I wanted to find something bitter for Chazeret (Horseradish). Suddenly there began an outbreak of influenza in the prison. The prison management didn’t have medicines. They heard that onion prevents flu. One day every prisoner received a fresh onion bulb. It was a real asset! For years I hadn’t eaten a fresh vegetable. All the prisoners swallowed the onion in a trice. But I thought to myself that if I put the onion in water the onion would sprout leaves and I would be able to make bitter Chazeret from them. And that is what I did. I had an empty tin in which I put water the little onion bulb and placed it on the cell windowsill exactly under the bars. They all laughed at me – “Are you crazy? Why didn’t you eat it? Are you trying to grow flowers here?” And I remained silent.
Now came the time for Karpas (celery or parsley). Where could I find some leaves like Karpas? Now, every day they took prisoners out for a walk. Not like you see in films where all the prisoners walk in the yard together. Our prison was only for security prisoners and it was forbidden that we should meet one another (Natan Scharansky also was a prisoner there).
In that place they used to take out all the people in one cell to the roof of the building which was divided into cells, but without a roof. Instead of a roof there were bars.
One day I saw in the yard near our yard (all of them 3 x 3 meters) a small green leaf bursting through the asphalt on the roof. When I had been previously in the forced labor camp we had eaten grass and one knew that this type of grass was edible. I prayed that no one would stamp on my leaf until the Pesach festival.
The egg I made from egg- powder (one spoonful of which remained in my bag), and I also had a Zeroa – a soup cube from Israel with a picture of a chicken on the wrapping. (For a certain time it was permitted to receive once a year a small parcel with soup cubes and egg powder, but after some years they forbade this as well. And miraculously I still had a bit of each left over.) It was still permitted to receive Matza which the prison authorities called “dry bread.” I received a kilo of Matzot, the only food for the seven days of Passover.
All that remained was to find the Pesach Seder Plate. I decided to make a Seder Plate from a Pravda newspaper full of “true” Communist propaganda. What was good was that it contained big newspaper pages.
The eve of Pesach arrived.
On the way from the exercise yard I ran quickly to the adjacent yard and picked my “Karpas.” Such a an act was considered a grave offence. The warder escorting began to laugh at me – “Who gave you permission?”
I knew him, that warder- he was a good man. He shouted, but did not punish. I explained to him that this plant was very healthy. He listened to me and allowed me to take the Karpas to my cell.
In the evening I asked the warders to bring me the Pravda newspaper to read. I made from the newspaper a circle and wrote on it as on a Seder Plate: Zeroa, Egg, Maror (leaf of the onion) Everything was ready. I hid the Seder Plate under my blanket. When the evening of Tet-Vav Nissan arrived I called Hillel and said – ” Pesach has arrived, come let us sit at the Seder table.”