Tag #107671 - Interview #101918 (Hanna We)

After the war, with a husband who wasn’t Jewish, we celebrated the Christian holidays in a traditional fashion, with his parents and with his sister. To this day I celebrate them that way. But it’s not deep observance. We didn’t go to Midnight Mass. My husband was a militant atheist, so there was no question. He was against all religion far more so than I was. But for Christmas Eve dinner [the highlight of the Christmas celebrations for Polish Catholics, comprising traditional meatless dishes, chiefly fish-based] he liked to have fish. His atheism was the result of his having been brought up to be a Catholic. Later on he rebelled awfully. But the customs – breaking the wafer [a Polish Catholic Christmas Eve tradition involving sharing a Communion-type wafer with close family members while giving them wishes for the next year], for instance – he accepted. He hadn’t rebelled to the extent that he wanted to upset his mother or his sister.