Julian Glas

This is a photo of my father, Julian Glas, taken in Prague in 1936. My father was born in Terst [Trieste] in 1896. From the age of five, when he moved to Vienna with his parents, my father didn't speak Italian, so I think that he quickly forgot the language, but a love for Italian cuisine stayed with him throughout his entire life, especially spaghetti, which we had at home very often. My father attended a classical academic high school for eight years, always with straight A?s. He was oriented towards the humanities and wrote poems, but didn't publish them. He sang in a choir, later in Terezin as well, and apparently played the mandolin. On the other hand, he didn't know sports at all ? my grandpa was so afraid for him that he didn't allow him to attend gym class. I remember that in water my father used to do all sorts of hijinks, somersaults, but didn't know how to swim ? as opposed to my mother, who was an excellent swimmer. During World War I my father fought on the Eastern Front. He fell into captivity, from which he managed to escape, and on 28th October 1918 he arrived in Vienna ? right on the day that Czechoslovakia proclaimed its independence, and the old monarchy was falling apart. Because they were counting on him to take over my uncle's law practice, he began studying law at the university in Vienna. I personally think that that type of work wasn?t right for him. Because my father was too upright and honest, which is why I can?t imagine him defending all sorts of scoundrels, or on the contrary sullying an honest person. One way or the other, after four semesters my father ended his studies, went into finance, and became a managing clerk at a bank. Not long after, he married my mother, so this is the right place to also say something about her and her origins. In 1920 he married my mother, and they moved to Prague, because my father's bank had opened a branch office there. My father progressed in his career, and made it all the way to managing bank clerk. In 1935, the bank where my father worked went bankrupt. My father found himself out of work. With difficulty he managed to find work as an accounting inspector for the Omnia company. Then he was often on business trips and thus away from home.