Rebecca Peltz doesn't need a menorah to remind her of the miracle of light.

Peltz was 19, living in a farming village outside Zamosc, Poland, near the Ukraine border, when World War II broke out. After her parents and two of her siblings were deported to the Belzec extermination camp, she went into hiding. She was soon rounded up with others and sent into a ghetto in a nearby city. She then escaped with some friends who knew a Polish farmer who sheltered them on his farm.

For three years, until the end of the war, she and five others lived in a cramped attic above the barn, with no light. "It was too dangerous to even use candles, and we had no heat," she said with a heavy Yiddish accent.

"We lived on raw potatoes, sometimes boiled, that the farmers gave us," she said. "It was very dangerous for them because they knew they would be killed if they were caught."

Somehow they all survived. After the war Peltz went back to Zamosc and married another survivor. Together they built new lives in America and settled in Milwaukee.

Peltz still keeps alive the traditions of her hometown that might easily have been lost. She remembers Hanukkah in prewar Poland as a time for games like poker or canasta and dreidel spinning, and for food like fried kasha kreplach (wonton-like dumplings filled with buckwheat groats), ungebrennt, a potato soup with "burnt" flour, and of course potato latkes.

Peltz's specialties are known to Jews throughout Milwaukee, especially her signature pletzel, a flat bread studded with poppy seeds and onions. Another favorite is her mandelbrot, a strudel-like butter cookie filled with jam that she brings to meetings and gatherings. She mails both to her children and grandchildren.

Whenever Peltz goes to visit two of her children who live in Berkeley, Calif., as she did at Thanksgiving, she takes over the kitchen, cooking for the freezer and often giving her children's friends a cooking class of many of these lost recipes.

4 cups all-purpose flour2 scant tablespoons yeast (2 packets)4 tablespoons sugar1 large egg¼ cup plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil1½ teaspoons salt1 medium onion, peeled and diced2 teaspoons poppy seeds½ teaspoon kosher saltPlace flour in bowl of an electric mixer with dough paddle attached. Make a well in center and pour in 1 cup lukewarm water. Stir in yeast and 2 tablespoons sugar, and let sit for 30 minutes.Add egg, ¼ cup vegetable oil, remaining sugar and the salt. Mix well until dough is soft but not sticky, adding flour if necessary. Turn into a greased bowl, and let rise again, covered, for one hour. Knead lightly, and let rise again for 30 minutes.Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place diced onion in a small bowl, and stir in poppy seeds and remaining 2 teaspoons vegetable oil. Set aside.Divide dough into 20 balls. On a floured board, roll each ball into a circle about 2 or 3 inches in diameter and about 1 inch thick. Sprinkle a tablespoon or so of onion-poppy seed mixture on each circle. Roll circles again, to a thickness of aboutof an inch.Prick each circle with a fork and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt. Transfer to 2 ungreased baking sheets. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.Yield: 20 onion rolls.

4 potatoes, peeled and diced3 carrots, peeled and diced½ cup chopped parsley3 celery stalks, diced1 teaspoon salt¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper or to taste4 to 5 dried mushrooms or 8 to 10 fresh mushrooms like chanterelles or shiitakes1 tablespoon butter1 medium onion, diced3 tablespoons flour.Place potatoes, carrots, parsley and celery in a soup pot. Cover with about 8 cups water. Add salt, pepper and mushrooms. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, half covered, for 1 hour.When soup is almost done, melt butter in a small frying pan. Add onions and saute until transparent. Add flour and stir until flour is brown, 5 minutes. Stir into soup and serve.Makes 6 to 8 servings.

2 sticks unsalted butter2 tablespoons vegetable shortening1½ cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar1 teaspoon vanilla extract4 large eggs4 cups flour1 teaspoon baking powderDash of salt3 cups apricot jam or poppy seed filling¼ teaspoon cinnamon.Cream butter, shortening and 1½ cups sugar in an electric mixer. Add vanilla and 1 egg at a time, mixing into butter. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly add to other ingredients. Cover in plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Divide dough into 4 oval balls, and roll each out very thin. Spread each with about ¾ cup jam or poppy seed filling. Roll up into long jelly rolls and place on baking pans.Sprinkle rolls with cinnamon and remaining tablespoon of sugar and bake for 30 minutes. Remove pans from oven and let cool a few minutes. Using a sharp knife, cut into 1-inch slices. Return to oven and bake about 5 more minutes.Makes about 60 cookies.Recipes are adapted from Rebecca Peltz