Tag #153848 - Interview #94293 (Nikolai Mesko Salamonovic)

In the time of my youth there were a lot of Jews living in Mukachevo. That’s why Mukachevo was nicknamed the Jewish Town. More that half the town’s population was Jewish. In all there were 17 synagogues and prayer halls, that they used to attend. Every family was devout, even little children. Every Jew in Mukachevo attended prayers at a synagogue. In those days our family belonged to a rabbi by the name of Shapira [3]. He was a very wise and thoughtful person, whose name became known worldwide. When the Czechs came [4], both presidents, Masaryk [5] and after him, Benes [6] as well, kept in personal contact with him. He was a very good and proper person. People loved Masaryk as well. He was a beautiful, tall and bearded man. I never saw him in person. We had no television in those days, but I saw him in the newspapers. Masaryk was a big democrat. People liked Benes as well, but not like Masaryk. Masaryk was very much, as they say: “A good father to his family.” The father of Czechoslovakia. All the people of Czechoslovakia liked him very much.

There was a large cheder [a religious elementary school for study of the Torah – Editor’s note]. Almost every synagogue also had a cheder. Children would go to study there. Mukachevo also had a Hebrew high school. The high school building was in Sugar Street. It was a large school. Jewish children from all over Ruthenia attended it. There were also many bocherim (yeshivah students) studying in the town. There might have been over 350 of them. The yeshivah stood in Mukachevo Street and was led by rabbi Shapira.