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My husband related me a case. My husband was a baker, and there was a merchant, from he bought flour by wagons. However, they weighed one sack of flour, and the weight of this first sack, it was about 80 kilos [they counted the other sacks on the basis of this weight], they didn’t weigh all the sacks.
I don’t know how many wagons my husband bought from that merchant. My husband had a partner, Gyula Gordan, who liked very much to drink and to play cards. They had a quarrel before the Hungarian era [7] [before 1940], because he knew very well, that he was the master, as it [the business] was running under his name, because he was Hungarian, a Jew wasn’t allowed to hold a bakery, and he treated my husband very badly – he settled up with my husband when he wanted to, and he didn’t, when didn’t want to [he wouldn’t give my husband his share], etc. So they decided to split, my husband would run his business separately, and his partner would do whatever he’d like to, this Gyula Gordan.
Thus my husband and his brother-in-law went to the bakery, took the sacks of flour, they put one here, one there, so they distributed them. And they put them on the balance sheet to see how many quintals were left for each of them, and it was then that they realized that a sack weighed only 75 kilos, not 80. Therefore the merchant had stolen 5 kilos from each sack.
That’s on what they had an argument. Then the father of Elie Wiesel decided that if Gyula Gordan took an oath to that he had been unaware that the sacks contained only 75 kilos, he would have not been convicted. He won then.
I don’t know how many wagons my husband bought from that merchant. My husband had a partner, Gyula Gordan, who liked very much to drink and to play cards. They had a quarrel before the Hungarian era [7] [before 1940], because he knew very well, that he was the master, as it [the business] was running under his name, because he was Hungarian, a Jew wasn’t allowed to hold a bakery, and he treated my husband very badly – he settled up with my husband when he wanted to, and he didn’t, when didn’t want to [he wouldn’t give my husband his share], etc. So they decided to split, my husband would run his business separately, and his partner would do whatever he’d like to, this Gyula Gordan.
Thus my husband and his brother-in-law went to the bakery, took the sacks of flour, they put one here, one there, so they distributed them. And they put them on the balance sheet to see how many quintals were left for each of them, and it was then that they realized that a sack weighed only 75 kilos, not 80. Therefore the merchant had stolen 5 kilos from each sack.
That’s on what they had an argument. Then the father of Elie Wiesel decided that if Gyula Gordan took an oath to that he had been unaware that the sacks contained only 75 kilos, he would have not been convicted. He won then.
Period
Location
Romania
Interview
Golda Salamon