Tag #140225 - Interview #78052 (zoltan shtern)

My paternal grandmother and grandfather were born and lived in the village of Rososh, in Svaliava district, Subcarpathia [2]. This was a small village. There were about 30 families living there and about ten of them were Jewish. My grandfather, Nuchim Shtern, was born in the 1860s. I don't remember my grandmother's name. She was a few years younger than my grandfather. When I knew my grandfather he was retired. I think he earned his living as a coach driver. My grandmother was a housewife. They were poor. I only saw them a few times and remember very little about them. I can't tell what my grandfather looked like. All I remember about my grandmother is that she was short and always wore a kerchief on her head. They had four or five children. I didn't know any of them. My father, Moshe Shtern, was born in the 1890s. He never told me about his childhood or youth.

My father's parents were religious. There was no synagogue in Rososh and my grandfather went to the prayer house in the neighboring village of Holubino on Sabbath and Jewish holidays. There were only men praying there. Women prayed at home. My father's parents celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays and followed the kashrut. I can't remember any details. They spoke Yiddish and Hungarian in the family.

My grandmother died in 1939. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery of Lubino near Rososh. It was a Jewish funeral. They also buried the dead from the villages of Pasika and Holubino which had no Jewish cemeteries there. Grandfather Nuchim died one year later, in 1940. He was buried near my grandmother. Lubino no longer exists and my grandparents' graves are gone. There are floods in Subcarpathia. They wash away villages and that's what happened to Lubino. The residents of the village moved to other places. The same happened to Rososh.