Tag #115944 - Interview #78642 (Ferenc Leicht)

My friend’s uncle had an acquaintance who rented us a room, and the 2 of us paid for it, about 10 pounds a month as I remember, which was a lot of money. But we made that much in 1-2 days. And besides that we both got a weapon, because there was watch in the village, the peasants had to guard their own lands and crops. But they didn’t like to stay awake at night, because they worked a lot during the day, we also worked when we cut pruned the vines, but we were young, and we took on the guard for money. So I worked during the day, and from sundown until 2 in the morning I was on watch. I made a lot of money but we didn’t have an apartment. We were considered night lodgers, because the 2 of us slept in a room. If the girlfriend of one of us was there, the other one went on watch. I would have wanted to get hold of an apartment. At that time quite small houses were being built, with one and a half rooms, with not many modern conveniences, but there was a kitchen, a shower and a toilet in them. And I wanted to buy one of these on the installment system, because I had enough to pay an advance, but it turned out that these were only for families. Then I thought that I would bring my parents here, because there was a family uniting action at that time. The Israelis gave money for the family members to be brought to Israel. But they still couldn’t take me on at the construction. I went to another village, too, where those who wanted to work there got approximately 5 acres of land, a similar house, a carriage, a mule and a cow with calf. They sent me away from there, too, saying that I would have needed a family. I was angry and I went to Tel-Aviv. The army had an office there, which administered the affairs of demobilized soldiers. I went there and said that I needed an apartment. Jaffa was empty at that time. The Arabians had run away and it was full with empty apartments. But there I was told again that unfortunately they couldn’t give me an apartment because families from Yemen were coning there with as many children as stars on the sky, and they had to accommodate them first and couldn’t solve my case. And they also told me that either I got an apartment or not I could go home because there was communist regime at home. I got very angry at them. I gave my blood and life to Israel, but I didn’t want to be a fool. Then I wrote my mother and told her to arrange it so that I could come home to Hungary and suffer no harm.