Mariana Farkas at the German kindergarten in Budapest

This is a photo taken in Budapest, in 1935, when I was five years old. It was taken at the German kindergarten I went to when I turned six. I?m the second from the left, the one with the blue mark, I probably did that, but I don?t remember exactly! I know it was a private kindergarten; there were state kindergartens as well, but my parents chose to send me there.

I remember I was at military parades, on 20th August it was Saint Stefan's Day, the first Hungarian king who was baptized a Catholic, 1000 years ago. We went up to the royal castle, in Buda, on the bank of the Danube, where the Matyas Korvin church was. And there, on every Sunday, there was the changing of the royal guard. The men were ravishing, all of the same height, 1.80 meters, dressed in special uniforms. The guard was continuously on duty there and they changed every eight hours, and Sundays it was something special: anyone who wanted to, went up there to the big castle to see them. Be it winter or summer, every Sunday we were there. It happened very rarely that we didn't go. In kindergarten and then in school, children were brought up to be patriots.

I had school on Saturdays, but I spent the rest of the day at home with my parents, studying; but I can't say that I was forced to stay at home, except for the high holidays, of course. I was away alone in camps during summers with the scouts, for about two weeks or ten days. We sometimes went out to eat, but that was seldom. We didn't have a car, cars weren't so common back then, one had to be very rich to have one, but we traveled by train - when we went on a holiday - and by bus.