Some members of the family.
From left to right: Helen, my mother`s sister-in-law; Juliska and Jolan, my sisters; me in the back; and my father in the front.
My elder sister, Jolan, was nineteen when our mother died.She took over the seven children and raised us.
Jolan married in 1934. They were married under the chupah, but not in the synagogue. My sister insisted that she wanted her wedding in the open air.
She also insisted that my brother-in-law wear kitl (traditional white robe worn by men for holiest days of the year).
He had kitl beneath and over it he wore an ibertzi - that’s a kind of overcoat. Her husband was a second cousin, called Zoltan Grunwald, later Zoltan Galambos.
He was a very, very good man. They lived on Marvany Street, in a huge house with a passageway. He worked as a painter-decorator there in that house, summer and winter.
The inhabitants were always changing and whenever there was a new resident, a flat had to be redecorated.
A wealthy Jewish family wanted to adopt me, because they had no children, but my sister said that as long as she lived, no child would be given up for adoption.
My sister couldn’t bear not having the children with her. She regarded us, her sisters and brothers, as her own children.
