Laura, Rachel and Karoly Berdach

My grandmother Laura was a woman of the Austrian Monarchy. She spoke very little Hungarian, only a few words, and was very funny when she tried. Instead of 'food' she said 'tool,' I don't exactly know why, she made a lot of mistakes like that. I did not know my grandfather on my father's side[Laura's husband] because he died very young.

My grandmother's younger brother was a lawyer who changed his name from Berdach to the Hungarian Barna. As Karoly Barna he was the general director of the Danube Steamship Company. He was very rich. He lived here in Hungary.

My grandmother had a younger sister, Rachel, who was a well-known writer: a novelist, journalist and poet. For instance when Queen Elisabeth of Austria was murdered, the German Writers' Association held a memorial meeting and her poems were recited, poems written for the occasion. Rachel married one of her cousins, Otto Bardach. (He was also from the Berdach family, but due to clerical misspelling of their name, they went by Bardach.) Because they were cousins they did not want to have children, and they did not have any. Rachel was a very beautiful, very graceful woman.