Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Lila Denes - May 19, 1989

School

Was your family religious at all?

Not really. One of my grandfather was religious, yes. But most of them were not so religious, mostly businessmen and professional.

So, did your mother say, keep kosher?

My mother? No. My grandparents did.

Um, when you were a youngster uh, you went to public school or...

When I was a youngster, there were enough uh, Jewish children and we had a Jewish school, a regular school.

A day school?

Day, regular elementary school. But by the time my younger brother went to school, there were so few Jewish children that they didn't keep it up anymore and he went to the regular public school.

Uh, you had non-Jewish friends, even though you went to parochial school?

Yes, I had--then I went to high school, which was um, um, a non-school, a, um...

Non-sectarian. Public school.

No, no, it was like a cloister um, what do you call it? Nuns were teaching.

Oh, a parochial school, yeah.

Pardon?

A parochial school?

Parochial, that was the only girls school. We had a, a state uh, high school for boys but for girls, they had only that Catholic uh, school where the nuns were teaching.

Oh, in a convent?

Convent. Yes, I just couldn't remember. It was a convent. Yes, that's where I went to high school.


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