Tag #139487 - Interview #101729 (Bella Steinmetz)

We observed Seder eve. There is a prayer book, the Haggadah that has to be recited and explained. And there is everything on the platter: horse-radish, one boiled egg, green parsley, nut [and apple] mixed with wine in a small glass. And when he [my father] was speaking about it, he showed it, why the matzah was there, that the Pharaoh chased out the Jews so quickly, that they didn’t have time to let the bread rise and to bake it, but they were running, and when they arrived on the plain, they rolled it out and dried it on the sun. That’s how the myth of the matzah was born. We had already learnt it, the bocher who had taught me, explained me all this, but I saw at home in my childhood. And it has an element of play too, he [the head of the family] smashes a piece of matzah and puts it in a napkin. The dinner is over, but in the meantime he has to go out three times to wash his hands. While the father went out to wash hands, the child hid it, always the smallest, because it’s a game. So daddy is searching for the matzah, where could he put it, but he doesn’t find it. ‘Where is the matzah?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Where is the matzah? Now, give it to me!’ ‘I won’t give you, daddy!’ It was always me who hid it. My brother was rarely there for Pesach. And we started to negotiate. ‘Daddy, I know where it is. What would you give me for it?’ Well, he offered me, let’s say five penny. ‘No, I won’t give you for that money.’ ‘Well then, I’ll give this or that sum.’ Finally we came to an agreement, ‘You’ll get this.’ I know that once I was twelve, and I asked for a piano… And dad said: ‘Well my child, dad doesn’t have so much money.’ ‘Dad, save up the money, but promise me that you would give me.’ In fact I and my mother had agreed that dad had already saved up the money [for the piano]. So he promised that in one or two weeks ‘I’ll go to Marosvasarhely and buy you the piano.’ And I was so happy, I gave him the matzah, and everybody was given a bit of it. Children waited this impatiently, you can imagine, where there were three or four children, all of them got a present, because they all said ‘I know as well! I know as well!’ But it was the most interesting for the youngest, for a twelve years old child it wasn’t that interesting. It was a game for him too, because of the negotiation, and they asked something too. Dad asked the four questions, and I always answered them – I knew the answers more or less, but I read it out from a book in Hebrew. Dad asked me in Hebrew, he translated it into Hungarian, and I answered in Hebrew.