‘What was your life like before the war?’

Life in the quiet little town of Sighet was fairly uneventful. The town’s 30,000 or so inhabitants were made up of countless ethnic minorities, of which the Jews were the most numerous. When I think about it, a few events surface in my memory that illustrate what life was like:

I was three years old and had started preschool. I felt grown up, and after a few days I insisted that no one was to collect me; I wanted to walk home on my own. Mama did not want to agree to it, but in the end my stubbornness triumphed. It was midday and the cluster of little children stood by the gate, on their way home, with me in the middle. Some were going right, some left. I was eagerly absorbed in a discussion with an older friend and did not think about which way I should take to get home. Without looking around, I followed my friend and joined the cluster turning left.

As we walked, I noticed that more and more of the children veered off, until only my friend and I were left, chatting away. But soon the words froze on my lips, when she too stopped by a gate. I was completely alone. Only then did I look around and see that I did not know where I was. I became scared, realising that I was lost. I started crying.

A woman leaned out of a window and asked why I was crying. I answered that I did not know my way home.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

‘Hédike,’ I replied.

‘Whose are you?’

‘Papa’s.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘In a house with a red gate.’

‘Don’t cry, Hédike,’ the woman continued, ‘I’ll take you home.’ The town was small enough that she could recognise me, as I resembled my father.

Most people in Sighet knew each other even if they did not socialise. Life went by in similar ways among the different social groups, which were determined by class, rather than ethnicity. There were the very poor and the slightly wealthier. Our family belonged to the latter. Everyone in that group had domestic help; today you might call it a maid.

Anna, our maid, got up as early as six o’clock. She lit a fire in the stove so that we would not have to rise in a freezing room. Anna had to coax us up; we were cold and did not want to get out of bed. Then she dressed us, fed us breakfast, and took us to school. Only then did my parents get up. After breakfast, Papa went to work and Mama went to the market to do the shopping.