Tag #119012 - Interview #101860 (Marcel Simon )

We observed the Pesach. We were poor at that time, we didn’t have possibility to get all new pots, as it was customary. During the Pesach one had to cook everything in new pots. Mother boiled them [the ones which were used every day] with lye wash, she made the lye wash out of sand and stone, she boiled them well, cleaned them and washed them. We tidied up the house, we lived in a house, gave the wall a coat of whitewash so that it would look clean, and she bought us each new clothes, as the possibilities allowed it. We had matzah. At that time azyme was made here too, now it comes from Israel. Now all these are tales, because very few observe the Pesach in a traditional way.

I don’t remember a Seder from my childhood. We observed it with my father at home, but I don’t remember, I was too small. One ate bitter herbs and matzah, made eggs. During the Pesach more eggs and potatoes are eaten, because it isn’t allowed to eat leaven. They made a kind of ‘ciorba de perisoare’ sour meatball soup made of matzah flour. And out of the matzah flour keyzel can be made too– a kind of ‘tocinei’ [similar to the Kartoffelnpuffer or latkes], but sweet. We bought wine from the community. We observed the Seder at home until I was in high school, until 1950 or so. But Seder is observed in fact in a larger community, at the Jewish community. But I have never attended.