In this interview, Ilana Burgess recounts her (and her parents’) discovery of an antisemitic teacher, who rumor had it “entertained the Nazis” during the war.
(Auto-generated transcript)
[00:00:00] My parents were very different from each other.
[00:00:04] And my father, when something touched his heart, like a book, or also one time he told, told his friends about me, achievement, I don’t remember what was that, he would cry. My mom very rarely cried. My mom said she cried when she came home from the Holocaust, and she discovered all her family perished. My father’s parents.
[00:00:32] Died from the swine flu when, in the 30s. I think that was 30s.
[00:00:39] So in Hungary My father was pushing us to do well in school. For example, when I went to the newspaper in third grade, 1000 he would tell me, so what did you read? What did you understand?
[00:00:55] So when I went to school, from the beginning, I don’t know if it was my father doing originally, but because my father wrote lots of poetry, I learned to learn by heart and say it out loud. And I even won some prizes. And every time in the end of the year, the teacher would give me a part to, to perform.
[00:01:23] It’s, you know, first grade, second grade, third grade. At third grade, during the summer,
[00:01:32] I had the accident that my girlfriend died. You remember the story? And it happened before school ended because we waited for the summer to take me to the Jewish hospital in Budapest.
[00:01:47] And I stayed there for, like, I missed school almost two months. Fifty some school days. You said it was right before summer, and you waited until summer.
[00:01:57] We went in the summer. I stayed all summer there.
[00:02:01] And an additional two months.
[00:02:04] So, anyway, I came back home fourth grade. And fourth grade in Hungary, at that time they learned geography.
[00:02:12] Not only of the country, but the Europe. And the teacher was a new teacher. And she called my name and Seidner is very Jewish name, so she’s called me to the board and asked me to show one of the countries I did not know. You had been out of school for two months. Yeah. And probably she asked a small country not.
[00:02:36] I knew where is Russia? You know Romania, that border country. I knew she was upset. And she punished me. She, I, I could feel, I went home and I complained and my father and mother said, just let it be this year almost over. Okay. Come to the end of the year.
[00:02:59] How was the year almost over. You start school, you miss two months, September, October.
[00:03:04] Then you have the winter.
[00:03:05] Oh, the regular year.
[00:03:07] Yeah.
[00:03:07] Okay. I thought the school year
[00:03:09] And come the end of the year, I guess the parents got some notification when the end of the year. And my name is not there.
[00:03:18] Notification for what?
[00:03:21] To the program, end of the year program.
[00:03:23] You know, the parents invited. My father was very upset. And my father wrote poetry. I don’t know if I ever show you. He has lots of poetry. He wrote in newspaper. And he wrote for the Jewish community. Sketches about people in the community. He wrote, also he wrote music. So, and you have to remember in the communist country, you were afraid to speak up.
[00:03:54] He went to the school, he wrote a poem for me,
[00:03:58] and he went to the school, and he came to the teacher, where the teacher was, I don’t know if she was in her classroom or room, and he put that poem on her desk and said, Seidner Agnes, in Hungary you say the last name first, Seidner Agnes will perform that in the end of the year. He didn’t ask her, he told her, and I did.
[00:04:22] Later when we were in Israel, I said, why this teacher? I asked mom lots of question that I remember, but I don’t remember exactly. So I asked my mom, what was the problem with the fourth grade teacher? My report card is good. I have the report card. I, it shows that I was a good student shoot. And my mom said, remember I didn’t learn about the Holocaust from my parents.
[00:04:49] My mom said in Israel already that I knew. She said that the gossip in the Mateszalka was that she was entertaining Germans during the Holocaust. So she was a sympathizer.
[00:05:01] And then in fifth grade, I had a little teacher, short, very cute.
[00:05:06] Do you know her name?
[00:05:08] Huh?
[00:05:09] Do you remember her name?
[00:05:10] I’m going to look at my report card and see her name. And, um, before Pesach, Before Pesach, she said. Are you celebrating the holiday when you eat matzah? And I told my mom. And she said, maybe she’s Jewish.
[00:05:28] Invite her. And she came. So well, and was she Jewish or did she just know of the holiday and…
We don’t know.