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I'm eighty-one years old, and I had a brain hemorrhage. My brain - I've got a paper about it - is officially faulty. I've got a Jewish name. My name is Braha, blessing. I'm the blessing. Mrs. Janos Banyai, Olga Mermelstein. I was born May 10, 1923 in Bikszad in Szatmar County. When I was an infant, they took me to Subcarpathia, to Huszt. [At her birth, Huszt (now Khust) was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1910, the nearly 10,000 residents were 51 percent Ruthenian, 34 percent Hungarian and 15 percent German. Of those, 23 percent were part of the Jewish community. After Trianon it went to Czechoslovakia. In 1938, it was reannexed by Hungary, and in 1945 it became part of the Soviet Union. Now it belongs to the Ukraine.]
It was a very pretty small town, with quite a lot of Jews living there, but few returned after the war. People there somehow mingled together, it didn't count then who was Jewish, who was Christian. We got along well with the Christians, we were friends. They came over, we went over [to their houses]. We played dolls together. There wasn't any problem under the sun with the fact that we were Jews. There were Ruthenians, very decent people.
It was a very pretty small town, with quite a lot of Jews living there, but few returned after the war. People there somehow mingled together, it didn't count then who was Jewish, who was Christian. We got along well with the Christians, we were friends. They came over, we went over [to their houses]. We played dolls together. There wasn't any problem under the sun with the fact that we were Jews. There were Ruthenians, very decent people.
Period
Location
Khust
Hungary
Interview
Olga Banyai