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1-Introductions & Family in Sighet

Transcribed by: Alexandra B (2009).
Proofed by: Logan L (2008)

I'm Dot. My name is Talia. My name is Daniel. My name is Alex. My name is Matt. And my name is Becca, and we are here interviewing Dora Apsan Sorell on January 15, 2008 in Berkeley, California. We are part of The Urban School of San Francisco's Telling Their Stories Project.

Could you describe your house to us? What it looked like?

My house? Where we lived? In Sighet? Unfortunately, we didn't have a house, just an apartment, and quite a small apartment. Today, when I'm asked for pictures of it, I don't get that one. It's on the second floor of a sort of tenement building. What I remember is, first we had three rooms: a kitchen and two rooms. Later on, we got from the kitchen, the other side another room because there were three other tenants on that floor. So we didn't have a bathroom, obviously. We didn't have running water, obviously. The first room was the kitchen, and the other two were the bedrooms for my parents and for the boys. Later, I got my room right on the other side of the kitchen. At the end of the corridor, there was an outhouse. Below the house, in front, was a pump. It was first a well, and then a pump. This is how we got the water. I remember how my father always had to carry up the stairs two big pails of water. Later on we got smart, and we let a pail with the string down and sent one of the boys just to pump and just pull it up. So there was a lot of hardship. We didn't bathe at home. Friday everybody went to the bathhouse. This is where we cleansed ourselves. But sure, we could wash up any morning. We didn't have gas. We just had a wooden stove. Later on, I remember mother aquired a little petroleum lamp for a little cooking. Mother was always busy with the children and I never learned to cook because I was always working.

Did you know any of your other tenants in the building?

Yes, I just remember that on that corridor, there were a few girls. I think their parents had died. We got one room from them. There were three girls and one of them was very sick. I just remember after they moved away how I visited and she was dying. She had to wear closes. The other tenant was a friend of my mother, Mrs. Pearl. When my mother finally took a sort of vacation, she went to visit her sister, by then I was fourteen years old. I was the only girl in the house. I had to do the cooking, and I didn't know too much of cooking. So, the boys made fun of me that all I knew how to make was either a potato soup and beans, a main dish. Or a bean soup and a potato dish. But for Friday, I had to go to my neighbor lady, Mrs. Pearl, who would help me to set up the Friday chicken, the food for Friday, Saturday and leftover on Sunday.

Downstairs, I had a cousin who lived there. Her father was the brother of my father, but had died. She had a stepfather, her mother, and they had a little restaurant and a boarding home. Her name was Seren and I wrote about her a lot because, she was at the time in the Communist movement and she was arrested together with my boyfriends. This Serena, she was my cousin. One of the little rooms - because you know they had a little boarding house - was made a workshop. She was a seamstress. As my mother hoped, I was also going to be a seamstress and she was always sending me to learn from Serena, Seren we called her. I was busy with other things. But on school vacations, I often went down and learned from Serena the sewing and I have something in the book about how I never really learned how to sew, but I was helpful in the sense that I could match when she had the patterns, I could match the squares, the lines. I was very good at making shoulder pads. So I didn't learn, but I was still sewing my stuff for a long time. Seren, after the war, she moved to Israel. This who I knew. She was a relative.

What was it like for you to be in a family with all boys?

It was very interesting because I had to go to cheder with them. You know cheder. Only boys went. I also went, and I learned a few things. I remember my older brother, I had some half brothers, they always said I was the best at cheder. I have this story in the book, probably. I went to cheder with two or three of my brothers and there was a big room where the melamed, the teacher, was teaching and it was very dark and very gloomy. I remember that this melammed - teacher - had a shed in the backyard with doves. I was a very curious girl, and I wanted to see what it is. I opened the shed, and the doves flew away, and he slapped me. This was really one of my sad remembrances. I was so upset that he slapped me, that when I went home and we had some company - an aunt of mine, who came to visit with her fiance - I just couldn't talk to them. I couldn't look up. That's how upset it made me, the melammed who slapped me. So this is how I learned my aleph bet, like the boys.

Later on (unclear) the boys, we were very protective one of another. I would teach them, and the boys would protect me if I needed. I had a very good relationship with all of my brothers.

Did you receive more attention from your parents since you were the only girl?

I probably received extra attention. Its funny how one day my daughter-in-law asked me about my wedding. How it was, and that is when I told her I was the only girl and only my birthday was celebrated at home. My-daughter-in-law was very upset "How come the boys didn't have birthdays?". No, there were seven boys in the house. I didn't remember their birthdays for a long time, but they all remembered my birthday. It was also the beginning of fall and there was lots of fruit. We had a little party with cookies. Only my birthday was celebrated. I think this was something very special. Also, I was probably the only one very inclined towards academics. I was a very serious student, a very good student. I cared very much for school. My brothers were not the same. One of them, the younger one, was more inclined with school. I am talking about the little ones, four. The three were not always home, because by the time they were thirteen they left the home. You know?

It sounds unusual in your community, as a girl, to be going to high school and to be pursuing academics. What was the situation for most girls your age?

As I told you, I was a very good student. From early time, it must have been in the third grade, where I was asked to help out the Romanian girl. They always called me to help out for school, for the math. When I reached the fourth grade - all of my brothers were younger than me - my father knew I wanted to go to high school. High school was also very expensive. I remember the amount we had to pay. It was very hard for the family together. We had to take an entrance examination. I passed it, and my father put down the first installment of school. Then my father realized he has some rights because he was a war veteran. I don't remember what was the wound. He had documented that he was a war veteran. He applied and we got back that money. Getting back the money made it so much easier for me to continue as far as money was concerned.

Also, when I was thirteen, I started to teach and make some money. We were not poor. We had a big household. My father was a real estate agent. Usually, when the boys got to be thirteen, they went to learn a trade. Indeed, my older brothers, which were half brothers, they all left at eighteen. But, my brother who became a doctor had gone to high school - its a very interesting story, I don't know if i have it - he had gone to high school, locally. When he was thirteen apparently a cantor came from a large city, Timi?oara and he wanted to recruit young boys for the choir. Timi?oara had a Hebrew school, a very modern synagogue, and they had the choir and he was looking for boys who know how to sing. My brother, at the age of thirteen, had a very good singing voice. He asked to be taken to that school. Indeed, this is how he, after the age of thirteen, went to another high school in Timi?oara and this is where he graduated. He became not only a very good student there, he also developed his skills as a draftsman, an artist. He was out.

But the other boys, older boys, at thirteen went to yeshivas. My little brothers continued elementary beyond the four - they could go for eight years of elementary school - and they went to learn trades. Two of my brothers were printers. They worked in the local print-shops where my father's book was printed. Then one went to Budapest during the war - he must have been fifteen, sixteen - also as a printer. The little one, the youngest, was very interested in school. Only later, during the war, did it come out that he also wanted to learn and go to high school. But, then he died in the Holocaust. Indeed, my brother who went to high school - and then he went to Italy to study medicine - probably influenced me too. I was very interested in sciences. I was for a while vacillating to go to chemistry or to medical school during the Hungarian occupation. I did apply to those schools knowing very well that they did not accept Jewish people. I remember one college - must have been chemistry and the other was medical school - no, I was not accepted.

How did you learn about the outside world?

It is a very painful question that we did not know too much about the outside world. I never read newspapers. My father had always read the newspapers. Everything which came in Yiddish and he also read Yiddish literature. No, I did not have a radio. Many of my friends, the richer ones, had radios at home. We did not have a radio. It just trickled, things that happened abroad and some atrocities that the Nazis are doing in Poland. Apparently, there were a few refugees from Poland who came. I know their hardship because they wanted to deport them to Poland. I was not too aware of what's happening in the large world.

What did you do with your friends for fun?

I had first a lot of cousins. When Saturdays came - I also had two aunts, my mother's sisters who lived in my hometown. So indeed Saturday was a day to visit relatives and be with cousins. There were many of them in our hometown. When I went to high school I did have friends who were in high school. We also met Saturday and Sunday. We went hiking, we went on walks around - we had two rivers: Tisza and Iza - strolls in the parks. Or, we gather at one girl's home - the one who sang very, very well. I remember that we sat around the table and we ate usually sunflower seeds and walnuts. She was singing.

This was before I went out with boys. When I was sixteen, seventeen I started. It was another type of company. I also joined a few Zionist organizations by then. Yes, we went dancing, which my parents didn't like. But I did go Saturday night dancing at the dancing school - which is very close to our apartment - it was very enticing to go see who was there. At that time, we started our outings in the mountains with the whole group, crowd, boys and girls. We did a little bit of bicycling. I didn't have a bicycle. I always had to borrow one. When I had a boyfriend, he bought me a pair of skis and we went skiing on the close by mountains.

I remember one of the big events, which I have in the book. It was in 1939 when I was very excited to be interested in boys. I was probably almost eighteen. I was in the last year of high school. We went on a hiking trip to the nearby resort place. There were many salt mines in our area and they had a resort with salt water swimming pools. This is how we were in the whole group. This is when one of the boys started to chase me to come after me, to take pictures of me. I didn't know what he wanted, right? Wherever I was, he made pictures. I have some in the album. Then after, we used the pool and we swam, we went to have a drink. There was music, and we danced. This boy wanted to dance with me all of the time. It was late when we wanted to return and the trip was about three hours walking, this is how we came. So we took the little train to go back and there was no more room inside, so we had to stay outside in the cold. Here is this boy who always wanted to hold my hand. I still didn't know what he wanted. This is how it started.

Transcribed by: Rebecca A (2010)
Proofed by: Logan L (2008)

Later on, this was in the middle of 1939. At he end of 1939 the Jewish organizations had a very beautiful Hannuka celebration. IT was a big event. I had described it in the book. Did I talk about it last time? It was my brother who was so talented, Moishi, he made all the sets and I was given with another girl to dance. Tango bolero was the dance; this was the music. They had the sketches and they had singing of Maus where I remember a girl with the same family name as my boyfriend. She sang Maus and the whole event was in the big movie house. I danced. I have a little picture of this when I was dressed as a Spanish girl. The other girl was dressed with a boy in pants and bolero.

Finally after this celebration we all went to the close-by restaurant for dancing and this is when two boys chased me. They just cut always in when I danced with the other one. They wanted to dance with me. One who sent me at the age of seventeen, on my birthday, some flowers with his sister. I liked him a little bit. Otto was his name. He never looked at me since he sent me the flowers. But at this event he wanted to dance with me, and at this event the other one, called Selby, also wanted to dance with me and sort of one of the other. At the end of the evening I decided. I allowed Selby to take me home, to say goodbye, to kiss me goodbye. This is how our affair started. Seventy years ago, almost. And then he remained my boyfriend.

And then, in 1940, the war had started for us soon as the Hungarians marched into the town, and this was the last big event of the Jewish organization in 1939. Many, many years later, when our people (Langspun) had the club in New York and they had dancing events, you know, and I was dancing and I looked around and I say how many of these people were there in 1939 to enjoy the last big event of the Jewish community. The war started with all the hardship.