Tag #138984 - Interview #100840 (Bedrich Hecht)

There weren’t Jewish schools in the villages. There they had normal, state schools. I also attended a normal school with other children. It was a state school. Just the first three years, I attended in Topolcany. There I think there was a Jewish school, and there was a Jewish school in Nitra too. They taught in German at the one that I attended for the first three years. Then I attended a Slovak state school. I know how to read Hebrew, but I don’t know what I’m reading. I learned Hebrew letters, but they have to be the ones with punctuation below them [Hebrew alphabet: originally had only consonants and wasn’t capable of expressing vowels. Gradually, methods of indicating vowels in the text were introduced. So-called vowel punctuation, in Hebrew nikud, was introduced – Editor’s note]. Say, in the Torah, there are letters without punctuation, which I don’t know how to read. But in the prayer hall, where the punctuation is, I can read it. After that I have to read the translation so that I know what I’m reading. There was a rabbinical school in Nitra. Neither I nor my brother attended it. We weren’t as religious as that. The head of yeshiva in Nitra was Weissmandl [7], who was an important rabbi. It’s a quite well-known name. When the Germans were already here, he arranged that the bocherim [students] who were studying to be cantors and rabbis could remain here.