Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Ilya Martha Kessler - November 1, 1982

Education

And what was the schooling like there? What type of school did you go to? Was it a...

Oh, that was a public school like here. And uh, that was school. In Europe where we lived it wasn't like here. Here, the people it's like Southfield Jewish, Oak Park Jewish. There didn't live the Jews that way. Jews lived all over, in Hungary. In, in Poland like here, in like ghettoes. Hungary no. They was free and they lived where they want. So, we lived, uh... We went in a public school like here, where people go to school in public school. But it's four or five Jewish girl between ??? We, we never heard so much anti--Semiti... or because we didn't know. Once I heard a girl said, "Go to Palestine." Then I didn't know what that's means. So, I said to my father, "I don't know what this girl wants." So, my father said, "You tell them you wish to be there." That's all. It wasn't uh, bad there. So, when I was ten years old my... mine mother had a sister in this Koŝice after I went back. My father had a brother and my mother had there a brother. So, my mother want me to go in a better school. So, I was there by my aunt. And vacation I went home. So, I was until they didn't took us, you know uh, to, to the ghetto. Before... When the German came in, my mother called my aunt and they sent me home.

So, how old were you when you were living with your aunt?

From ten years until uh, thirteen and a half, something like that I lived with them. They didn't come home with her. She had one son.

Okay.

Um, ??? was my new cousin.

Were your grandparents living? I know you mentioned your grandmother was.

My grandmother lived with us. The other grandmother lived there with my, my aunt in the city.

Okay. And then...

??? father ??? Because my mother came from there.

And the name of that city was Koŝ...

Koŝice. Kassa in Hungarian and Koŝice in Czech.

Okay, okay.


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