Katarína Löfflerová with her girlfriend on the Lido

This is the Bratislava Lido in 1929. The girl on the left is one of my girlfriends at the time, her name was Frida Vertes. She was the first of my girlfriends who was married. She was also Jewish. She magyarized her name sometime - her father could have been called Weisz. The photo was taken by a photographer, who posed us like this. The photographer had a huge camera with a tripod, which he carried around the city, and to the parks. He sent the photograph later, because it took a while to print it.

At that time the so-called Tehelne Pole didn't exist, there was only the Lido on the other side of the Danube. The Danube was clean, and great for swimming. Aside from that there was a 33-meter pool where it was also fantastic to swim. The water was pretty cold, they didn't heat it. Not far from that was a broad, large guest restaurant and terrace. It was exceptionally comfortable there. They provided guests with cabins also - down on the Danube bank they had square tents for the bathers. You could rent one for a season, to leave your swimsuit and bathrobe, handbag and other things. The rental fee for the tents wasn't very much. It's interesting that at that time they didn't steal. The beach wasn't sand, but boards. You could lay out on the boards. The Danube banks were connected by a bridge. Towards the left, I could get to the Lido in five or six minutes.

During our school years, we'd go down there in the summers two or three times a week. We regularly left before noon, we took food with us, fried meats, kinds of ham, even though there was a restaurant nearby. The best thing we got at the restaurant was raspberries. On the Lido there were a lot of people, but since it was long, about a kilometer, it never felt crowded. The Danube water was pretty clean, we always tried to go in when a boat went by because then there would be great waves.