Tag #138532 - Interview #78216 (Olga Banyai)

I had lot a in Pilisszentlaszlo for thirty years. That was the main vacation. I got a larger sum because of my parents deportation, and my brothers also sent their parts, and in 1969 I bought a lot for 12,000 forints. There was a piece of forest, it was a marvelously pretty place. Then the lots were cheaper, I bought it through OTP [National Savings Bank]. Then I bought a little wooden cottage for it. Likewise, for 12,000 forints, and ran in electricity, that already cost a lot more, but not right away, we got electricity ten or fifteen years later. It was something like 40,000 forints altogether, but I saved a lot, because I wanted it to be habitable. It was one space. Then I cleverly furnished it. We had furniture made from the left over wood, and sometimes there were four of us there. There were two beds, if Zsuzsa and her family came with, they slept on mattresses. We all fit inside. Once, my grandson and his father slept outside in a tent. They were nice summers. Modest, but it was great for me. The shower for example was out in the garden, because only a basin fit inside the room. We filled the basin from the shower, stuck it out in the garden, and the sun warmed it up. Later we ran water pipes in there, too.

I worked diligently, and if I got some extra money, then I didn't take it home, I put in savings, so that it would be good for something. That's how I got together the nice little Pilis [house].

My husband also went out to Pilis. We divorced, but not according to Jewish rites, just officially. We lived separately like this for forty years. But he ate at the same table as us. He lived his life here. He had a girlfriend, he went there at night. In our old age especially, we were fine, it didn't matter that we were living separately, because he was always at home. Then, last year, the poor man died at the age of eighty- eight.