Erzsebet Radvaner´s mother Terez Gonczi with her son Laszlo Gonczi

This is my mother and brother. My mother had no job but tending to the home. We had the same helper for thirty years, Erzsi. She was sixteen when she came to us and she was very decent. She cleaned the house and cooked; she was an excellent cook. As long as my grandfather was alive, the household was kosher. My grandfather was observant, heart and soul. Each Friday he went to synagogue and each Saturday the same. Each morning he put on the tallit and the tefillin and he prayed. My elder brother, Laszlo, was born in 1905. He went to Realschule. There he had his bachelors' exam, but he was not accepted to the university because of the Numerus Clausus, a legal limit on the numbers of Jews allowed into certain institutions and professions. First he worked at my uncle's, in the office, then he had a workshop for small furniture. He wasn't very successful. In the end he had a good job. He was a manager on an estate somewhere in Szilagy County in the reconnected territory. This was already during the war. He earned good money there. They had two sons. My brother converted to the Protestant faith. When his wife became pregnant he changed his religion for her sake. Adam was born as a Protestant. Laci had Bar Mitzvah and he prayed every morning for months, because grandfather wanted it that way. Then he said that he had no time for it. My mother wanted us to fast on Yom Kippur. I did it in earnest; I was religious. But Laci was not. I think he hid on Yom Kippur. Laci and I went to the town theater every Sunday afternoon. You can not name a singer or a conductor whom I did not hear. My father was not interested in classical music. My mother liked it, but never went to concerts. It was the hobby of my brother. My brother was a very cultivated child. He was only interested in classical music. And he read and read. There were not too many books at home, but we read books from the library all the time. And we read everything: Gardonyi, Mikszath, Jokai, and so on, all the greats of Hungarian literature.