Agnesa Urbanova with her mother Aurelia Sandorova and her cousin Julika

This is a photo of me with my mother, Aurelia Sandorova and my cousin Julika. The photograph is from 1948. Our new life began with great difficulties. Truly. My poor mother, she suffered because she had never worked and didn't have any sort of specialized schooling. She finished girls' school in Dresden, the way it went back then, where girls learned to run a household. She simply had no qualifications. She was basically alone with a little kid, without money; it was very, very hard. Mainly for her, who'd been taught to live at a higher standard, and was suddenly beginning from scratch. She began working. She worked in the project office of the Cellulose and Paper Mills, on the phone, and taking care of the mail. Because she had no qualifications, she couldn't get anything better. We decided to stay in Slovakia; it was hard. My mother was alone with me, and here she had relatives. She had support here.