Abraham Pasternak - May 11, 1982
Jewish Community
...I was in Buchenwald uh, a group of people were...arrived and uh, among of them was one uh, friend of mine from my hometown and uh, we saw each other, of course, we embraced and we asked each other what happened, where are you going, where were you. I don't remember where he was. He told...I don't remember him telling me where, where he came from. And when I looked at him somehow I had a feeling that I'll never see this man again. Two days later they were transferred and gotenu, that man is gone. His name was Moishe ??? or something like that. He's got a brother and a sister who survived; they live in New York right now. And that family, two was...they were eight kids and two of them survived. Can you imagine? A whole community...250 Jewish families just like that, picked up by the very same people that you lived with most of your life and you dealt with and you, you, you, you did business and you had more or less had a decent association with them. They used to work, and we used to sell them, we used to buy from them. We used to wheel and deal, I mean, like, like usually commerce is taken...is, is handled and the very same people turned against us and they turned us over and...
As long as we're, we're not continuing, what...let's talk a little bit about uh, the community before the war. How many Jewish families were in, in Betlan?
Betlan, there was 250 Jewish families. Let me also say this: Betlan was a very well known community in the...among the Jews because number one, it had a large yeshiva. Betlan also had one of the famous rabbunum at one time it was called the Chasam Sofer which was one the, the...you people probably will know the family of Sofer is known in America as Barton Candy, Barton Chocolate. This is the family. But these people go back...they were the...known as the famous rabbis who have had a tremendous amount of influence not only with, with the high...with the authorities in Czechoslovakia, in Austria-Hungary and uh, one of their children was rabbi in my hometown and that was before my time. And then there was the Lichtenstein which was a very famous family. Incidentally, that young man that I was just referring to, his name was Lichtenstein. His father was the uh, no, his grandfather was the rabbi, his great grandfather was the rabbi but his father was a merchant. Was a soykher, as we say in the heym, was a soykher. And, uh...
So other Jews came to the yeshiva from uh, from the different...
Other Jews came in from all over. They came from all over the areas, from the small communities, from the large communities...we had a very lovely community. The community was a very charitable community. They used to provide the youngsters, I mean, with food, like for instances like in my home...at my house. We were fairly well to do. I wouldn't say we were rich but we were balebatim. We had a dry goods store, it was called Schnittware Geschäft and my eh, my parents made a decent living. I had clothes, we had to eat and uh, once in a while I was bought a toy when I was a little kid. And uh, can you just imagine that my father sent three of us to the yeshivas and the yeshivas were not cheap...to study. It's a school of learning.
Was the whole Jewish community all very Orthodox or were they different ???...
The whole community was strictly Orthodox. Maybe one man...there's one man...the doctor, and a couple of more people who were not really but the, the store were closed on Shabbos. Yes, there was one pharmacist who according to the laws...pharmacists and I understand and, and, and bars...and really, the Juden didn't call it a bar, it used be a ??? a ??? means where you were selling liquor. Those had to be open on Saturdays. But the people who owned them were very religious Jews, they...every Friday night they turned over the business, I mean, to uh, their usual uh, Gentile employee and he used to conduct the business and then after that on Sundays, or whatever, they used to uh, whatever their procedure was, I mean, they used to take back the business and used to go on every week before Shabbos or Yom Tov. And the community was a lovely community. People were uh, the people were living in harmony and to turn into...against your...for instance, let's talk about the Tuesday night before we were picked up. I went to daven mincha ma'ariv. Everybody was in shul davening mincha ma'ariv nobody knew about it. My little kid brother was doing his homework. Nobody knew exactly what is going to happen and all of a sudden on Mon...on, on Wednesday morning, animals come in. Let me describe to you a Hungarian policemen.
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