Regina Cohen - April 18, 1982
Life During Hungarian Occupation
What kinds of things did you...
I remember something very, very uh, hurting, uh. When, I think when I realized that uh, that nobody can really do anything about it. I think I was twelve, or maybe going on thirteen. Hungarian soldiers were marching down the street singing a song, Hungarian song--and I learned Hungarian out of--by force because I just didn't like them but we had to. And my mother and I were walking on the sidewalk and we were actually forced off the sidewalk. And as we were walking towards home I remember hearing the Hungarian soldiers singing about a, a song concerning uh, you dirty Jew, and as loud--and I'd look up to my mother thinking, "Doesn't it hurt? Why do you let them? Like, you're my mother, don't let them sing that song, you know." And it's as if a child's looking for protection, when all of a sudden it hits you, my mother needs protection too, because we're all in the same--amongst the children, my parents, and I'd say my mother mainly because she was the only one around that was around the kids at home at the time--my father wasn't home anymore--kept a very um, low profile on anti-Semitism. Uh...
Were you...
...in, in the home. What I'm saying is we did not make no, no big to do, big thing on uh, uh, conversing about it, talking about it. Uh, just shove it aside. It's nothing you can do about it. You can't tell a person on the street or across the street to like you, but to like--they were taught to hate Jews from I don't know how long ago. And when I came along, it was born with me. I mean, it was nothing that uh, it wasn't anything that I felt uh, made any difference. We just go about our lives and our business and--until...
What were some, you said that there were things that were taken away from you. What were some...
Okay.
...of the first things that you remember. You said that you had to go to a different school. Was it the same building...
No.
...as the non-Jews went in?
Uh, the...
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