Tag #110475 - Interview #88510 (Ludwik Hoffman)

The same was true for other holidays, such as seder [Pesach] or Purim. For Pesach, we’d eat matzot, which, at the beginning, were made at hardly accessible bakeries. During that time, the rabbis made matzah as well. They’d send us their black, whole wheat matzot, the so-called ‘shmirematzot,’ and use the proceeds for the holidays. In the later period, 1936, 1937, matzot were made by mechanized bakeries in Lwow, or brought over from other places. Those were like the ones you can buy today. But in the beginning, I remember, they’d be ordered at the baker and brought, I don’t know, ten kilograms or more, in a dish for the whole holidays. Both the dishes and the cutlery were koshered. We never had any bread at home during the festival. Any chametz was given away, but whether it was genuine or fictional sale, I wasn’t interested in finding out at the time.