Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Mala Weintraub Dorfman - September 15, 2005

And what were the... what was a Friday night like?

Friday night was... We all had to be home. Uh, my mother lit the candles, my father made Kiddish, and uh, we sang the songs, whatever...

Zemirot?

I can't remember. Yeah, I can't remember anymore. And uh, we had a Friday night meal. And we stayed home, we did not go out afterwards. We were all together.

What about during the day? Was there preparation for...

Friday?

For Shabbat?

Oh yeah. My mother cooked, my mother baked. We didn't buy challah. She baked her own challah, her own bread. And uh, yeah, she, she cooked, we cleaned 'cause when we came back from school we had to help out and, you know, it depends when the lights, when you had to kindle uh, kindle the lights. So... and it was over. And we sat and we waited for my father and my brothers to come back from shul.

On Friday night.

Oh yeah, they went to shul.

And Saturday would they go again? Would all of you go on Saturday?

No, we didn't go to shul. Just when it was some ??? you know, something like that, so we went with them. Uh, we didn't go to Shabbos for schools, no. My mother went, my father went, but we didn't.

And what about holidays? Say, Pesach?

Pesach? We had our own seder. Everybody had their own seder. All the whole... every family had their own. The only time when we got together was for Purim or Hanukkah. We exchanged gifts and for Purim we went to my grandmother.

Would you dress up at Purim?

Oh yes, yeah. We went to my grandmother and we said, ??? That's what we used to say when we went to our family.

Translate it.

Yeah, and we took ??? over there, you know, stuff like that.

So, you gave each other um, food.

Yes, yes we did.

Hamentosh and things like that.

Yes, yes we did, yeah.