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I went to the elementary school on Lonyai Street for four years, then I completed four years of Realschule (secondary school where emphasis is on the sciences and languages) on Horanszky Street. From there I transferred to the upper trade school on Vas Street. I graduated from there in 1931.
Whether or not one was Jewish was not a consideration when making friends, nor was it important when choosing one’s wife. But the school and the times were such that one sensed who was Jewish and who wasn’t. As a result, one did not dare to make friends with just anybody, not to mention founding a family. If I remember correctly, there was nothing special on that subject at elementary school. There was only mild anti-Semitism, which I could put up with.
Passing the final exams was hard for me because a few of us received serious warnings from the director of the school and were almost expelled. About six or seven of us went to the Hungarian Socialists, or whatever they were called—illegal communists went to these meetings too. One of my classmates was the leader. His uncle was a Social Democrat representative, and his father worked for Nepszava, a leftist newspaper, so he was sympathetic to their cause and he got us to join. All of us in this group were Jews, I think, with one exception. Before elections we “lollipopped”—put up posters in prohibited places—and we had private seminars. Here we discussed literary questions, introduced books one at a time, and surveyed the works of writers. There were a couple of quite talented kids among us, most of whom died in the war. This whole thing somehow came to light in the school, and then the six or seven of us were taken to the director.
And then there was Levente training (Levente was a right-wing quasi-military organization which gave compulsory military training to secondary school students). We were rebels, we threw our guns away. Somehow we managed to get off with just a warning from the director, so we were allowed to take the final exams.
Whether or not one was Jewish was not a consideration when making friends, nor was it important when choosing one’s wife. But the school and the times were such that one sensed who was Jewish and who wasn’t. As a result, one did not dare to make friends with just anybody, not to mention founding a family. If I remember correctly, there was nothing special on that subject at elementary school. There was only mild anti-Semitism, which I could put up with.
Passing the final exams was hard for me because a few of us received serious warnings from the director of the school and were almost expelled. About six or seven of us went to the Hungarian Socialists, or whatever they were called—illegal communists went to these meetings too. One of my classmates was the leader. His uncle was a Social Democrat representative, and his father worked for Nepszava, a leftist newspaper, so he was sympathetic to their cause and he got us to join. All of us in this group were Jews, I think, with one exception. Before elections we “lollipopped”—put up posters in prohibited places—and we had private seminars. Here we discussed literary questions, introduced books one at a time, and surveyed the works of writers. There were a couple of quite talented kids among us, most of whom died in the war. This whole thing somehow came to light in the school, and then the six or seven of us were taken to the director.
And then there was Levente training (Levente was a right-wing quasi-military organization which gave compulsory military training to secondary school students). We were rebels, we threw our guns away. Somehow we managed to get off with just a warning from the director, so we were allowed to take the final exams.
Period
Location
Budapest
Hungary
Interview
Miklos Braun