Tag #121715 - Interview #78207 (roza kamhi)

The Jewish holidays came one after another. We had guests for holidays. We had a lot of relatives who went to America. At the holidays, Pesach or some other holiday, my mother would take out big wedding pictures that our relatives in America had sent us, and she would line them up around the house and say, 'These are in honor of those who are not here.'

I remember Pesach the best. The people from upstairs and my family would always gather together for the reading of the Haggadah. I think that we read it in Ladino. I remember some of the text: 'Este pande la fresion ke, komeron pabre zentera inkera deaifto.' This means: 'This is the bread which our ancestors ate in the desert.' I used to wear a piece of that bread, bread without yeast, bojus [boyos], in a kerchief over my shoulder. We just sat at the table like that while they read the Haggadah. The men took turns reading. For Pesach we made boyos: unleavened bread. We made matzot from eggs and water mixed together to make something like cakes. [Editor's note: Probably they made some cake from matzah, water and eggs.] And we made 'macas d' vin' [matzot from wine]. Instead of water, you put wine. It was all without yeast. The one with wine was like biscuits and the others were round and they were pinched around the sides and had the form of a cake. And we made 'babamaca' from dough. It was a type of pie with raisins and matzot. A thin layer of dough was made with sugar into something like a pie.