. We could see the Arabs. They were shooters. And every time we came onto the balcony they were shooting. They took down whoever went out. And then there were friendships still with the Arabs. I remember they brought us food and they brought us dried fruit and figs and whatever they grew. And if we couldn’t pay, we paid tomorrow. They were (Hebrew) more or less…(?) And the “Haganah” came and it came nearer to “Milchemet ha’Shichroor” (War of Independence). And the Mandate was supposed to finish, and the shooting, the Arabs were starting to shoot all the time on us. So they said to us, the “Haganah”, “You are in very big danger here. We are moving into your house and we will shoot back from here.” And for a time we stayed together with the Haganah, but it wasn’t working, because the relation and “neshek” and we were still young children. I was taken, when we arrived I was taken to “Aliyat Noar”. They put me to “Pnimiyat Chorev”. (Hebrew) That was a branch of “Beit Sefer Chorev”. There I studied Hebrew. And my two sisters, they went to “Chabashim”. That was also a “pnimiya”.

Q: In the Chabashim Street.

A: In the Chabashim Street. Because, you know, how could my father feed so many children? So the first money, what my father got from “Yeshurun”, he went and spent it on a beautiful candlestick for “shabbos”. So my mother said, “(?)” “Why did you buy silver? (?)” She said, “‘Shabbos’ comes once a week. But I have to feed the children.” That was all her cells, that she has to feed the children. That was in her head. Tov, my father bought it anyhow. We had the candlestick and we had to move out…(?). And we had to move out from Chabashim and then the “Milchemet ha’Shichroor partza” (War of Independence broke out) ’48. Things were very bad. The fight started with the Arabs, all the good friends, they turned into the biggest enemies. And Yaffo was liberated.

Q: Before this, the first two years…

A: I was in “Pnimiyat Chorev” and I was very sad. I was very sad. I was separaqted from my parents. And they made “otzer” (curfew), the English, they made “otzer”. (Hebrew) It was forbidden to go out into the streets. “Otzer”. Curfew. And I remember I went from Chabashim, from “Pnimiyat Chorev” – it was quite a long way to walk – and I went to see on “shabbos” my parents and they couldn’t come out because they were…They had all over “gader tayil” (fence). All days they were busy with the “gader tayil”, the English. (Hebrew) They closed them in. They were wires. So it reminded us always the camps, this barbed wire. And my sisters…so I was never with my parents.

Q: But for you, coming to a very different country, very different…

A: It was sad.

Q: Language.

A: It was sad. I didn’t speak a word Hebrew. And the whole country was different. They put us together in this “pnimiya”, one from Ardennes, one from Hungary, one from Czechoslovakia. We were a big mix. And they had (?), and they took me to a private teacher and after he said I should learn Hebrew. And all of us, probably. And after I went to “Beit Sefer Chorev” – it was opposite the Knesset then. (Hebrew) The old Knesset was opposite “Beit Sefer Chorev”. It was in the garden.

Q: On King Goerge.

A: Yes. (Hebrew) I don’t know if it is still there. “Beit Sefer Chorev”. (?) So it was very happy times because I was with girls, but the “rav” again. With (Hebrew) “Milchemet ha’Shichroor it was again terrible. There was no food. Again there was no food. There was no water. They brought water…

Q: You were really hungry?

A: And we were (?). Very little food. We were hungry again. We collected from the fields “hamaniot” (sunflowers), the green leaves.

Q: “Hamaniot” or (?)…

A: We called it spinach. I don’t know. They called it spinach and they cooked it and we got a little bit of egg powder. Very little food. And water was also, very, very little water. I remember they came, they brought big containers of water and we had to queue for the water. It was hard times then. And after, they transported us from our house to Yaffo.

Q: Jaffa the town, not Jaffa the street.

A: No, Jaffa the town. They took over all the Arab houses and we got somehow, like a harem, and very, very big. Old-fashioned Arab house, with a huge middle room, and on the sides were little rooms. Very old-fashioned kitchen with running water, and a toilet we had. And it had a huge garden around it, with fruit trees, with guavas, with banana trees. It was nice. We could move. And then we stayed in Yaffo. It was a very “chiloni” town. It was full of Bulgarians. They were atheists. They also came from Bulgaria. They did not know about religion. They did not know what G-d is. It was very difficult because we were religious people. So my father said, “Kinderlach”. People, they gave everybody houses in Yaffo, the apotropis. So my father said, “Enough ‘oneshim’”. We got…(?) in our house. That was always with him.

Q: You built a synagogue in your house?

A: In our house. So we took away – we were seven children – we took away everything (?), with wooden benches and table (?), and they made a synagogue and we had a very big “minyan”, and this was the centre of Yaffo. Everybody knew of Rav Herstik. And after that Herstik opened another synagogue – (?) Aleph and (?) Bet. But you know, the roads were not paved. It was full of sand. They were very backwards, these Arabs. It was a big city, but nothing was done. Very neglected. So the people came from far to our synagogue and after, my father said – there were so many people and women – and he said, (?) and people…(not clear). (Hebrew) He wanted one of the houses there, near to us…it was crowded. I was still in Jerusalem. (English) I was still in Jerusalem now at this time. I was there because there was a “seminar”, because it was two years, three years. I was in “Chorev” and after I went to “Seminar Beit Ya’acov”, on Rechov David Yellin.

Q: Rechov David Yellin or Seminar David Yellin?

A: It was Rechov David Yellin. The Seminar Beit Ya’acov was in…

Q: The Seminar David Yellin is in…

A: Katamon. No, no, but after it moved to Katamon because it grew and I was from Rechov David Yellin. (Hebrew) I walked to Katamon until I joined my parents.

Q: You became a teacher there (?)?

A: Yes, I finished. Yes. I have pictures. Yes, I’ve got pictures.

Q: You liked it?

A: I liked to learn.

Q: (?)

A: I loved children. I loved children, and this was a “seminar”, was either for teachers or for (?). That was a Jewish religious girls’ profession. They didn’t send the girls then to learn. Of course there were no computers. They didn’t send them between men, so this was the only “kosher” profession what a girl could do. And every year, when a girl finished (?). So in the meantime, David (?), my father said, “(?)”. (Hebrew) “We have to build a ‘mikve’.” So he took over such a “churva” (Hebrew – ruin) and we dug and we made “mikve” and then he called Arab workers and they…very primitive, and we had to wait for rainwater to come in. And they had to hit the water. Everything very, very old-fashioned. And he went to the “Agudat Yisrael” and he begged, “I want to make a ‘mikve’. Please, help me.” “You have to buy this, and you have to buy this.” There was no help. They said, “Rav Herstik, there are other important things.” So he said, ‘There is a whole bunch of women. They can’t go to the ‘mikve’. How can you do such a thing?” (?) She said, “Lazar…” You know what it was to walk from Yaffo to Tel Aviv? Through the whole Yaffo-Tel Aviv, up to Tel Aviv. I don’t know where the first “mikve” was for ladies. So my father built a “mikve”. And when we had to empty the “mikve”, because people came and said we had to empty, but there was no pumps, so we had…(?) workers. Eventually took his own daughters. He had no other workers. His workers, one gave it to the other, and we emptied the “mikve”. Just imagine. He never wanted that we should put our hands in cold water, but this he was not sorry because it was religion and he said, “The soldiers came home.” They were all the army. They took everybody to the army. They needed soldiers. Family men and young men. So the men came home. They got twenty-four hours. They wanted to see their wives. You have to have…you know, by us, “mikve” is very important. So they knocked on the window at night. My mother, she was a “mikve judene” and she took them down to the “mikve”. I don’t know how hot it was because it took time until this big primus, until…It was a big primus. It wasn’t electricity. And they went to the “mikve”. And "Baruch HaShem", so Daddy achieved that. This was a very big thing. We had no shoes. We didn't have a "mikve". (?) – he made "matzos" for everybody. He was all for religion. That was his aim in life.

Q: (?)

A: His religion. (pause in tape) So somebody decided, from the neighbourhood, his son is arriving, "neched" (grandson) from the Rav Canz, and also a little "beit knesset" next to us. "Mamash" on the corner. They had to bypass his "beit knesset" and go…We lived in Yaffo on Rechov "Divrei Chayim", and because they called it "Divrei Chayim", the son, the "rav", he opened there a new "shul". And he stood all day outside and to bring in people for a "minyan". And we thought we would lose a lot of the "minyan", but the people came because when we, on "Shabbos" they came to "shul", we had to bypass from one side to the other and the men sat outside. We were (?), so our "minyan" was full because they wanted to see Rav Herstik, and then they came for “Seuda Shlishit”. They stayed for "Motzei Shabbos", for "Havdala", and my father was so strict, he was very much counting his daughters. So things were bad. It was no food. It was no food. There were no buses to Tel Aviv. My mother had a relation in Tel Aviv who had some fields, some agricultural thing and he paid somebody – it was (?) – so my mother had to go in by foot to Tel Aviv, a woman, five kilo potatoes, and we were happy for it. And we had some chickens in our big garden and we grew chickens, that we should have a few eggs. I remember we collected – nobody touched the eggs. We left it for Pesach, that we should have for Pesach a few eggs. And then the transports started to arrive from Hungary and the (?) of these big two "chassones", boys and his wife – they were hiding during the whole war and they had two little children. (not clear) So they came to us and then another "ben dod" (cousin) came. They also came to us. And my eldest sister got married and she also lived with us, so I don't know how everybody had room. You made room. It was like “Beit HaMikdash”. You know, my mother the whole day just thought where she should make food for…(?) people. So she had such little pots and she cooked in those pots and "ממש יכלו לראות שהברכה נכנס בזה" (Hebrew). Everybody ate from these pots and (?) and we ate. And I remember there was one chicken for "shabbos" and this one chicken had one liver, so they made this chicken liver and with a lot of onions, (?) if there were enough onions, and we just dipped in, in the fat, and this was our food. And who was the liver for? The "kinderlach"…All we got from my father, for her husband, for my father, "alav hashalom", and for the “idem” my youngest sister. She came them the biggest spoon that…(?) And we still lived in Yaffo.

Q: (?) sisters

A: Two sisters already, and they all got living in the house. One got one room. (Hebrew) We crowded in on the other side. And the other got another room, and they made steps and outside they built a little kitchen and a little bathroom, and they had to make…It was very, very hard times. Very, very hard times.

Q: Now you are old enough, your professional work as a kindergarten teacher?

A: I worked. Not only that. (?) First, "yisadeti" (Hebrew – I founded). Because it was such a "chiloni" neighbourhood, so my father made the first Jewish kindergarten. I showed you. I've got the picture. We had about fifty children and I was the "ganenet" and my elder sisters were a "ganenet". So my father made two "shuls", a "mikve", and a Jewish kindergarten. And the kindergarten was full and I loved my profession, but after "Agudat Yisrael" said, "We don't want you here. Your sisters can take it over. We want that you should go to Lod and to Yaffo and 'l'yassed ganei yeladim' (found kindergartens)" because then…

Q: To establish.

A: To establish new schools because it was very…you didn't hear about religion. And we had to have religious "ganei yeladim". So I established new…I went every day. I walked (?) from Yaffo almost to Azur, and there I caught a bus to Lod and every day I went there. And also to Yaffo. And we made beautiful "chagigot" (celebrations) and the little Rivka grew up. It was a very happy time actually because we were a family, united family. My father, my mother and all the social affairs, beautiful Purims. Everything was in our house, and again singing started. And just came listening Friday night was singing, and the two little children were wonder boys, "chazone" were in our house. And it was again singing and singing. We had again a very happy household. And I was very happy. And all of us, well, we could have done with a little bit more food or money – that was…I worked and my other sister also worked as a "ganenet", a teacher. And we had a little bit of money, just to get by, but we were not rich. And then I got married. I got to a marriageable age, but I got (?) of one of the children.

Q: (?)

A: I got to a marriageable age. I was already twenty, but I was teaching for two years. I finished. And one of the children from the kindergarten, she infected me (Hebrew) with whopping cough, and I got such a whooping cough, as an old girl, that I was dying. I was suffocating. So they sent me away to change the atmosphere, to Jerusalem, and I stayed there in a hotel. This big, posh hotel. In Rechov Tzfanya. In Tzfanya Hotel. And the Satmar "rebbe" came then to "Eretz Yisrael" the first time or second time, and he came with all his "Chassidim", and the Satmar "gabbai" raises the "shidduch", my husband to me, and my father came to interview him. We met, and he was a very handsome, good-looking boy, and his father was a rabbi. And it was similar, a meeting of family, Hungarian rabbinic – they were from Nagyvarad, we were from Kiskunhalas. So the Satmar "rebbe" really, he made the "shidduch" and we got married and it was "simcha v'sasson" and the whole "gan yeladim", "Ganenet Rivka!, Ganenet Rivka!". But it was such times. We had to collect all the "tlushim" from the whole family to buy material for a wedding dress. And I got a wedding dress, somebody came home to sew my wedding dress. And what about food? You invited people. So my mother took a (?) herself and she alone cooked for all the congregation, the "Beit HaKnesset HaGadol", in Tel Aviv. My father got the hall on top and she cooked alone the food and they baked cakes, and we had the "chassone". And it was a beautiful…

Q: It was in '54?

A: It was in…I got married in '55, on December 27, '55 I got married. Also big "protectzia", but (?), the "Beit HaKnesset HaGadol" in Tel Aviv, it is three floors. And the hall, the "chassone" hall, was upstairs. We had to take up all the food alone and the fish and the cakes, but it was nice. We went by, and there was music. And after I got married and two weeks after I went away to England. I forgot to tell a very important thing. You know, when my father came to sing in "Yeshurun", Rav Herzog was there, and Dr. Eliash, he was ambassador to England. Very charming personality. And they told my father, "You know, you have to sing here Hebrew." And my father did not know. All his life he sang "lashon hakoidish" – "boirich", not "baruch", and he couldn't…

Q: There was a big movement – not the right accent.

A: Not the right accent. "Lashon hakoidish", you know, but it was not Bialik's Hebrew.

Q: Was Ashkenazi, not Sephardi.

A: Not Bialik's Hebrew. Not "Baruch ata…". And my father said, "I can't." So they said, "Big problem. You better do because otherwise you will lose the job." And my father got up and sang it in Ashkenazi, “Baruch ata”. And he sang so beautifully that HaRav Hertzog – he was the chief rabbi – he came to my father, that he should repeat of few of…he sang beautifully. And my father was very, very flattered and stopped the (?). And I was always in Kiryat Shmuel and Dr. Eliash lived somewhere near the Knesset – he always took us there. You know. And we visited him and after Dr. Eliash died in England, so there was a story, that they poisoned him. I don’t know what it was. Anyhow, when my father knew…(?) he was very, very friendly with him. So, going back to Yaffo, I got married and I sailed in two weeks’ time to England. And you know, I went after my…I was in love. He was young and he was in business, my husband, and he said he had to go back. And then we went by boats.

Q: So you knew when you got married that you would go to England?

A: Yes, but I did not think that it will be so soon, because we had to make papers. I had to show that I had finished my “mas hachnasa” (income tax) and it was a whole procedure and it took time. And his eldest brother was a professor. He said, “Don’t worry. I will take everything in my hand.” And he was a professor at Manchester University. They are all a very clever family. My husband also has got a “teuda” (teaching diploma) as well. He has got M.A. in chemistry. They were all M.A., Master of Arts. And so I sailed to England. I arrived to England. It was a beautiful, sunny, soft, happy home. We had happy times in England because we were together, father and mother and children.

Q: So Mediterranean Jaffa to the…

A: To the cold, miserable England, Manchester. It was…(?). No central heating. Only by fuel. Everything was dark, everything was… “בניהם היו שחורים” (Hebrew) The fumes, the smoke. And I thought, “What did I do? Why did I do…?” And I was very, very sad. I never stopped crying. Poor my husband…(?). He was a young man. They made him (?) his money, his family, nothing mattered to him. He came to the train station to meet us and nothing happened to me. We went through Paris – that was our honeymoon – and he came to me, but I was very miserable. I was so miserable that my father decided to send my younger sister, Miriam (?). She is a doctor. She was not married then, and he sent her, that she should be with me because my husband was…They were in textiles. So she stayed with me and she stayed until I had my first child. And because of her honour, he called my daughter, my first daughter, Miriam, and after, they made her also a “shidduch” from there, but she said, “Can’t give all England. I wouldn’t stay here for all the tea in China.” Because, she said, it was a completely different thing. And once I had my daughter Miriam, it was already a child makes home, and I was still very homesick, and I went home. He was doing well, my husband. I went home, to “chassones” for my children, and then later, when my children, we went through everything here to visit. Wait a minute, wait a minute! My mother was very, very homesick after me. When I left she said, “What did I do? Why did I let her go?” They kissed the sheets what I slept on. My sister said that it was wet from tears. And they told here, “Rebbetzin, (Hebrew) why are you making such a big deal of it? Be happy that you have ‘nachat’”. She said, “I want to have ‘nachat’ from near, not from far”. When she (?) herself…And after the situation in Israel was very, very difficult, so whoever had an offer for a “shidduch”…my sister, when the younger sister Shoshana…(?) You know, Hertzog. “יינית קדם” (Kedem’s wine). That Hertzog. She married him. And my mother’s sister Suri, with the big eyes, she emigrated to America. She married a son of a Satmar chasid, and already three children were out of the country. And my mother was very, very homesick, and one day she said, “I want to go (to my father) and visit my children. I want to go and see my brothers.” So my father said, “What you want to go with? Where should we take the money from? It costs a fortune. How do I get there?” Then there was the Queen Mary. You had to go first to London, and from London to Dover, and from Dover, the Queen Mary. My father took my mother, “aleha hashalom”. She said, “Bye. I want to go to see my children. I didn’t see my brothers from Hungary for years. I want to see them.” And she had three children abroad. We were all expecting. All of us were expecting some time. And my mother came to see us, and it was very difficult for them on the journey. They didn’t speak a word of English. And there was a very, very nice family from Milano – Netzer. Very rich people. Hungarian people. Their son, they knew each other from Hungary. And they were saying, “Rav Herstik”. So they helped all along with kosher food and with speech and they helped up to America. In America…No. First they stepped off in England, and from England they went again to America. So first my younger sister had a baby, a baby boy, and they called him after my mother’s father – Ya’acov Hirsch. And after they came down to Manchester and after, they went back and they stayed six months in New York. And again my father was giving speeches there as a “rav”, you know, of his experiences. And he got money and also he sang and he got money and this is probably how they paid their journey because…And they came back after six months and my mother was very, very ill. She somehow pushed herself and she wanted to say bye-bye to her children. And she was so ill – they took her then to a very big…She was coughing, coughing, coughing. I was expecting high months. My sister already had the baby. And they took her to a doctor and…(?). He said, “She has got tuberculosis”. Tuberculosis. She can’t get out from it. So they put her on the ship again, without the language. A little bit they spoke more because they were already six months, and they sailed back to Israel. She was very, very ill. She only wanted to go back to Israel. She said, “I have seen my children. Now I am going to go back to my children.” My father literally…we had to carry her by hand. And they arrived to Israel. She was ill. She went straight to Sheba Hospital, and she had there “a jene maise” (Yiddish) on the lung. And on the lung there was nothing you can do. With breaths so weak, by the time they took the x-rays – they didn’t check it immediately and they took another…It was already the whole lung was full. And then she couldn’t eat either. And in the hospital she got a stroke and the only problem she had, she asked what food to bring, not for her, because she couldn’t eat, but for the people in her room. She had in herself giving. She gave herself all this over to the “זולת”. And she just, you know, this she likes and…So my sister, she came to visit her, she already couldn’t speak. They fed her and she was very, very ill. And my elder sister was expecting and she said, “I just want to live until she has the baby.” She knew how ill she was because she couldn’t speak already. And my other sister said, “You don’t mind your mother, how ill she is, as long as she is with us.” But you couldn’t help already then and then my sister, the elder sister, had a boy and on the “bris” day she passed away. She was fifty-three, so what she did, she finished her mission in life. She took us home from the “lagers”, all (?), she brought us up, she went through us all these difficult times, when a mother cannot say to her children. You know, she had no food to give and this was the hardest thing for her, that she cannot feed her family. She married all her children. I was twenty-six when my mother passed away. She came back to London. I came up from Manchester to see her. I was five…nearing the ninth month, and she passed away. And the professor and his wife, they decided not to tell me that she passed away because they did not want that I should “צער” (mourn). Here I have to remember….(?) anyhow. So they kept me, but we knew by phone that she was very, very ill. And they didn’t tell us that she was no more here until after I had my baby. After I had my baby, Miriam got…they told me that my mother passed away and my sister who came, she…(not clear). It was a terrible, terrible, sad time. I was very sad. I didn’t have a mother, and in the “lager” she would (?) to her. What we had with her in Hungary was a (?) time. And after I moved my (?), from home, after, all in all forty-five years, and I miss so much my mother. I cannot help it when I went to “shul” to “daven” and I have seen all the “savtas” stroking the grandchildren, and I brought in my children, beautifully dressed, and nobody said a kiss or a hug. It hurt me very much. And she passed away at a very young age. So we remained only my father. My father, “Baruch HaShem”, lived until the age of eighty-six and he was a “rav” in Tel Aviv. He was a “rav” and (?). He was a very big “עסקן” (businessman) always. And my brother was a “rav”. He was in “Machleket HaShabbat”, and my father…(?) and Rav Herstik, so they “הספידו” (eulogized). Somebody came, Rebbetzin Mandel, and she said, “Do you know you father was? What he did in Tel Aviv at the “rabbinut”, that he always stood up for religion. What he did.” I said, “I think we knew a little bit my father”. So she said, “No, no, you did not know. What a shame that…(?) He was a decoration for the Tel Aviv street.” And when my mother passed away – of course I wasn’t at the funeral – so Rav Frankel was the chief rabbi then and he said, “Hannah…(?)”. This is (?) they told her. I was very happy, but I missed my mother very much. I couldn’t share like other girls. I was only twenty…I had two children – one three, one four, and that’s all, and then she closed her eyes and she finished…(?). So all in all, we went through a lot. When my children ask me, “Mommy, I don’t believe that you went all this and you remember everything. How come that you remember all the details?” So I said, “Believe me. I do.” And I have got in myself, what I told also my children, …(?) So they say, “You have got for…” So I say, “I don’t care if I have.” But by me there is no throwing bread. We never throw. The bread, for us, was life. We don’t take off the tablecloth and throw it with the bread. And I see at “chatunot” (weddings) the waste, what it costs, such big plates of food, I always remember the sad time when we were dying for a “pirur” (crumb), and for me, that big waste, I can’t take it. I will never get over it and I always tell them, “Don’t throw it away.” This was the story of my life.

Q: When did you come back to Israel?

A: I came back to Israel – that’s what I wanted to tell you – my husband, “Baruch HaSHem”, was prosperous and…first we were very poor, when I got married. Business didn’t go and he changed business. Also, I couldn’t come every year, but after, when I could go every year, I come only when my father was here, and I knew that I would come back to Israel, but as much as I liked Israel, Yitzchak liked a thousand times. His brother emigrated. They left all Manchester with “nadlan” – they all had “nadlan” (real estate). And he always said to my husband, “Come to Israel when you can still stand up straight. Come when you are still young, that you can enjoy.” And unfortunately, my husband got ill, he got Parkinson’s, but he was perfectly alright. But when we came here, we enjoyed very much. We had adored. He enjoyed every minute, but gradually…I came in 1999, eight years ago. Just now we finished eight years, and we celebrated our fifty-second wedding anniversary. And I will be in two weeks’ time seventy-four, I think. Seventy-four. And we celebrated also my husband – he was 10th of January eighty-three, and he doesn’t grow (?) much. This was a photograph that I showed you. We enjoyed every minute in Israel, and I am only sorry I didn’t come before. And my children…Manchester home. So I said, “The business is not good. (?) Don’t be like the Jews in Germany, that they stayed there. Come while you can.” And we came. Yitzchak was still healthy – he walked and he talked. But after this Parkinson’s – it is a horrible, horrible illness, and gradually he fell down. But “Baruch HaShem”, I married all my children – five of them. I have got twenty-odd grandchildren. I have got ten “ninim” (great-grandchildren), “Baruch HaShem”, and I am thanking G-d for “chassadav”, that after we went through and who knows what they put in our food, poison, because we should, you know, all kinds of things. We were young girls and we managed and I had children and healthy children and all my family. And I thank G-d for that, and this is the story of my life, in short. I didn’t tell you everything. (end of tape)

A: I married all my children. Unfortunately, one of them got (?). She passed away. This professor, she was a doctor…(?) Aged forty-eight. (?) And you know, I had a lot of “כבוד” (respect), that they are educated, two of them. Everybody has a got a B.A. She has got a M.A., B.A. and a doctorate. And my son is studying in “kollel”, and “Baruch HaShem”, I brought up a religious family, the way my father always wanted. He said, “Don’t forget…(Hebrew) We will bless HaShem, HaShem…” We were never ashamed of our religion. We showed it publicly and all the institutions, what we made, it was religious institutions. And I am thanking G-d for it. There are people who are much worse off, and I wouldn’t have minded it my husband would be healthy, but you can’t have everything in life. And “Baruch HaShem”, we enjoyed together “nachas” and that is the main thing. And thank you very much for all this…I hope I wasn’t boring you. I could have carried on – lots of stories.