Ilya Martha Kessler - November 1, 1982
Hungarian Occupation
Now when you were born, your country was, uh...
Czechoslovakia, yeah.
...Czechoslovakia. And then...
And in the 1938 the Hungarian came in.
Okay.
They always was speaking Hungarian.
They spoke Hung...
Yeah. I went one year in Czecho... a Czech school because they wanted people to go to Czech school.
What language did you speak?
I don't know Czech. I understand it, but I know Hungary... Hungarian and a little Jewish. I... In Hungary, Hungary when the Jews couldn't speak Jewish, like here in America because they want to be more Hungarian, you know.
So, was there a big change in your life when the Hungarians came in, when, when...
Yeah, they start to hit the people more. They, they start to took away the license on the stores. They wanted you to work and not to be business people. So, my father didn't have the store ??? Just, he was a ??? Just uh, you know, and uh, it was worse, it was very bad. And people didn't work. And uh, it was more anti--Semitic. By the Czech was better for... I remember because I was eight year old, just, you know, how I meant it was better, much better. More dresses you could buy, everything more. But the Hungarian and they took the uh, the mens to work and they took uh, the men and the young ones to where the Germans was fighting the Russian and they killed them there. And uh, you know and they didn't pay nothing and uh, ladies stay home with five, six kids and were poor. So, everybody helping each other there.
Did they take your father to a work camp then?
No, my father always paid him everything. He was... He was making uh, suits and everything for him, uh like, like ??? I don't know how.
Yes.
So, he made it. So, once they took him and uh, he came back. So, once he was, that's all. Then they ??? They need him, they replace him.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn