Juci and Aladar Scheiner with the Jewish community

This picture was taken in the little room by the synagogue, in Marosvasarhely in the 1980s. The little boy was probably saying the mah nishtanah. It was probably the eve of seder. I?m in the very back, first from left, beside me is Aladar Scheiner, my second husband. I don't know anybody else in this picture.

I remember this event well. It was really nice, everything went according to the book: they prayed and washed their hands. There were many Jews in those days and there are many children in this picture. There are still many people on seder nights, but now half of them are not Jewish.

In the 1960s my husband was hired by the Jewish community of Marosvasarhely. He had probably had some previous ties with the community because they asked him to be the president. Aladar was already the president there when I married him in 1978. He was president for twenty years. On high holidays he went earlier to the synagogue then I did, but this was never a problem. Aladar never bothered about me being religious or not, and this was a very good thing because I was very weak on Jewish issues. I never kept a kosher household, although he was the president of the Jewish community. But neither did Magdus, his previous wife. The only thing we did was that we went to the synagogue on holidays. Aladar, of course, had to go there more often, and he was at the community office all the time.

On Yom Kippur we fasted, though. Despite the fact that one only has to fast until the age of seventy, and after that only for half a day, my husband always observed it. I fasted, too. On Yom Kippur I fasted even while I was in the camp. And how my acquaintances and friends scolded me for it - saying, 'haven't we fasted enough? You have to fast now, too?' because then, by some chance, we actually had the opportunity to eat. I told them I would still fast. After we came home, my brother Andras asked me on the first holiday, 'Are you fasting?' 'Yes,' I said, 'I will always fast in memory of my parents.' He said that he would fast too, then, otherwise he wouldn't have fasted at all. Furthermore, my first husband, who never really fasted, began fasting after we met.

When Aladar turned eighty, in 1984, he resigned - I insisted on him resigning. Then he persuaded Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen to appoint Bernat Sauber as president because he was the only one who was competent. [Editor's note: In 2003 Bernat Sauber is still the president of the Jewish community in Marosvasarhely.]