Tag #151803 - Interview #84041 (Yacob Hollander)

I got married in December 1951 after I returned from the army. My wife wasn’t a Jew. She was born in Beregovo in 1928. Magdalena was Hungarian. Her father perished at the front and her mother died in 1944. I don’t remember Magdalena’s maiden name. We were orphans and I thought that we would be able to save one another from solitude. We had a civil ceremony at the registry office and a small dinner party in a restaurant for our close ones. Our son Alexandr was born in 1952. I insisted on his having brit milah according to Jewish traditions. My wife didn’t mind it. It goes without saying that we couldn’t do it openly in the synagogue. I brought a rabbi from Uzhgorod and we had the ritual at home. I invited my two cousins and my closest friend. We gave my son the Jewish name of Shloime after my deceased father.