My mother’s family lived approximately two hundred kilometres away in a small farming community called Kolbašov, near the large city of Michalovce. Grandmother Friedman and my two unmarried uncles, Herman and Pavel, ran the large family farm, where they produced corn, grain, and flax. They had a herd of milk cows, sheep, and goats, as well as several teams of horses that they used for tilling, hauling, and other kinds of work. This was a very enterprising farm with many young people hired to help out. At sunrise the cattle were taken out to the various pastures to graze, and they were brought back at noon and again in the evening to be milked by hand into pails. The farmhands processed the milk in separators for skimmed milk and butter. They made cheeses from sheep and goat milk. At the end of the day, the teams of horses were also returned from the fields, unharnessed, groomed, and freed to take a run to the water trough.
My first extended visit to the farm was in 1935, when I was six years old. I spent the entire summer there that year, almost two months. I returned again in the summers of 1936, 1937, and 1938. Summer holidays at the farm were a time of freedom, with no public school or Hebrew school. I felt so unconstrained. Many of my cousins from nearby towns came for the summers as well, and we were a happy group of eight or ten children. I was particularly attached to two older cousins, Edith and Lily Burger. Another cousin, Laly Friedman, was allowed to saddle his horse and ride at any time, whereas I could ride only in front of my uncle on his saddle.
We children had so much to occupy our minds. We used to visit the newborn calves, putting our hands in their mouths and letting them suck our fingers with their toothless gums. We picked wild strawberries in the fields. Uncle Herman and Uncle Pavel were very busy running the farm, but they always managed to find some time for us. We were given the task of taking the sheep and goats to pasture. Trying to keep them all together was a challenge, especially when the goats wandered off, climbing ever higher on the hillside. I loved it when my uncles took me on their saddles and galloped off to faraway fields to see how the harvesting work was progressing.
At the end of each long day of activities, we children were dirty and dead tired, and we were allowed to go to a nearby mountain stream to splash around and wash. The water was freezing cold.
The first summer, I met a local boy my age, and every year we spent time together exploring the wider area. One day we found a cemetery that was overgrown by trees, and he told me there were ghosts there that came out every night. I was scared, but we dared each other to go inside. Neither of us was able to muster enough courage alone, so we went in together. In the middle of the cemetery, there was a large pear tree loaded with huge fruit. We could not reach them, so we found some stones and pelted the branches to shake a few loose. The pears were sweet and juicy, and I really enjoyed them. We had all kinds of fruit in our orchards at home, but the fruit from someone else’s garden always tasted better. We revisited this cemetery quite often.
My last trip to the farm was in the summer of 1938, when I was nine years old. My visit was interrupted midsummer when my uncle Herman abruptly took me to the railway station and sent me back home. Czechoslovakia was under threat of invasion by Nazi Germany and the situation had become unstable. I never saw my mother’s family again. At nine, I didn’t fully understand what was taking place, but I noticed the rising tensions in my hometown. Since we lived so near to Hungary, the streets had to be patrolled at night and the Czechoslovakian army was moved up to reinforce the border. As children, we were excited to see the soldiers with all their equipment, and we didn’t realize the dangers looming ahead.