We were good Jews, but unfortunately we were taught to be Hungarians first and Jews second.
In other words, the first sentence I remember we learned
in the Jewish grammar school was 'we are Hungarians of the Jewish religion,' and
don't you forget, that obviously that's what they meant. And we were assimilated Jews, the
Hungarian Jews were very, very much assimilated, which retrospective and I think back of it
wasn't such a good idea. Zionism wasn't accepted, if somebody in my high school,
I remember one case, when they found out about a boy who was a Zionist went to Zionist meeting
he was kicked out from the high school, which when I think back, I always think it's very sad
you know that's something. But this is the way it was in Hungary, the Hungarian Jewish community
was very much assimilated into the Hungarian cultural life and everything. We didn't want
to be different from them, we wanted to be Hungarians. And that's why we figured nothing
can ever happen to us, nothing bad can happen to us because we are Jews. How wrong we were.