Viktor Frey

This is a picture of my father, Viktor Frey, taken sometime in the 1930s, but where, that I don't know. The dog was borrowed, we didn't have one. Neither do I know who we borrowed it from for the photo. My father was named Viktor Frey. He was born on 10th April 1901 in Pardubice. He had two university degrees: he was an engineer and had a PhD in Technical Sciences. He graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Prague. His mother tongue was Czech. I think that my father sympathized with the Social Democrats, with the rightist part. He wasn't a member, but had a very strong social conscience. And he was a member of an association of engineers and architects called the SIA. Otherwise, as far as I know, he wasn't a member of any other organizations or clubs, and neither was anyone else in the family. My father was religiously inclined, after my grandfather, at whose place we used to celebrate the Sabbath and seder suppers. During the war my father was then chairman of the Litomysl Jewish community. My father liked to take pictures - I've inherited that from him - my mother, I think, didn't concern herself with photography. I also think that I, the same as they, like to travel. Otherwise I always admired my father's wise, serene disposition, while my mother was rather more hot-tempered, which I didn't like, I had a hard time with it. Otherwise they were both very sociable, went to the movies, theaters, to concerts and generally out into society. And society used to come to our place. We had a lot of visits. They never made any distinction whether someone was a Jew or not, that's not how it was. My father had, I think, mainly intellectual friends, for example a chief judge, or dentist, lawyer. My mother adapted, and I think with relish.