Kati and Gyorgy Preisz

This is my cousin Kati Preisz and me in my uncle's vineyard in Nagykata in 1942. Kati's father was Miklos Preisz, my father's brother. I think he was born in about 1895. He had a wife, Margit Deutsch, and they had two children, Kati and Laci. They had a grocery and haberdashery store in Nagykata. Ninety percent of the customers of the shops were Christians. Miklos' family was the richest, and they had a big shop. They worked a lot, but they lived very well. For example, at every nearby village (all named 'Tapio-something-or-other') there was a fair twice a year, and they always went there to sell. There was a dray, they'd put the whole shop on it and they'd go at dawn, to Tapioszecso, let's say, where they'd sell all day long, and then they'd come home in the evening. Uncle Miklos's wife's family had a vegetable garden, even a vineyard, because they had a very big piece of land. Half of it was the yard. Near the house there was a flower garden, and in the back there was a farmyard, where they kept chickens, geese and everything. And it had another part where the vineyard was. When the grapes grew ripe, dad loved it; we always went there for the grapes.

Photos from this interviewee