Vera Schey - June 10, 1994
Relations with Non-Jews
Did you ever experience any anti-Semitism in school that you remember?
Not really. Surprisingly, less than most Hungarian schools then, as I found out from other of my friends. As a matter of fact, when uh, when it started that the children, German children were supposed to attend Hitlerjugend sessions, in the brown uniforms...
Mm-hm.
...that was probably in, it started in '38 or '37, I don't know exactly the years, I don't remember. But that was after school hours and the uh, principal of the school, if ever any of the children came in, in the brown uniform to school, sent them home not to offend the others and made them come at four o'clock or whenever school was over. And the Hitlerjugend sessions started then from back ??? But during school when we were all together, they were not supposed to wear it. There also came a directive from Germany because it was actually, I think, they were the ones who set the rules for, for the school, that no more Jews uh, from '38 or '39, I don't remember exactly. Let's see, probably '38 it started. And the principal said that those kids, like me for instance, who from first elementary went to German school ta...uh, learned everything in German, physics, chemistry, whatever. We didn't even know the Hungarian expressions for that. He will let them graduate and no way is he going to put them out. It's he will not have more Jews come to the school starting at that time, but whoever has one or two years to graduate, they're going to graduate from German schools. Because once they would be put into Hungari...Hungarian school, they wouldn't be able to do it. Hungarian was a language which we learned like French and English.
As a second language.
As a second language.
So you must have had German friends, German friends in school.
Yeah in, from school. Some of them were, there's a very big factory, ??? factory which uh, one of the uh, president, the vice-president's kids went to the same school and we were all very good friends. Went to each other's houses. I really can say that, except one or two--and they were mostly Hungarians, surprisingly--who were anti-Semitic. I mean, expressed it or showed it or, that we could feel it, that there is an anti...
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