Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Peri Berki - December 9, 1983

You remember all these incidents of Gentiles helping Jews, yet I remember you telling me that you have very angry feelings about Hungary. That you don't, that you want to forget Hungary... But if you had it sounds like good experiences more even than bad from the Hungarians, why, why do you feel so uh, hostile?

Now who, who did that that we were uh, we were uh, forced to leave our land. We were, we were... I remember my husband got in the labor force and I was in the farm yes, there was nothing then yet in the beginning. And we had a storage that we used to measure out the peasant our work hand, our farm hands, every month wants their, their due. Not in money...

Grain.

in, in grain and so on. And when my husband was in the labor force and I did that. He instructed me, left everything and I did everything in the land what I could do. And I remember that there was a, there was a order that we cannot sell and, and use anything from the, from the maga... from the storage, we called it magazine, from the storage. And I called the city, I can't, the city councilman or whatever.

Mayor or somebody...

Yeah, I told him that you said I can't touch the, the storage, but I have to measure out the dues for the men. I have to do that. Don't worry, that's how he answered, the man who respected us and my husband helped him and we, we were very much respected And he said, don't worry Mrs. Berki, in the next months when you have to measure uh, measure out, or give out the, you won't be here anymore. So why shouldn't I hate it? So these are people too. I will never forget them. We were so respected, we visited each other and we were the elegant Jews with the land, and, and he said don't worry, the next month you won't be able to be share it out anyhow.

So your, your total sum feelings are negative about...

Yeah, and you, you know in, I just try to, to make a comparison how much I'm Jewish and how much I'm Hungarian. I was thinking, many times I'm thinking that let's say I travel on a train and there are four people and one is I and there is another Gentile Hungarian whom I can talk very easily and there is an American Jew. To which one do I feel closer? I feel closer to the American Jew even if I couldn't speak to him so easy like the Hungarian. This is my... this reflects totally my feeling. I just was thinking of that, who is closer to me.

That's interesting.

It is?

Yeah.