Eugen Rappoport

This is Eugen Rappoport, my ear, nose and throat specialist grandfather from Germany. The picture must have been taken in the 1940s in Wuppertal. My maternal grandparents lived in Germany. Grandfather Rappoport was a German Jew. He was an ear, nose and throat specialist at the Wuppertal Opera. So he treated the singers. He made a good living. In addition he also treated those who couldn't pay for free. Grandfather Rappoport didn't tell us children anything about his work, I only know that he had many patients whom he treated for free. And he didn't own a car, because he said that he didn't want to drive over anyone by any chance. Grandfather Rappoport was a little bit of a chubby man; he dressed very elegantly, because he earned a good living. He was very kind to us. They had a double-storied villa, they were wealthy. On the ground floor there was the office, on the first floor the entertainment rooms, the music room and the huge dining room. So they had a really good living. My grandparents led a very active social life for quite a while. My grandfather invited big companies. There was a huge dining room, in which there was room for about 20 people, and we, the children, were not allowed to go in there, but there was a smoking-chamber and my younger brother and I stood behind its curtain and peeked in from there. We were curious to see what happened there. If guests came, my parents or grandparents received them on the first floor. Then my grandfather called us to come downstairs and present ourselves, because we were very beautiful kids. And he was proud of us. Grandfather Rappoport and Grandmother Merenyi didn't have children, but our grandfather loved us very much in spite of the fact that we weren't his natural descendants.

Photos from this interviewee