Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Eva Ackermann - December 6, 1982

What was Friday night like in your house?

Uh, my mom was religious. We kept a kosher house and uh, it was filled with candle lighting and uh no traveling afterwards and uh, it was a lot--just because it was the two of us there because my mom's uh, sisters, sisters and brothers lived outside of Budapest. They lived middle Europe, Miskolcz.

Miskolcz?

Yeah. And so it was, it was just the two of us. I mean she lit the candle and it was uh, she was just religious in that, in a very uh, uh, in a way conservative but in a very, very modern way. She didn't matter big or anything but uh, candle lighting was candle lighting and uh, going to shul, it was different than here. The women don't go to shul over here on Friday nights. But in Europe that where uh, Friday nights. So that's where we went to shul.

You would walk?

Walk, yes.

With other people as well?

Um, my recollection of that is that I guess I just went with my mom.

Did you have any close friends?

Yeah, that's a big story. I, as a, as a child, um, I would say yeah, a couple of close friends.

Jewish friends?

Yeah.

Did you have any non-Jewish friends?

Uh, later on in my teen years. Not too many because it was uh, sort of, it was just not that customary. But I had Jewish friends because I went to school. I didn't go to a Jewish--I went to a public school.

And you had Jewish friends in public school? You said you...

Well, it...it's like here, uh that you have a certain group and uh the Jewish kids sort of stuck together. Uh, it was like a clique.

Hm, what, what did your mother do to earn a living?

Well she uh, she was fluent in German and she gave uh, uh, she was teaching uh, privately, the language. And that was about it, it wasn't easy. I said at the beginning it, it wasn't.

And your father?

My father uh, had a very big job, a prominent job and then uh, I, I believe it was 1936, a new regime came in. He was working for uh, he was working. He had an excellent job uh, an administer of agriculture and uh, at that point when uh, the new regime came in he was uh, let go with a substantial amount of money. I don't remember uh, how much, but it was enough for him to open up uh, he opened up a shoe store.