Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Olga Adler - July 26, 1982

Okay and uh, what about the degree about assimilation. Was there much assimilation?

Very much assimilated.

Really?

Very much, very much so. My, I don't know how to speak Yiddish at all. We were speaking just Hungarian. My parents spoke German and some Rutanian, because the villa... villages were there, they talked Rutanian there. So, sometimes when my mother was a young girl they had some maids who were talking Rutanian and some were ??? in the forests. And he learned these languages. But uh, I did not learn... As a matter of fact, I had trouble learning Czech because we lived in Czechoslovakia, but I went to Hungarian schools. We had Czech schools.

Husband: What was your grandmother's name?

Which one? I had two grandmothers.

Husband: Pardon?

I had two grandmothers, which one?

Husband: ???

Kath... Katherine.

Husband: ???

Binkler. But I do... Her maiden name... Poppi, her maiden name was Binkler.

Okay, what about uh, intermarriages?

No. Very few. We wouldn't, we, we are not brought up in any kind of fa... we were...

[interruption in interview]

And you said, even though they were...

About... We were very good Jews—don't misunderstand—very good Jews, but we were not very much occupied with any kind of... It was a natural thing that there was a holidays and it was a natural thing that we are a kosher household because we couldn't imagine it any other way.

Yeah.

It was in a very modern, natural that we went to the beach and we were not because I kno... that's what I'm saying because there were girls who were brought up in a more religious way, they could not go to the beach. And they... I remember they were wearing dresses with long uh, sleeves. And, but uh, we very much assimilated.

Okay.

That sometimes I just uh, didn't... I never, as a child it never oc... occurred to me that I'm a Jew. I couldn't imagine myself being anything else, but it was just natural. You were, you were the high class in the whole city. The Jews were the lawyers and the doctors and the engineers and the intellect world. And where there wasn't a Gentile they were assimilated with the Jews too, so they had uh, bridge games with the Jews and parties with the Jews and everything. So, it was very lovely, very modern uh, very nice.