Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Lanka Ilkow - October 12, 1991

Death of Brother

So you went to visit her but your brother...

My brother--no, he was not allowed to go you know, he was home. And it was a hard life, it was a hard life to be, you know. Here I was married, I had no husband. And uh, and, and uh, I was, mother was keeping me very strict. Don't go here, don't go there, you know. And then I decided--I spoke to my mother and I said, "When my husband will come home and he will uh, demand from me I should cut my hair I--again so, I do it. But now I have no husband, it's no use I should wear a wig." So uh, it was very funny, I was in the city and then uh, I go uh you know, shopping. Veg...they're selling vegetables on the street. Who I see, the man uh, from our town, a Jewish fellow. And then I saw him I quick put from my purse took out uh, you know, and co...covered my head. But he saw it that I did it. So he went home and every Saturday the people come to the house, to each other's house. So everybody come over to his house because he was in Ungvar, so they wanted to know what, what's the news. It's not that they had newspaper, in the town they didn't had. In the cities they had. So he was uh, brought the news that he saw me and I was without, covered my head, you know. So my mother wrote me a letter and she said, "Leitchu," my Hebrew name, "you come home because your candlesticks are standing and crying for you. So you come and light those candles." But I lit the candles there from my aunt all the time, you know. She was not frum, my aunt. I mean that frum as my parents was. She was very, see, because on Shabbos they worked in the theater. But I never went to work in the theater fo...uh, on Shabbos. I told them Friday night and Shabbos I wouldn't go. But uh, I liked to go there because Sunday I maked a lotta money you know, they give you tips. Even the soldiers and so the Hungarian always give you tips you know, they was tipping.


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