Celebrating Passover in Communist Exile

Although it wasn’t Sunday, my father didn’t go to work. I liked the day because we could spend it together and we would have a special dinner, with food we could not always afford. My father would bring home some delicious biscuit called “pasca,” packed in a box with strange letters on it. He would buy it in an unusual place, a dark little room in a building quite far from where we lived. The room was not at all like a store—only boxes of this biscuit everywhere—and the people were all very quiet, hardly looking at each other. My father would pick up the package quickly then leave, holding me by the hand very tightly, as if afraid he might lose me. For the special dinner we also had a large piece of meat for a main course, and even wine. I really would have liked to know what this festivity was all about.