Tag #135678 - Interview #101687 (Berta Grunstein )

In case of every Jewish person who dies at home they put the dead on a sheet, and cover him with another; they put a candlestick and candle next to him. The mirror is covered, and they keep a deep mourning for eight days, yet they bury him the next day of his death. My father had brought sand from Israel, and they made a pillow of it. The dead is washed, for this purpose every cemetery has some kind of washbasin made of cement, and the people who wash him say a prayer for him. Formerly there was a person who did this here too, but now there isn’t. There was a man called Mendel, he worked at the post, he delivered newspapers. Then it was Lederer who did this for a while. The coffin is made of rough board. The dead is dressed up properly in a clean, white linen, which is sewed just then, and they put stockings, shirt, cap [kippah] on him, which is made of the same linen. And they put on the dead person’s own tales.