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I don’t know how my parents got to know each other, unfortunately. I don’t even know when they were married [1924 – determined later from the photos]. They were married in Dombo, in the synagogue. The marriage certificate was written in Russian. My parents spoke Yiddish between themselves. When they didn’t want us kids to understand what they were talking about they switched over to Romanian, Ruthenian or Hungarian.
My parents were strongly orthodox Jews. They kept a kosher household. Everything at home was kosher. They kept all the holidays. For example, when it was Rosh Hashanah and then the Day of Atonement came a week later, Yom Kippur, we always fasted from evening to the next evening. We held every fast, us children, too. There was the fast of Ester [Purim]. There wasn’t a fast that I didn’t keep from the time I was twelve years old. My mother often visited the mikveh in Dombo. It was in a building at the bottom of the hill. I remember as a child, Mother often took us with her as well to bathe. In the baths, there were big wooden tubs. First Mother would dunk herself, then she would wash us. I’m sure she paid something for the warm water, we took soap with us. My father also went to the mikveh, because he was very religious. At the coming of the Sabbath, the men would go into the bet midrash dressed in a black kaftan, with a streimel on their heads.
My parents were strongly orthodox Jews. They kept a kosher household. Everything at home was kosher. They kept all the holidays. For example, when it was Rosh Hashanah and then the Day of Atonement came a week later, Yom Kippur, we always fasted from evening to the next evening. We held every fast, us children, too. There was the fast of Ester [Purim]. There wasn’t a fast that I didn’t keep from the time I was twelve years old. My mother often visited the mikveh in Dombo. It was in a building at the bottom of the hill. I remember as a child, Mother often took us with her as well to bathe. In the baths, there were big wooden tubs. First Mother would dunk herself, then she would wash us. I’m sure she paid something for the warm water, we took soap with us. My father also went to the mikveh, because he was very religious. At the coming of the Sabbath, the men would go into the bet midrash dressed in a black kaftan, with a streimel on their heads.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Ruzena Deutschova