Tag #136207 - Interview #78490 (Katalin Kallos Havas)

Around 1930 there were 3,000 Jews living in Des. There were more Neolog than Orthodox Jews, they had their own synagogue and several places of worship, but I don’t remember the ratios. In Des there was a Jewish area around the Neolog synagogue, where the poorer Jews, who rented their homes, used to live. The wealthier Jews lived spread out in different areas of the town, and had their own houses. We never had a house of our own, and I don’t really know why, but it wasn’t too important to have a house of one’s own. We only had a vineyard, jointly with my father’s sister and his younger brother, in Bungur, where the ghetto was in 1944. Bungur was in fact a forest in the outskirts of Des. The arable lands and vineyard nearby were named after it. The ghetto though was set up in the forest, in the open air.