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My favorite holiday was Easter [Pesach]. I still remember my favorite meals connected with these holidays: red borscht with potatoes, broth with kneydlakh made from matzah flour and meat. Then you’d fry these bubelech, eggs with matzah flour, in a frying pan. ‘Vorspeise’, that’s German and means appetizer, in Yiddish this was tsimes [traditional holiday dish, made from cooked carrots, apples, dried fruit, with sugar and cinnamon]. It had to be sweet, with raisins. Or kneydlakh on Easter, that was my favorite, still is to this day, made from matzah flour. At that time matzah was different, not like today, from a factory, from Israel, square, made by machines, flat.
At home in Bodzentyn our neighbors used to make matzah. Usually they would do it at my parents’, because there was a stove in the apartment. Everyone would pitch in. First, the apartment was cleaned, all the furniture, the walls were painted, the stove koshered – you’d put stones inside and then spray it with water. Then water was prepared. The water had to be clean; we would carry it from the spring. Then matzah would be made. Women from the villages would come, they’d be told how to do it. They were peasants, because it was hard work, kneading the dough by hand. They’d come if they wanted to and earn some money. Jews and Jewesses made matzah as well, but when there were more neighbors, more matzah was needed. The more people worked, the faster it all went. For example, you couldn’t turn the matzah over. It had to be kneaded very thinly. There are recipes for this, kosher ones. I also kneaded. I even had two bumps [corns on hands] from this kneading, but I got 2 or 3 zloty a day for this work. Then you’d make lots of little holes, so the dough wouldn’t rise too much when it was being baked. And when everything was done, the neighbors came round to take their portions home.
At home in Bodzentyn our neighbors used to make matzah. Usually they would do it at my parents’, because there was a stove in the apartment. Everyone would pitch in. First, the apartment was cleaned, all the furniture, the walls were painted, the stove koshered – you’d put stones inside and then spray it with water. Then water was prepared. The water had to be clean; we would carry it from the spring. Then matzah would be made. Women from the villages would come, they’d be told how to do it. They were peasants, because it was hard work, kneading the dough by hand. They’d come if they wanted to and earn some money. Jews and Jewesses made matzah as well, but when there were more neighbors, more matzah was needed. The more people worked, the faster it all went. For example, you couldn’t turn the matzah over. It had to be kneaded very thinly. There are recipes for this, kosher ones. I also kneaded. I even had two bumps [corns on hands] from this kneading, but I got 2 or 3 zloty a day for this work. Then you’d make lots of little holes, so the dough wouldn’t rise too much when it was being baked. And when everything was done, the neighbors came round to take their portions home.
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Interview
Jakub Bromberg
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