Tag #140415 - Interview #90155 (Eva Vari)

The girls were not brought up religious, not only because I was not religious but because it was always a principle of mine not to bring children up in two ways. And when they started to go to school then religion was not at issue – which I believe is quite right. Their first encounter with Jewishness was in Miskolc. There was an inner yard where we lived and one of the neighbor’s siblings had a little girl who was the same age as mine, they played together. One day Zsuzsika rushed in crying that what’s-her-name she said I’m Jewish. Is that why you’re crying, I asked. Well, she thought it was a terrible insult. And then I explained that ‘you are a Jew, so is your mother and your father, being Jewish is a religion, but this does not concern us, one man is very like another so don’t cry, it’s not an insult. If they say you are a Jew, then be proud say yes, I am a Jew’.