Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Alexander Ehrmann - May 13, 1983

In the community then, before the War, before the Hungarians came, what was a routine day like for you and your family? What would you--you would have gone to public school or would you have gone to...

I went to public school. Uh, we uh, did not have any parochial schools uh, not Jewish parochial schools. There was a, a Protestant parochial school. We went to public school. Uh, the school day uh, began at eight o'clock and usually we were out about two-thirty, three o'clock, at which time we went to the uh, cheder and we uh, attended cheder 'til seven o'clock. Seven o'clock, we were dismissed and went home. That was daily uh, five days a week. Sunday it was all day cheder and uh, school vacation time, it was every day cheder. Uh, the day uh, typically began with going to shul for services.

Before school?

Before school. Uh, we uh, we attended evening services in cheder, however, there were regular evening services in, in the synagogue. We had two synagogues, as a matter of fact. We had a main synagogue and we had a Beth Hamidrash, which was uh, attended by the more religious, by the Hasidim. Um...

Did the children ever um, complain about all this? Did you...

We? No. We complained, you know, but not as such, it was natural, we were brought up in that spirit and uh, and uh, we complained that we cannot go and play but we wanted to play particularly on a, on a Saturday when we would have liked to uh, play we had to go, my father wanted to go over the uh, weekly material that we learned. He wanted to see what we really uh, uh, learned, what we really studied uh, that kind of complain but not basic uh, complaint.