Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Malka Sternberg - January 31, 2008

Celebrating Rosh Hashanah in England

We got there the first day and my aunts went and bought two big buckets. They had no, no dishes so they had--one was for water for the Rosh Hashanah and the other one was for soup for the Rosh Hashanah so that's how we had to eat and they cooked that. Evening came and they started davening. The other family also came along so there was minyan--no problem of minyan with us, no--everyone was there, no problem of minyan. And the daven--and you know when the daven got very quiet there was knocking on the door. "Don't open, don't open, don't open! Everybody, shh." But the knocking went on, shh. "The blackout man--it's the blackout," quickly they fixed the blackout but the knocking went on and on and on so they went to the door--some of the brave men went to the door--brave uncle and this person says to him in Yiddish, "Daven too? Rosh Hashanah, yes?" The house next door was evacuated by a Jewish family and they had a baby and my aunt--the youngest aunt was expecting a baby--she was in her eighth month. So, it was just wonderful, it was just wonderful--plus somebody could speak English--we couldn't speak English--somebody could, could communicate for us and of course the friendship stayed for years and the Rosh Hashanah was Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur was Yom Kippur and everything was--worked out very well and the police never came in for anything. If they, if they wanted to, to, to, check something so they fixed it but they never told us off about it.


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