Angela Orosz
Prayers for Jewish women
Angela Orosz holds a book of prayers for women that represents a special connection to her mother Vera and to her aunt. The little pre-war book entitled “Mirjam” is written in Hungarian, Angela’s mother tongue. While Vera was in Auschwitz (occupied Poland), where Angela was born, her sister managed to survive in hiding. She kept the book with her and later gave it to Vera. When Vera left Hungary following the revolution in 1956, she brought it with her to Canada. She then entrusted it to Angela, who continues to ensure its safekeeping.
Listen to the book's story
It is called Miriam and it is called Prayers. So, this is different prayers for Jewish ladies. And this is the
important, little short prayers for different occasions – when you go to the cemetery, when you wake up
in the morning, when your child gets married, or a sad occasion, somebody passed away – and these are
short prayers. So, it was my mother’s and then she gave it to me, and this is how it ended up by me. It is
written in Hungarian.
And how did it survive?
She got it back from her sister but how it got there, I don’t know. All I know is that her sister survived by
[with the help of] Wallenberg and then after the war, you know, she said to my mother, “I am not going
to get married, we are going to live [keep] this baby, and we are going to raise this baby, and that will be
our life.” And then my mother got married and she felt horrible. She just felt she was dumped. She lived
in Budapest but then one of her aunts married her off in Bratislava (today Slovakia). And stuff somehow
was by [with] her. I believe, because my mother left the country [Hungary] illegally, before she left Budapest,
she went to her, so maybe she gave some stuff because this is coming from her, so there must have
been some arrangement between them.
