Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Ilya Martha Kessler - November 1, 1982

Do you remember what a Friday night was like there at home?

Yeah, my father went to wash off ??? and my mother to pass candles and challa and fish, made it the whole, and there was good food. And took out nice ??? and I don't know why she ??? and they ??? to the candle and then my father, my father always was the last one from shul and I always ask my mother why my father so she always joke, "Oh, your father is closing the shul." Because he loved to talk to everybody, listen to everybody and to help. And then, you know uh, made uh, matzah and fish and ??? and my father always asked my brothers what they learned and ask me and listen what they, uh... And next morning they dressed up and my father and my two brothers and they went away to shul, eight o'clock, walked there. And uh, my father was very, very clean always. And I always, you know, this was a little place and there was lots of girls outside and my mother was very clean. And, and my mother always used to tell me, "Look at my... Look at your father's shoes how clean. I don't know how he's going to shul. It's such a dirty uh, place. And look at your shoes, always dirty and your dress always dirty." ??? because he was so clean always, my father, and my brothers too, always. And I was always playing outside and then climbing through the trees and taking fruit from the trees always. And everyday, so I went out and, and, you know, it was all kind of fruit outside in the... and taking food to my mother and making uh, like compote. So anyway uh, some Saturday they went to the shul until eleven o'clock, and then my mother uh, made the table nice, because my father, when we had the store too he wanted twelve o'clock to eat lunch--not like here, night. My husband come home and we are eating up, soup night--there was twelve o'clock. Twelve o'clock exactly. It was white uh, table cloth and nice family dinner. My father wanted the family to be together. And we... So, Saturday was the same thing. My father came home at eleven o'clock and we went to eat. And uh, afternoon they slept and they went to visit and it was very, very nice. Then the family came together. Or my parents went to my uncle or my uncle came to us, uh... It was very nice, you know. But very quiet. Very... Everybody was happy then. Nobody wanted uh, a Cadillac. I, I went there ???