When we fasted on Yom Kippur, they would whisle the shofar. We would all go to the synagogue. We would go, they would sound the shofar. I remember my uncle fasted in the time of Hitler. He fasted for two days. He couldn’t even speak. He fasted for them. At night, he would go at two or three o’clock. They would knock on the door (and say), “get up! Sasson! Slihot! Slihot!”. They would go. They would all fast…on Tisha B’Av. Also they would get up in the morning. We even had a tank with water in it. We would pour the water. It was even…we were fasting, cleaning, and everyone would say there was blood in it…the angel of death came and put blood in it. We would all clean it…until ten o’clock. (Then) we had to go to the market, to finish all our work.

We would make a sukka. My father built it…he would just come from the synagogue […] on the eve of Yom Kippur. (He would) bring and knock…wood. My uncle had a palm tree of…dates. We would go bring palm tree leaves. Dad and my brother would go to do the blessings at my uncle’s house. There was a palm tree there, and he would go and bring them from there. We used to put… dates… we would bring the date branches and put then in the sukka.. But…we (would) put it all around we used to put a mosquito net…we had a mosquito net, we would sleep on the roofs, we used to put (the mosquito net) in the sukka. On Sukkot, all of us, for eight days, we didn’t go to school. Only to the synagogue. We didn’t go outside. I don’t know if they were scared of the Muslims. I don’t know. They would only do it (Sukkot) in the synagogue. And at night, they would make meghli (a traditional hot drink made on Hoshana Rabba) all night…all night they would read (the Torah). Dad would make them meghli yes, he would make (it)…cardamon and cinnamon and…he would make it and bring it for my mother to drink. Ginger (too). He would make it so that they wouldn’t (need to) sleep all night. My dad was illiterate. He didn’t know how to read. His mother died when he was young and everyone would say, “poor (thing), (he is) an orphan”. His father went and got married (again)…(and) he (my father) did not study. But he used to go to the synagogue, and would say the blessings, but dad didn’t study.